I haven't told anybody about this until now, but I'm quitting FFXI, and have decided to tell my tale.
It started when I heard of these "botters" that didn't even have to be near their computer to make gil. I was instantly fascinated by the fact that they could make gil without doing anything, so I tried creating my own fishing bot with a macro creator. From that point on, my entire FFXI career was based on making money for doing nothing.
The macro was a complete failure, so I went on a search for macros created by players with more experience. It wasn't long, before I ran into a FFXI botting community (
removed url). When I learned of a program called ACTool, I was instantly fascinated by the fact that you could write a complicated macro that was able to read pixels, and perform a procedure based on what it read. I got to work, and created my first bot; the Auction House camper + scroller. There were two ways that you could use this script. You could camp a single item with it, bidding a low amount on a single item every [xx] seconds, or use it to bid [xx] gil on every item on the list (which would allow you to get loads of items for a measly 1000 gil each). I started using fishing & NM hunting bots, but quickly got frustrated with the amount of time it took to obtain large amounts of gil. I told my father (He's a computer geek as well) several times, that I'd be the first person to hack FFXI and get as much gil as I wanted at any time.
I started by playing around with memloc editors any packet sniffers. I sat in various areas, playing around with software... trying to figure out how to do anything interesting. My first small find was the ability to ride a chocobo anywhere. I would edit the Playerstatus memory location to contain the value '33'. This would trick the FFXI client into thinking I was on top of a chocobo, and would allow me to have a constant flee effect at any time. I used this trick to hunt treasure chests, but quickly became bored.
About a month later, on my birthday (Dec. 15th), I was playing with values in my memory editor, and I noticed something strange in my inventory; a piece of furniture called "." with +0 storage. I knew that my screwing around had something to do with it, but I wasn't able to find the cause. I was in Sarutabaruta, and I tried setting my Playerstatus value to 6; the value for 'fishing'. Nazaar casted his fishing rod, and I soon received the message "Something caught the hook!". What could it be? I had no bait or rod equipped, but something bit my hook? I tried reeling in, but got the message "Your rod broke". It was disapointing, but I tried again in hopes of catching a rare fish.
I kept casting for 30 minutes, but the rod broke every time. I looked at my inventory to take another look at my "." and to my surprise, I saw many other "."s with it. Along with my "."s were several random beds; everything from Bronze to Royal (The Royal Bed sells for 2 million on Garuda)! I asked a friend to watch me while I fished with no equipment, but he only saw me standing. I set it to '33' to run around on my chocobo, and he asked "How are you fleeing as WHM?". Not only was my method quick and simple, but it was also completely safe! I didn't have to worry about being reported by Vana'Diel's vigilantes. I immediately started working on a script that would keep setting my Playerstatus to '6', and would reel in if something caught the hook. Within an hour, I had a fully working "bot". I would sit in Port Jeuno for hours on end; casting my invisible rod, and fishing up expensive beds. For months, I inflated the economy by selling the beds to the Duty-Free vendor in Port Jeuno.
I heard of an upcoming update to the fishing system, and knew this would do one of two things to my gil-making. It would either destroy the insecurity altogether, or would expose an even better one. I wasn't going to take my chances, so I built up a stockpile. I had nearly 100 Noble's and Royal beds in my inventory, before the update.
My cautiousness paid off. I downloaded the update, and the next time I tried my trick, I was unable to obtain any items. It was a tragedy. My money making days were over, and it was too hard to go back to the legitimate way of making gil. I decided to sell everything in my inventory via Auction House and Bazaar, so I could make as much money as possible.
With the excitement of FFXI fading, I decided to give away my gil and throw in the towel. Many fortunate players were made rich and happy from my exploits, and I hope they'll spend it wisely.
Many of you will think this story is a load of bs, and I don't blame you. I would be thinking the same thing, if some random guy claimed to have found an insecurity in FFXI. I've taken some screenshots of some items, for the doubters. Take a look:
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/1.gif - One of my Gold Beds. I was the first person to ever view this bed in-game. Search for it in the Allakhazam item search.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/2.gif - Gold bed again.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/3.gif - Gold bed again. (Just so you know I'm not photoshopping these.)
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/4.gif - Throwing away one of my "."s
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/5.gif - I don't remember how I did this. I just saw it in my screenshot folder.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/6.gif - The top two sales were by me, the third bed was a gift to my good friend Imlaris. She sold it for 2mil.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/7.gif - Dismounting my chocobo in Jeuno.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/8.gif - "." shows up in the "Item" section of my auto-translate.
http://www.gamerszion.com/ffxi_hacked/kraken.jpg - Not a real Kraken club. I edited memlocs to make it look like one.
I spoke what I believed, and it came to pass. As far as I know, I was the first person to hack FFXI. Farewell FFXI.... Thanks for all of the fun.
If he didnt do Gobbie Bag quests, I doubt he took the time to do the Mog Safe Quests. 
