The Real Problem with Parsers

[Tsilyi]

Definitely mainly a paranoia thing. The majority of people are terrified by the idea of a parser and come up with all these weird reasons why parsers are the devil (not saying you are one of those @Tsilyi) because it will expose them and they'd finally have to learn to play the game.

Not gonna say I disagree with your assessment for the most part but unfortunately I think the reason a fair amount of people are like that is because of mistreatment. If there weren't jerks around who handled lack of skill on the part of their teammates (yes, team! we're all on a team... except for pvp, I guess) poorly or in a mean spirited manner, I feel like a fair amount of the paranoid people would be a bit more open to helpful critiques. Then again, there are also some people who simply are defensive by nature and there is not much we can to do help them. It's going to be rough either way. I've played a multitude of mmos that had parsers and I can't say I've personally been bothered by their inclusion, but wherever they go, people DO have some pretty awful experiences (however exaggerated the regularity of them might be).

Anything that gets added to the game can be ammunition for harassment.

part of me gets a kick out of how people with parsers or who consider themselves super skilled point to others not meeting their requirements for skill as harassment and on the opposite end people who are not so skilled sometimes consider the mere existence of parsers as harassment. Everything already IS harassment! D: Will we ever recover?