Quote Originally Posted by Randwolf View Post
But, no, it's simply disgust at people who feel the need to circumvent the rules and then try and justify it by saying "hey, everyone's doing it."
I don't need to justify it, it's a fact that 95% of cheating is not hurting anybody. In fact, you probably wouldn't notice a cheater if you played with one for years, if they didn't mention it. I, on the other hand, used to gear swap like crazy on my PLD and people were always thinking I was using Windower macros or SpellCast, which I wasn't.

Breaking the rules is bad? Why? Why are rules so precious to you? If the rules are ridiculous, breaking them is common sense. What about cheating that doesn't affect gameplay at all? What if someone regrets making a Taru (and let's not kid ourselves, who wouldn't?) and wants to see themselves as a Hume? It's illegal to swap their own character. But how is it affecting anything at all? Not only does it not put anyone else at a disadvantage, it doesn't even give any advantage to their own gameplay. Only to their peace of mind.

Rules are not arbitrary. Rules are supposed to serve a purpose. Following rules for the rules' sake is pointless. Rules should be followed to uphold their purpose, which, in this case, is to maintain game balance. And the balance is not upset by a majority of so-called cheats (not all of them are, actually). Sadly, rules are never perfect. SE likes to prevent people from doing the right thing in the fear of making a bad thing possible, which is, with no exceptions known to me, always the worst possible way to approach an issue. The reason Windower came into existence is that SE feared third party tools and disabled leaving fullscreen mode trying to prevent it. Doing that, they imposed a huge restriction on everyone for the fear of a select few using cheats in an environment which was very competitive at endgame. Endgame, which, was not a concern to a majority of the people, and is even less of an issue now.

I have a question to you, personally. Fittingly, it violates the forum rules. A long time ago in a country far, far away, it used to be the law to report any Jews you could identify (or even suspect) to the authorities. Would you follow them or not?

I know it sounds like a stupid Nazi comparison, but it does serve a purpose as well, because following the rules blindly means you're leaving the judgment of what's right or wrong to them instead of your conscience. And that, good Sir, makes you a dickwad. I believe that's the technical term.