Quote Originally Posted by Seraphor View Post
Please stop trying to muddy the waters. There is no grey area.

You will be banned if caught using parsers.

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people getting banned for using parsers, because they are led to believe it's some grey area and they're actually allowed, and they make the stupid mistake of streaming while using them, with the excuse of "oh I thought it was some grey area, it's not fair that I got banned for this, I'm just doing what everyone is doing" and then all their viewers and follows cry out and raid the forums and start this whole debate up again.

Yoshi P has given interviews were he's given his opinion on the uses and validity and morality of different third party software, but every time has clarified, very clearly, that they are all against the ToS. They have to be, because if one is, they all are. They can't go making new rules for each and every third party program that gets written and published. It's that simple.
This is not a moral argument, it is a litigious argument. The rules are clear, you can choose to follow them or not, but the repercussions are real.
And therein is the contradiction and reason people consider it a grey area. When lead game designer's regularly-voiced views contradict the game's rules and TOS. I am not advocating for use of any modifications, and am kinda against them, even purely graphics-related ones. But even I recognize and see where the root of confusion starts and why community ultimately feels like its a grey area. Yoshi-P isn't just some guy on dev team, he's the face of FF14's development, to the point where people hear his every word as absolute gospel.