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Final Fantasy XI Suffers DDOS Attacks

Posted by Zonk on from the save-the-tarutaru! dept.

_xeno_ writes "Final Fantasy XI is currently under a DDOS attack from unknown parties. No additional information is really available, but Square-Enix has contacted "[l]aw enforcement authorities in Japan, the United States, and Europe." The attacks started on April 9th and are evidently ongoing, causing server downtime, preventing people from logging in to the game, and causing extra latency. No word has been made on the exact nature of the attacks or any progress on blocking the attacks."

40 comments

  1. Time to switch to a different network? by Punboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems that a large portion of the popular online games are getting their servers mutilated. is it time for them to switch to a different method of networking? perhaps create their own "internet" to "dial" into?

    --
    If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
    1. Re:Time to switch to a different network? by Punboy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Oh ya, and uh... first post. :p

      --
      If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
    2. Re:Time to switch to a different network? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      ...with what money?

      pay 50$ for connection per month and 12$ per month on top of that just to play a game?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Time to switch to a different network? by digitalchinky · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That approach would not generate a positive revenue stream. There are millions of discreet networking links across the planet, but how would the gamer connect? The average internet connection is a mixture of different standards out to the ISP, after that it's mostly bog standard packet switchers - tcp/ip on HDLC (or similar framing)

      What you are suggesting is a good idea, but not very practical considering the additional hardware required to make it work. There might be some other way to rig it up on the existing backbones though it would have limited support since each provider tends to do his or her own thing with the data going across their wires.

      Hate to be a bummer on your idea though. It's good, but how would it work?

  2. Aside from "magic"... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 1

    ...why would anyone want to do this? I don't recall hearing about controversial elements.

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    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
    1. Re:Aside from "magic"... by bersl2 · · Score: 1

      Somebody who doesn't particularily care about the quality of the game. A successful community is always more fun to disrupt than a troubled one. Or so their values are.

    2. Re:Aside from "magic"... by El · · Score: 1

      why would anyone want to do this?
      It's called "extortion", as in "pay us money and we'll stop DDOSing your server". (Isn't amazing how many questions can be answered with a single word: "money"?

      --

      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    3. Re:Aside from "magic"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It didn't take long for the FFXI community to blame it on the Chinese (despite the fact that the article says that US, Japanese, and European law enforcement were contacted, not Chinese).

      Of course, the FFXI community is insanely racist against Chinese for some reason. They seem to view them as a plague on the game.

    4. Re:Aside from "magic"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A successful community

      Guess you missed the part of the story when it said it was Final Fantasy XI. So this DDOS affects what...12 people?

    5. Re:Aside from "magic"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      10. One of the players finally decided to try WoW and found out what he was missing, and another got banned for "cheating" by riding a Chocobo.

    6. Re:Aside from "magic"... by bersl2 · · Score: 1

      Disclaimer: IANAMMORPGer, so I wouldn't know better.

    7. Re:Aside from "magic"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that I am blaming the Chinese or saying they did it, but do you expect their law enforcement or officials to give a shit about it if they are really doing it?

      Given how much China *loves* Japan, I really doubt that they would do anything about this if they or someone there is responsible.

    8. Re:Aside from "magic"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lmao, racist against chinese? Just hang out there a few days and you can see they hate EVERYONE, they just give different reasons. The posters know that _some_ of the gilsellers are chinese, and the average stupid n00b decides that if you are chinese, you must be a gill seller.

  3. Conspiracy by superpulpsicle · · Score: 0, Troll

    Since FFXI servers are running top notch compared to the WoW servers to begin with. The competitors must be sabotaging the servers. Yeah that's it.

    1. Re:Conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent funny. Mod moderator curmudgeon.

  4. Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by falcon5768 · · Score: 1
    and its quite a interesting one....

    China.

    It is thought to be very likely that this is one of Chinas responces to the recent hostility to Japan. Given that supposedly a lot of Japanese websites are getting hit, and this is a technique that China has used on the past against the US when we bombed their embassy accidentally I wouldnt be shocked at all if they where behind the DoS attacks on a lot of Japans websites.

    I mean honestly what better way to fuck with japan than to screw around with their biggest exported MMORPG who has subscribers around the world. Sure it seems silly to us but to Square who's been scrambling for weeks now to block whos doing it only to get attacked day after day hour after hour its costing them a fortune. And thats all china was after when they did it to US sites, making us spend a lot of money to fix things not really take it down for good.

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    1. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, more likely, they just broke some of their infrastructure yet again and are blaming it on a DDOS so more people won't just up and leave for WoW or EQ2, two far superior games.

      Much more interesting is that they're making it easier to level up and running a campaign to bring back former players. Hmm... Square-Enix is apparently running scared.

      Evidently an end game consisting of Even More Leveling!11!11 isn't holding the customers any longer.

      The DDOS story did succeed in getting Slashdot to advertise that yes, FFXI still does exist, even though most players could care less by now. Personally, my paranoid conspiracy theory is that Square-Enix wanted to get their name in the news some how, and they did it by making up a DDOS story.

      Which is just as plausible as the Chinese attacking a freaking video game for economic and political reasons.

    2. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by phloydphreak · · Score: 1

      yup. Its China. the WHOLE frickin country. Not dissidents in that country, who are quite irritated at Japan, so irritated that they have been protesting in the streets. But, you're right, its defenitely the CHINA! be afraid! its CHINA!

      --
      "this is the gloaming"
      radiohead
    3. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by XellDx · · Score: 1
      EQ2.... far superior game(s)
      .

      Hear that sound? its your credibility falling out of the window.
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      X
    4. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever actually played FFXI? EQ2 is far, far better than it is. Which is saying a lot.

      I hear the Matrix Online is better than it is. There are few MMORPGs worse. FFXI is only "popular" because a lot of Japanese people play it because it works on their PS2s and they don't play PC games. It has virtually no players outside of Japan.

    5. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by XellDx · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Yes, I play FFXI actively. And your ignorance on the PS2 matter show you know absolutely nothing of what your talking about for either argument.

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      X
    6. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Let me translate that from FFXIese for you. See, in FFXIese, "China" means "that evil country where all the bad players who destroy the game come from". So when they say the Chinese are attacking it, they mean that the Evil Gilseller Conspiracy is attacking the game.

      Seriously, the amount of anti-Chinese racism by FFXI players (both American and Japanese) is staggering. The term "gilseller" (which gets used to mean "someone who disrupts my gameplay" instead of its literal meaning, selling in-game money for real world money) is practically interchangable with "Chinese player" on the FFXI boards.

      It's not surprising that FFXI players would blame the China. They hate China, for some irrational reason.

      The fact that they're blaming people for profitting off playing the game for preventing people from playing the game should give you an idea of how crazy they are. To an FFXI player, China Is Evil.

    7. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Mandoric · · Score: 1

      "Dissidents", which explains why on-duty police officers are coordinating the demonstrations to the point of regulating the number of stones thrown to a certain amount per person?

      The Chinese government has never particularly liked a strong Japan, whether said "government" answers to an emperor or a leader of the Communist party; WW2 certainly didn't help. But the current demonstrations are being used, encouraged, and manipulated by the current government to simultaneously diplomatically threaten Japan (which disputes the ownership of offshore resources with China, is contemplating military normalization, and supports an de-facto independent Taiwan) and let off domestic steam.

    8. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      According to their last "census", about a year ago around 50% of their subsricbers are in the US. Since then it has also launched in Europe further diluting the original Asian (not only Japanese) userbase.

      I'm guessing most of the anti-SE posts here are from the same person who clearly hasn't the slightest idea what he's talking about wrt MMORPGs in general or FFXI in particular. I can't help but wonder why this person would bother posting at all.

    9. Re:Actually there IS a rumor as to whos causing it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What colour is the sky on your planet?

  5. OK, that was a nonstory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So a game company is under a DDOS attack, and there's no other information about it. WTF makes this news worthy? At all?

    How do you know that they didn't just break their network infrastructure yet again? I seem to recall a story on Slashdot a while back about FFXI trying to use the email port and getting blocked by a major ISP because of it. (Found it!) These people obviously aren't all the competant when it comes to running a network.

    Try posting about this again when they announce whatever really caused the problem, like some intern tripping over their router or some programmer deciding to use Port 25 to connect to the game servers again.

    1. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by XellDx · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Read the article you posted more carefully. The person saying that playonline used port 25 put the words "I think" before the sentance for a reason. Many ISP's block 25, this was one specific ISP. I believe they found a router somewhere that was acting wonky causing the issue.

      Its newsworthy becuase i've been playing this game for a year and this is the second time the servers have had issues. Ever. Also, each game server is running on multiple machines, so whoever is doing this is going to great lengths and may move on to other MMO's.

      *cough* not that they'd notice at first

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      X
    2. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by MMaestro · · Score: 3, Interesting
      How do you know that they didn't just break their network infrastructure yet again?

      Again? The game has been out for over 2 years in the US (3+ in Japan) and has run smoothly since then (don't forget its also designed for the PS2 so they have a VERY stable system). FFXI isn't Ultima Online where server problems plagued the game after two generations of MMORPGs passed it. FFXI isn't World of Warcraft where server problems can be justified (to an extent) to the 'we're just getting started, give us a chance' argument either.

      If you paid attention to the server status on the PlayOnline website, you also would've noticed that some servers were randomly going down also. Non-heavily populated servers going down? Can't be an overload of players. No server patch updates recently? Can't be a lag spike. Some script kiddie decided to try to 'hack' the game? Been there, done that, hasn't crashed a server either and if they did it would've crashed ALL the servers, not just one of them (they would've also had to hack PlayOnline before they could manipulate any important data). This isn't something you can just chalk up to 'hackers getting lucky this one time' so lose the 'FFXI SUX0RZ!' attitude.

    3. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the comments. There are so few of them it should be easy.

      Why is this news? It's obvious that no one cares.

      If they had any actual information like "Russian Mafia blackmails Square-Enix" then it might be a story. This is a complete non-story and entirely uninteresting.

    4. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by XellDx · · Score: 1

      I found it helpful. Also, other people started the blackmailing SE spin off, not the artcle. My post was in response to saying SE used port 25 to run the game off of - not only was it stupid to say that, but that wasn't what the article they linked to said.

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      X
    5. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by meehray · · Score: 1

      From reading the FFXI forums, all the dDOS/hacks threads are still just speculation and rumors. Sorry if I missed something, but has SE revealed anything else about the server instabilities?

    6. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on. Look at their list of server issues - it's like one a day.

      Yeah. That looks like a great architecture.

      Look at the comments to the entire story.

      No one cares.

      FFXI isn't a popular game, few people here play it (anymore), and those that did universely agree it sucked.

      It's like saying some random website is getting DDOSed. Who cares? It happens. Most sysadmins figure out how to block the attackers and then move on. Apparently Square-Enix is incapable of doing that, which really isn't all that interesting.

      It's not hard to have a game "without serious server issues" when no one plays it.

    7. Re:OK, that was a nonstory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At >600,000 subscribers it's the fourth largest MMORPG in the world and has had continuous growth since it's launch unlike most games it's age.

      Once the initial enthusiasm for WoW dies off it'll probably return to third place or maybe even reach second if Lineage users continue converting to L2 as they are at the moment.

      http://www.mmogchart.com/

  6. ddos attack? slashdot it! by tasinet · · Score: 1

    oh, it was undergoing a DDOS attack, so we helped by slashdotting it? smart.

    1. Re:ddos attack? slashdot it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah because they're running the webserver on their game servers, right?

  7. Symptoms? by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

    Is this related to the problems with auction houses and the /search function I've been experiencing on Fairy today?

  8. servers are fine... by joe094287523459087 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    i've been playing almost 8+ hours every day for a year and i haven't noticed any new problems from the past week.

    of much bigger concern to everyone i know in the game is the recent announcement that they are lowering the xp requirements to hit level 75 (max level)

    - are people with multiple jobs at 75 getting screwed ?

    - there's not enough places for 75's to play as it is. if they make it easier to get to 75, where the hell are all these new people going to go?

    it's a great game but the endgame has always been really weak and this can't help matters

  9. lol - blizzard redirected their auth servers to FF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    top five blizzard pranks for when WOW is getting stale:

    5) bring down the servers for maintenance (so they can refresh the porn collection)
    4) tell horde the faction numbers are balanced
    3) stealth-nerf each classes most viable ability
    2) release a patch to break all UI mods
    1) redirect authentication servers to rival game company servers

  10. what if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what if there covering up the fact that the game is being hacked has been hacked and they didnt know it and that our accounts are open for the hacker eyes to see and if u worry about that think they prolly have ur credit card numbers too!