How Do You Access Zone 210 Debug Room?

How do you access zone 210 debug room? I can only guess that the entrance has to be some place convenient, but by the same token well hidden.Anybody have any ideas?

Unless I missed a news, you'll never get access to it. It's a staff only area that needs specific flags to be accessed.

You can make infinite gil and any item in this area, so I don't see why they'd give access to players. It's also the entry points for GMs and staff members. The normal FFXI client doesn't have the necessary dlls to access it. And even if you had them, your account isn't flagged so you wouldn't be able to use them.

I've tried.

If you mean what I think you mean, it's just a blank world with checker board flooring and a debug NPC that Gludd showed to be Lion.

There is no entrance, you need GM commands to move your character there.

*Legend of Zelda music starts playing*

Ahh-ahhh
Ahh-ahhh
Ahh-ahh-ahhh, ahh-ahh-ahhh...

You have to get on the ship that leaves Norg.

No, no, you got it wrong. The Galka that blocks the port in Norg takes you to the zone called "The Last Stand".

It's the Mithra that blocks the tunnel in Kazham that takes you to Zone 210.

Here is a censored version. It's a rather small area, on the edges there is nothing but the background you see, it's simply a huge square inhabited by NPCs and staff members.

There are pics out there showing a GM, name censored, with an NPC named "Fame" that has the appearance of Lion in this same zone.

The pics came after a GM lay-off IIRC. A few pissed-off former GMs spilled their guts.

Teleport there using third-party programs like Aldoras did.
Don't expect to be able to use the same //gm commands like GM's do, it's all client side for them, so unless you're using their software and application they use, it'll look just like this picture.

There is no area in the game that makes it possible to create or exploit the game. The only way to create items/gil, or vice versa is via the //gm commands which are not available to the ordinary player. You're wasting your time if you think you're going to gain anything but a ban by visiting this area. This is simply a place for GM's to go when they aren't answering any petitions. All GM's are invisible/invincible until they toggle it off as well, so even if you were to get there, you would most likely see absolutely nothing, even if there were any GM's actively there. GMs are supposed to log out or remain in their Mog House otherwise.

Only Florida Man can find it, since if the news has taught me anything, Florida Man has the ability to bend space-time and do the impossible on a daily basis.

Joking aside, I wouldn't imagine it would be something readily available in an area of the game outside of commands, similar to the jail area that players normally don't visit, but the team may be interested in creating a dev room akin to the FFIV / TAY / FFXIV areas if there is demand for such a thing.

I used to be a GM, I would know what you can and can't do in 210. Why do you think there is a random square in the middle of the screen.

210 allows for a lot of things, you would be very naive to believe that this huge square comes empty. As for how to get there as a regular player, I'm not interested in this as there is no reason for a regular player to go there.

Commenting on the rest may or may not be a NDA breach, I didn't get laid off so I don't really have a reason to take the risk.

I was moreso talking to Billnes, but quoted your post as a reference.

Also, GM don't have to be in 201 to create gil or items, that's hilarious. You don't have to be in any certain area, it's a simple command, just like your basic commands in FFXI, except their not active for players, and they use an extra slash. You can create gil or items absolutely anywhere, most the time they take you to a designated space in Mordian Gaol, but they are capable of doing it anywhere.

I never said that a "GM" had to be there to create anything, I merely explained that this area allows for functions that are possible beyond commands. But this goes back to the NDA as you clearly have no clue of what "GMs" can and cannot do.

Though, the reason why items are usually created in Mordion or 210 is pretty funny. I wish those could be shared.

I have the PDF of the 2006 leaked GM manual, so I know about the double slash GM commands. All I was really interested in was knowing what the zone looked like. I really wouldn't want to go there if I'd get kicked for it. The image that Sly posted is fine. It's all I needed. Please feel free to consider this issue closed.

Thanks!
Bill N.

I think I still have that manual on my other PC. Was a fairly interesting read for me.

The GM handbook is still available as a PDF download, but it's in a real obscure, hard to find place. "The Thomas" or something like that. Was the PDF always there or moved there after BG got forced to take it down? That's a good question. The short answer is that I don't know. Once I found it, I burned a copy to a CD-R & have it archived with a dual-sided hard copy I had printed for me at a local shop. Also, I saw that picture of Lion in the 210 zone with the checkerboard floor. At the time I saw it, I didn't make anything of it. If someone know the URL can they link to it? I want to save a copy for my personal archives.

Off-topic, but it makes Skjalf think of the one time journeying to Davoi for a quest or maybe to turn in Dynamis currently... Skjalf saw someone with very RMTish looking name (anon blue with letters like Ksjsadjffjsdfw or something else) standing there when just then a GM also with a very RMTish looking name popped in and apparently trade the seemingly the RMT player something... o.o Skjalf was shocked... wonder if they were giving currency out of thin air or gil.... should have said gimme some too! XD

This is the access point for City 17... I mean Zone 210.

Best I got, sorry for the terrible quality.

I also have the GM manual. Not a mystery what a GM can and can't do; flaunting call center experience around and hush hushness isn't anything to brag about.

There's nothing to hide and the black box is more than likely another NPC ala "Fame". It's a simple debug room, which reminds me of the checkerboard stuff seen in the data files for Final Fantasy Tactics. Usually game NPCs standing around that each serve a specific purpose; they warp you to specific places/events flagged or unflagged, max level, call up a certain soundtrack, battle a specific enemy, you name it.

This game was made probably around 2000-2001 development, and if you look at Square's older games, the debug rooms are similar.

I recall talking to "Fame" there allows for instant max rank or as the name states, toggle your fame levels for each nation/area.

No mystery here.

Bonus: Here's FF7's which was clearly made with Sakaguchi on acid, because the entire room is creepy.

Ebon Panels

As far as I know, the GM manual caused a shockwave within the company as back then, there was trust toward GMs.

There was an argument about whether or not to take it down, but that was before I got hired. When I finally got to meet Sundi, I asked him what was his opinion on this topic and he said that it "wasn't that much of an issue anymore due to being outdated when it was leaked".
Though, it broke the trust and a lot of things changed internally as a result.

In the end, there has never been huge leaks from the various GMs and SGMs. I'm sure GMs have leaked stuff to their friends and linkshell mates, but it never really spread that much.
The same way, I haven't witnessed any abuse in GM commands while I was working for SE. There had been some crazy abuse before I was hired, though, but people seemed to have learned the lesson.

Most of the long time big players have all been in contact with GMs and SGMs (and other SE employees) along the years, and while some know about it, it's a very small percentage in the end. Compared to the usual leaks we see from other games, I find this pretty interesting.

Well, there was one gigantic leak, actually. But it was lawyered fast enough that it never really leaked from BG's private forums. So I guess it doesn't count.

Quit hinting at interesting things if you're not going to say what they are. Just frustrating.

Cause he's talking out his *** haha.

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know it's not much about the fact that the stuff in that manual was outdated (the interface and options in the hands of GMs are pretty much the same aside minor differences) but rather in the policies for GMs, organizational management (workflow of how tickets get handled, what to do in different situations, how to escalate things within and GM training.)
Hardly any of that was in the GM manual to begin with anyway, no?

I also think they changed a few things in the contract they make you sign when they hire you, altough despite having no "trust issues" before the event you talk about, their contract already had a clauses protecting them about pretty much all sort of situations.
They probably introduced more restrictive policies for the workplace, what you can bring inside, how you access them, what you can bring outside and stuff like that though, I imagine.


Can you explain something to me though? In my 13 years of life as a player of FFXI I've seen something very peculiar happening once to a female american player friend of mine, she managed to have a SGM do something for her that I never saw happening to anybody else and that, to my knowledge, I didn't even know was within the powers of GMs (maybe SGMs?).
This girl was being "harassed" by another player in-game. They didn't ban the player, but changed the name and appearance (slightly, she remained a hume female iir) but kept all the other character data.
It wasn't a new char because she kept all her gear, all her achievements and such, but the name was different and the face/hair colour was different too.

Have you ever seen this happening before? Just how "high" in the chain of power did she have to go to manage to get something like this done to her? I never heard of something like this happening to anybody else.


Also another thing.
When the "first time recover ticket" was introduced in game and presented by Sage Sundi (I think at a fanfest?) it was said that such ticket would have regenerated after a certain amount of time (a long time) passed.
These days if you contact GMs though, they say it's a one-time only in your whole FF life.
Are GMs uninformed? Was Sunddi's claim wrong? Or maybe something changed in their policies in the time being?

I've been tame on the hinting.

The thing is, the manual was the NA manual, other regions didn't have a manual at all. The very little you could find in the manual was only relevant toward NA GMs/SGMs and NA players (and to a much lesser extent, EU/JP players).

Policies were updated on a daily basis, so the manual was more of a "general guidelines" thing, which is why it was a tiny detail and only mattered because of the leak itself, not what was leaked.

The actual policies were taught through other documents in most regions.

The NDA in the contract was present at the very begining yes. A GM isn't supposed to let people related to the game know that they are a GM for that game. It was difficult at times but one day, my manager came with me to a pub and we met someone from the game and while I was trying to hide my actual job title, said manager openly talked about it.
Again, it was only an issue when the masses of unreliable people would know, most GMs were/are smart enough not to fall for this.
Some people knew I was, but I never got into troubles and in fact I don't remember sharing information much, and nothing crazy for sure.

As for the "new limitations", there were only a few. Loss of trust doesn't always result in new rules, it may result in things being removed while rules stay the same.

The event you speak of is something I have heard of but I wouldn't be able to tell if it was the same person. That being said, I can tell you that it was a "unique case" for sure as what you describe wasn't part of the policies until I left the company.
Extreme harassment cases were difficult to manage, this would classify as a unique case but if it was done by a NA GM/SGM, then it is definitely a unique case. Each regions had their own "last call" options, in EU this wouldn't have had happened, same for Japan.

As for the power, well, it depends. It could be a GM receiving orders/support from a SGM or LGM, it could be a SGM handling the whole case, it can also be a LGM taking action himself, but that's about it. As for who gives the "go", it would definitely be a LGM, meaning this is indeed a unique, exceptional case.

It's not that high in the chain of power (GM < SGM < LGM), and it was designed so that such cases could be dealt with accordingly (as in, make sure that the player receives proper support while respecting the policies and overall game's atmosphere). The GMs who acted like cowboys were quickly disposed of, same for SGMs, policies were things you couldn't mess with.

Well, Sundi probably forgot to add nuance, or the translator did.
Until I left, the policy was literally called a "one time restoration token". So it would be once for the POL ID, period.
There have been exceptions made for extreme cases but we quickly understood that some players were abusing the system and we started refusing them systematically (I remember a guy who built an Apocalypse from scratches abusing the system, we later stripped him of everything he had gained frauduously).
So in the end, it is a one time restoration token but exceptions are always possible, though they are exceptions, you shouldn't expect them to happen. I have seen a handful in the years I've spent there and we were rather lenient.

GMs are usually well informed but it may happen that they don't read their emails. As far as I know, there were only 3 GMs hired between 2009 and 2014 who knew who Sundi was and had played FFXI before.
When I left the company, the newly appointed GMs were all unaware of what FFXI and FFXIV were, so I wouldn't expect them to know what's going on though, they have positive mindsets, I wouldn't dismiss them either due to this.

So apparently Square hires employees that must remain secret service level status and hide their Batman identities to the public?

I sure as hell didn't read in the manual "if you disclose you are a GM to anyone, we will find you. Please look forward to it."

Yeah Senkyuu, the girl I'm talking about was an Asuran player, we were in LS together. She was american and contacted an US GM.
Don't know exactely how the issue escalated, but I can say for certain she wasn't lying, I knew her before and after the name/face change, and her character/gear/macro/stuff/achievements were exactely the same.

if i remember correctly the issue with the restores were people faking that they got hacked and moving their stuff between a bunch of characters then letting playonline id lapse on payment. they would get their stuff restored then reactivate the playonline id that had all the stuff and essentially double ancient currency etc.