How do you think Yoshida would react to the following hypothetical regarding parsing?

[Theodric]

It'd be a pretty interesting experiment to see unfold, since it's the sort of thing that would probably be picked up by the gaming media. Which, in turn, would cause the reaction to be scrutinised very carefully. Rival MMO's could also potentially exploit the situation for their own game by highlighting that they allow for the use of certain mods, too.

Besides, if they did ban thousands of players then that'd open the door to people asking why they haven't banned the hundreds of players who hang around in Ul'dah on Balmung and Mateus with explicit search info.

[KDSilver]

What is the purpose of that question exactly ?

[Mahrze]

Rival MMO's could also potentially exploit the situation for their own game by highlighting that they allow for the use of certain mods, too.

As much as I agree with the sentiment, I doubt some of the mods that Yoshi has gone against will be "praised" by a community if they are approved elsewhere. There is a difference, and I doubt any rival MMOs would be able to exploit it without any caveats.

Besides, if they did ban thousands of players then that'd open the door to people asking why they haven't banned the hundreds of players who hang around in Ul'dah on Balmung and Mateus with explicit search info.

A clear example of "but they did/do it too". Its glaring and well known issue with SE that there is varying levels of bias/willingness to enforce certain things in the community. But its a whole different issue when this proposed situation is so polarizing and that you're openly "breaking the rules" because you want "to make a point".

There's an old saying in my neck of the woods that "for every bad thing, you need to do at least 10 good things to compensate". I'm sure there are better ways to approach the situation, but what's proposed here will do more harm than good.

There seems to be a lack of cultural understanding here.

This argument can easily go both ways. Its a big problem when neither party wants to meet the other where they are at because they refuse to see where they are at.

[QT_Melon]

This argument can easily go both ways. Its a big problem when neither party wants to meet the other where they are at because they refuse to see where they are at.

I'd disagree in Yoshi P's case considering he's learned a lot of English when he really doesn't have to. He attends fanfests and engages with players in different regions. The only other person I remember in SE actually engaging fans like that in recent times was Tabata but he's since left.

The issue for the arguments is how they're presented. It's a lot of players bickering instead of a more positive interaction. For ONCE I'd love to see a thread that discusses this topic without the "I found the bad player!" or another arguing with a less skilled player by using FF logs against them. I'd like to see a person say "you know what, it's okay to fail, but I will be happy to take the time with you to help you get better" That's a more difficult approach, because "oh you're coddling" Often solutions to getting parsers in the game wants to do an hammer and chisel to the solution when you need a gentler and more patient touch to mold it into something better.

You want your halfway point? Start sharing positive stories on how you were able to help mentor another player and was able to do it thru parsing. You found a DPS that worked their pants off so you gave them the commendation -since DPS is treated like a disposable job - easily replaced.

[Packetdancer]

Besides, if they did ban thousands of players then that'd open the door to people asking why they haven't banned the hundreds of players who hang around in Ul'dah on Balmung and Mateus with explicit search info.

I'm guessing that no one—or at least very few people—reports those players? Maybe they just figure someone else will, and so ignore them. Either way, I would be reasonably willing to put down a bet that folks are reporting people they perceive as abusive/rude/toxic a lot more frequently than they report explicit search info. And in general, it seems like the game's moderators are willing to let things slide if they aren't bothering anyone (witness that people parsing for personal use don't seem to be a concern); the corollary to that is that if people don't report that a thing is bothering them, it seems like the game's moderation folks aren't likely to take action.

Also, it gets really hard to write code that can automatically recognize stuff as people get creative in avoiding automated systems. Let's say they want to address the gil sellers who shout their URLs. So they block URLs in shouts, and now you end up without folks able to do things like shout a hunt train Discord link or a Eureka tracker link. Meanwhile, the gil sellers are shouting their URLs with unicode characters replacing chunks of them, and then adding a second shout with '<symbol> = pba' or whatever, so you go back and substitute to get the real URL or search term. A human can follow the context there, but that's a really tricky machine recognition problem.

I'm not surprised they'd rely on human reports before acting on anything.

[SturmChurro]

It'd be a pretty interesting experiment to see unfold, since it's the sort of thing that would probably be picked up by the gaming media. Which, in turn, would cause the reaction to be scrutinised very carefully. Rival MMO's could also potentially exploit the situation for their own game by highlighting that they allow for the use of certain mods, too.

Besides, if they did ban thousands of players then that'd open the door to people asking why they haven't banned the hundreds of players who hang around in Ul'dah on Balmung and Mateus with explicit search info.

I don't know about that. This is extremely petty, and gaming media couldn't give two.... If this was a gamer "protest" about some issue like gender or something, then yeah they might pick it up.

Most likely it would just be a just mass ban. Good timing too, so they can't play the patch.

[Liam_Harper]

It's interesting.

Of course I don't parse, that's naughty and all that. But if thousands of players did come together and go for it, I'd join them and happily take the ban. I'd like to see how they really feel.

I'm not that attached to the game that I'd care. If they permanently mass banned 10000 players, I'd actually respect them for it. They'd be willing to take a huge loss to take a firm stance on the direction of their game. It's the current pretending it's bad while basically giving the green light as long as you sneak around, don't communicate, don't play on Ps4 and use clunky third party that I have no respect for. They have no real stance at all.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

It's interesting.

Of course I don't parse, that's naughty and all that. But if thousands of players did come together and go for it, I'd join them and happily take the ban. I'd like to see how they really feel.

I'm not that attached to the game that I'd care. If they permanently mass banned 10000 players, I'd actually respect them for it. They'd be willing to take a huge loss to take a firm stance on the direction of their game. It's the current pretending it's bad while basically giving the green light as long as you sneak around, don't communicate, don't play on Ps4 and use clunky third party that I have no respect for. They have no real stance at all.

Stance is pretty clear- they aren't going to provide it, and if you try to shame others by linking it you'll be punished. Not a hard stance to figure out there- and OP is suggesting the latter.