14 DAY TRIAL // Apparently, World of Warcraft users are not the only MMORPG gamers that like to cheat every now and then. Final Fantasy XI subscribers also like to bend the rules once in a while, but sometimes, they get caught and get their accounts banned.
Not long ago, about 8,000 PlayOnline accounts were terminated because the owners of these accounts were caught using third-party software that allowed them to have an unfair advantage over their competitors. This is confirmed by Final Fantasy XI official website, as they announced that 7,450 accounts were canceled and other 250 were suspended.
About 400 of these accounts were using third party tools that allowed them to illegally move their characters, 100 were using illegal means to obtain items, but most of the accounts, 4,400 of them, used third party software to give an unfair advantage over other players in order to get claim on Notorious Monsters.
The rest of 2,800 accounts were previously confirmed to have RMT (real money trading) connections, or that had violated the user agreements but re-subscribed to PlayOnline. Apparently, once you've done wrong to Final Fantasy XI, you can't go back, unlike World of Warcraft accounts, which get reinstated (you lose all your character's features) after a few months. The final result of this investigation was the confiscation of over 6.2 billion gil.
Final Fantasy XI was released back in 2002, first on PS2s and then on PCs. This Square production was the first MMORPG to be released on Xbox 360, in April of 2006. As regarding the number of subscribers, this MMORPG is not as big as WoW, but it's rather successful considering that since 2002, Square has released three expansions for it.