Dat Swaps - Against ToS Or Not?

So I've never gotten this straight... Is swapping equip/face .dats against the ToS? I tried reading the ToS under the sections I thought .dat would fall under, and couldn't find anything.

I've asked people I know, some who do, and some who do not swap, and most of them say its not against the ToS. Then there are the people who say it IS against the ToS...

Which is it?

Probably is, yes.

Completely untraceable however. They have absolutely no way of knowing if you've changed your .dat files around. What loads as Jormungand to you is still loading as a Wild Rabbit to everyone else, including the servers and GMs.

I've been using .dat swaps for years now, and otherwise I don't use any third party tool whatsoever, Windower included.

About 99.99999999999999999% certain they don't know you're doing it, unless you talk about it. Even then, they'd be closing FFXI before they suspend someone for it.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/rule/index.html - PlayOnline Member Agreement

"4.2 Restrictions.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you may not: (a) modify, reverse engineer, decompile, "hack," or disassemble the Software; (b) rent, lease, loan, sell, sublicense, distribute, transmit or otherwise transfer the Software, your User or other account-related information (including, but not limited to, your PlayOnline ID or password information) to any third party, or attempt to obtain the PlayOnline ID or password of any other User; (c) make any copy of or otherwise reproduce the Software; or, (d) use the Software or your PlayOnline user account to provide service bureau or time-sharing services (e.g., cybercafés), or for any other commercial purpose. The PlayOnline Service and the ability to access PlayOnline are for the personal use of Users only and may not be copied, resold, leased, transferred, exchanged or bartered."

I just re-read the ToS for POL and for FFXI...this is all I could find.

God I hate how legal documents are written. Its like they try to trick you.

Yeah it would be impossible to spot unless you go around /sh-ing it. I saw a thread like this on the FFXIwiki boards.

Eh, sounds like they're referring to the actual discs.. but idk :\ It is, as Woo pointed out, untraceable (since the .dats are stored on your computer). The only problem is with changing race, you can't use RSE. :P Back in the day you could wear other races items if you swapped dats, SE fixed that though.

Edit: Maybe I shouldn't say it is untraceable then, after the mass bannings and all, most thought SE couldn't track it... <_<

At best if they wanted to go after you, DAT modding would fall under clause (a) if you change what loads on your screen when running FFXI you are definitely engaging in the proscribed conduct. BUT HEY, first clause rules all.... "To the maximum extent permitted by law."

GIVEN: DAT modding is specific to the user that engages in it, doesn't earn them profit, and it doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the game for everyone else.

CONCLUSION: If you created a set of mods where all mithras were naked with perky nipples, distributed it for profit you can bet your *** SE would came after you. However if you're not doing that you're safe, don't sweat it...

I was wondering, because my Maze of Shak. broke after one of the Summer updates...and I have two options.

A. Reinstall FFXI.
B. Do this thing where GM's see what I see, so they can fix it...(heard that from a friend, not sure that actually exists.)

Done check files, nothing comes up. Tried installing a new Maze of Shakrami .dat, still broken. I've been stuck on Three Paths CoP for about 6 months because of this. -_-

you could have install it by now and be pass it.



lol thats funny

I actually had a problem like this, where my computer orphaned the files for all my mithra leg armor (lagged like hell when mithra were around ><). I tried replacing the files with copies of what I was missing but that didn't work. Ended up being my HDD, worked fine after I ran a repair.

Most were idiots tho, i mean everything that drops to you can be monitored by SE.

Now DATs swapping would be like using using customs skin on UT. Impossible to detect without involving some HDD scanning and report results back to SE server which is... illegal since we haven't given our authorization to have our memory or HDD scanned.

As for DAT replacement during update, it's just an integrity check. Server won't be able to tell if you modified yourself, or if it's just some "corrupted file" etc...

There's a guy in my social who used to have problems with music files for certain zones (Arrapago Reef was one)....he made a coversion of an mp3 of the same file and overwrote it, fixed the problem.

On another note, I have used dat swaps for something like 18 months, ranging from BGM dats (Altepa Desert => Gerudo Valley from Ocarina of Time, for one lol) and sound effects (I changed the BRD wind instrument to FF9's title screen sped up to fit 8 sec, for example), to maps (so I didn't have to look up Atlas for marked ones of maps I had in-game), to gear/face models and UI stuff (like text and icons).

I'm still here, and in some cases GMs actually find this stuff kinda cool.

I remember reading that somewhere, saves me from scouring the net, thanks~

I dont see why SE would care if you .dat swap cause it doesn't really give you an advantage over anyone.

Sadly there is a way .dat's CAN give players an advantage.

http://www.elitepvpers.de/forum/ffxi-exploits-hacks-bots-tools-macros/52697-easy-way-camp-hoo-mjuu-torrent.html

Basically there's that, and also supposedly you can change the .dat of a solitary PH to something like Jormungand, Khimaria, etc. >_> Not sure I believe that one though. lol

yeah, I remember reading about people .dat swapping treasure coffers with some bright kinda glowing model to make it really easy to find them. As far as I remember, they got the ban stick pretty hard.

Same goes with Hagun ENM etc... That's why DAT swap is bannable offense. Otherwise SE wouldn't care.

Yes its true, you could change all of your treasure coffers to look like 10-foot-tall glowing pink rabbits, but the majority of the people I know that do .dat swapping (including myself) are just making up for SE's lack of fashion. I mean come on... who doesn't look fat and dumpy in Brigandine? Who doesn't want to run through Whitegate stark naked?

But I do know some people who use it and change worms into Behemoths and try to post youtube videos and whatnot claiming they're l33t for 1-shotting him. Fortunately, you can't change the name floating above the mobs head, nor can you change the name that shows up in chat text (as far as I know).

lol.. excuse me for being ignorant, but your saying you can change Dat. files and things to manipulate ENM's (drops wise)

atleast thats what im getting. Seems a lil far-fetched to me. i would assume that the % and drop rates would have been like, regulated on the server.

It is definately a ToS violation. Someone I used to be in an LS with was banned for .dat swapping at Ullikummi before the way it popped was changed, when it was random of some sort off Placeholders. I believe he had edited the image and name of the mob that was the placeholder so it appeared differently, and he then called a GM on another LS for bot-claiming (which they were).

When the GM reviewed the logs, he banned the person in my LS because he said there was evidence of .dat alterations (I'm not sure whether this was the name or the picture). Having said that, he did have 2 previous 'strikes' and at that time, a '3 strikes and you are out' rule was in operation :)

I believe it is an offense for certain reasons.

Think about it:

You change the .dat for Jaggedy-eared Jack and make him look like the Energizer bunny! lol And there is another person camping the same NM, it is kinda cheating but then it isnt cause they could be doing it too.

I never .dat swapped any nms or ph or anything else but my own char. It just gives a better view to see the treasure chests if they are lit up brighter, finding the coffer in Crawlers nest...everything is greeeen and the damn chest blends in, so why not make the chest color pink! lol

Do the .dat swap before you log on the game and not during your game play.

The only way they can trace it is if the have this error warning message come up that ffxi crashed and if you want to send a report to SE of the error. Just like Internet Explorer does when it crashes. So SE can't just go and scan your PC stuff just cause they suspect of whatever, that would be considered illegal and hacking without permission.

If you value your account, and you've spent a lot of years/days/hours on it just leave FFXI the way it should be, and alter only those that are suppose to be altered i.e your Game menu options. Yes it some graphic may seem boring, yes marked maps are very helpful. But if for some *** reason they find a way or need a reason to ban people that just might be a reason.... No one knew about the banning that happened yesterday, took them months after and then went back a year of logs... So if I were you just play the way it's meant to be played. But if you really don't care... go for it get them perky nippled mithras running around your screens. Don't take my word for it.

I mean being stuck in MoS for 6 months for a .dat swap... You just wasted $77.94 so you can have cute little green weapons... or so it seems from your screen shots... Why didn't you just reinstall it in the first place... So not worth it.

What they are saying is you can mod your dats to make the 'right' PH look different. Take Leaping Lizzy for example. 4 lizards are lizards, and 1 lizard is a LL PH. You can swap your dats so that the LL PH looks like... a Moogle.

Then you always now which lizard is the PH without having to /rng and widescan.

Because of this, yes, dat swappers have an advantage over non-dat swappers. But like someone above said, most people aren't using the dat mods for this reason. Ive swapped a few of my dats cause omg. Blm AF and that weskit? Ugh. Girls wanna look pretty!

If your .dat swapping your Moogle or something then have at it, I don't think SE is going to catch on to that (a friend of mine used to swap his Moogle with a Gigas, thing like FILLED his house lol), but there's always a possiblity. Basically, .dat swapping is a bannable offense, and if you wanna take a chance, then knock yourself out...just don't get pissed if you do get caught.

Based on how hardcore SE has been with the recent bannings I'm not taking a chance on ANYTHING...

As for the legality of scanning your system, Blizzard does it. SE could easily add a clause to their agreements that allows them to scan players's information. What they would actually do is scan processes running the same time as FFXI, email the list, and have an automated program scan those emails looking for specific processes. That's exactly what Blizzard does. The information is detailed in:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Exploiting-Online-Games/Greg-Hoglund/e/9780132271912/?itm=1

You can and its very easy however thats where the line gets kinda grey as to what they can and can't detect. If you were to send a /party chat message on a mob you changed the name of, it would show in your /party chat as the name you have it changed to. I.E. /p <t> pop! would turn into /p LizzyPH pop! if thats what you changed the name to, even though everyone else is seeing "Leaping Lizzy" as its name 'above' the mob.

Some people use dat mods like that for many things, I remember seeing RMT get jailed back in the old Ullikummi days when they accidentally used /say chat mode and they had a PH dat mod for Ulli as they used a range attack on it to pull.

It's not traceable, honestly.

The way the servers load data files from your computer means they'll never know whether or not you've swapped a file round. The server scans folder "x" when looking for file "y" for monster "z" when you come into draw distance. It doesn't look for exact match in content, filesize, date modified, etc. It simply looks for the file. If it's there, then as far as they know, it's their original file.

The only time that Square Enix look at your data files for any changes is when you do a file check before logging into PlayOnline. I had to do this once because after swapping a few data files around my Dark Ixions randomly stopped loading, meaning I couldn't target or see it. The file check scans every file that Final Fantasy XI uses to make sure it's still the original version. They have this feature both for missing files and modified files, whether they be modified by your data swapping or by a virus.

Considering the file check is self-activated, it's the only point in time that Square Enix will know you've dat swapped... And even then...

I really don't think they care.

PS. I wouldn't call it unfair changing .dat files on NM's. It's not like you can swap the .dats of Jaggedy-Eared Jack and not have every Wild Rabbit around him looking like Jormungand. Only a few notorious monsters load different visuals to the rest of their family. Even if they did, it's not like they claim the NM. You've still got to actively beat your opposition to claiming it.

That's what I thought, cause when they do the updates it only checking your files to see if you are missing any files they were updating and then downloads the files you dont have and installs it. So technically they do not scan every file you have, they only scan the folders that the new files they uploading to you are missing. If you see it it can check 30,000 files and when the checking finishes you only need maybe 1,000 files to download and install.

Until they decide to make a feedback error system, they can only know that way if you are doing something.

When they do a version update they do replace any swapped files. During version updates they do a full scan like with file check, and make you re-download any files that aren't the original matches.

Just to make sure everything is lovely and peachy for their new content!

People who use "FFXI Style" to change the look of the fonts and menus will know only too well about this.