[sevenpointflaw]

Well, personally, I don't give a rats ass if people .dat swap for "pretties" and "shinies" because ultimately I don't care if I run around in a little pink tutu on your screen. Consequently, if you want to see me run around in a little pink tutu, I wear blessed + nobles combo. Dat swap away.

When you (in the general sense) are now able to do sommething easier than me (in the general sense) because you have .dat swapped, then you are cheating, even if we arne't directly competing. For example, swaping out darters = cheating. Not because I am down there with the darters, trying to outclaim something before you do; but because if I -were- down there with the darters, you'd have unfair advantage. Swapping out chests to big floating arrows that say "LOOK HERE" gives you an unfair advantage over me. That's cheating.

Swapping out chest .dat files to make them look like the dead man's chest from Pirates #2, I don't give a rats ass, cause again, thats just a visual element.

Windower + Plugins is where my views tend to raise eyebrows.

This thread is only starting because we were hijacking a different thread. I was bored, so I started a new one. Continuation of the above quote.

W/ regards to a windower - as in something that allows you to play FFXI in a windowed mode, with no additional functionality, I have no issue with this on a personal level. I'm not saying it should be allowed in any way shape or form - only that I personally do not take issue with it.

My reasoning is faily simple. PS2 users can use thier computers like normal while playing FFXI. As can 360 users. PC users can as well. I don't see that doing so gives an unfair advantage.

W/ regards to pages like the atlas web page (i dunno policies on posting links, so I'm not going to post it) I don't see it any different than opening up a hard copy of the atlas which has all the same material. So again, on a personal level, I don't care if you use it. The same goes for programs that display maps on a second monitor.

Likewise, I take no issue on a personal level with chat loggers, parsers, etc, as they don't in my opinion give an extra or unfair advantage.

Overlay programs that show recast timers - again, no issue with this, as the information is already available to you on your screen, at any time within the game. How you choose to display that information is up to you.

DrawDistance, which increases the draw distance of non-mob, non-npc, non-PC objects... I don't care. If anything it makes it harder for you to see things. I also don't care if these remove weather effects, since you can turn those off anyhow.

Things like TParty, shadow counters, etc, I -do- have a problem with on a personal level. You can't see another person's TP unless they tell you, so you shouldn't be able to unless they tell you. Like wise, there is no "shadow counter" any where on your screen normally, so you shouldn't have one 3rd party either.

I guess bassicly my personal opinion on the matter is if you can see it on your screen whenever you want, and all you do is change the way it looks - aka, make it look prettier, or make it display in a different place - then I don't care.

I disagree with the adding of information or the complete or partial removal of graphics that allow you so see things you can't normally see. Which ultimately is why I don't care about things like BloodPace but I do about TParty and like programs.

Anyhow. Like I said, my views are a little different than most. I figure most people are either hardcore cheats/hacks are bad, or are Just windower and .dat swaps are OK. I guess I've just narrowed it down specificly is all.

Consequently, yes, I'm aware that even my "personal" OK's are against the ToS. Cheating is cheat if SE says its Cheatin, and just because I -personally- don't have a problem with it, I'm not condoning it or suggest anyone base thier descision to cheat or not to cheat off anything I friggin' say. Cause yeah. It'd be stupid to. XD