Stop us if you've heard this before, folks, but the Final Fantasy 14 community is grappling with yet another stalking mod… you know, not even two whole weeks after the last one was on the chopping block.
In case you missed it, Memoria – a plug-in that, put simply, allowed for in-game tracking of players' entire history – went down earlier this month following a plethora of complaints from concerned Final Fantasy 14 fans. Its creator assured "the service is now closed, and all collected player data has been permanently deleted," but people were understandably still upset… both by its existence and the lack of action Square Enix took about it.
Now, some 13 or so days later, a new plug-in fans fear can enable stalking and harrassment has entered the limelight – and it's safe to say that it, coupled with the timing of its arrival, is not going over well with fans.
A worried player first pointed EchoVault, the add-on in question, out on Reddit a few days ago, explaining that, much like Memoria and Playerscope (another controversial mod), it can track player data… but that's not all.
Playerscope is back, and Alt Tracking is still very much possible from r/ffxiv
Allegedly, the creator behind EchoVault is the same creator who made Memoria. As the fan who notes the new plug-in claims, "The domain for both websites is the same, and on his 'shutdown message' for Memoria, he felt the need to put this line here."
The alleged line? "Every echo finds its vault, in time." Oof. The evidence is quite damning, if true – although it's worth noting that this line is missing from a different screenshot of the statement that was circulating earlier in the month. Either way, it doesn't seem like Square Enix is catching onto it.
Players have likely filed various reports since the callout post, seeing as the fan who made it provided feedback links for the MMO's developers, and hundreds of people interacted with it – but we've seen no word from Square Enix since, and the plug-in is still up as per its website (and boy, is it something).
On top of this, the person behind the Reddit thread has returned today with a new update on how the mod "just got worse."
EchoVault (Playerscope clone) just got worse, now tracks you automatically through Player Search from r/ffxiv
As per their findings, EchoVault "just pushed an update that further automates the process by using Player Search." In short, the plug-in can run player searches for users while they idle, "cycling jobs to discover more characters across your world." I… yeah.
And, "once again," the fan bringing all of this to light begs fellow Warriors of Light to report the add-on to Square Enix. Not everyone is convinced it'll help, though.
One commenter writes, "Unfortunately, from all appearances, Square just doesn't seem to care." Another adds, "Mods are cooked."
From issues with the built-in blacklist system and complaints about it not being protective enough of users, to contention stemming from such questionable plug-ins that enable harassment, this isn't the first (or last, let's be real) time that the topic of stalking will come up in the Final Fantasy 14 community.
As a longtime fan of the MMO myself, it feels like a broken record – and while Square Enix does step in sometimes, it's evident that it's not enough. Here's hoping things change for the better… and that every third-party tool that can't be used for nefarious purposes doesn't suffer for it.
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