Professional Farmers

[fractaled]

Items do make a HUGE difference.  Take it from somebody who's been on the wrong end of Thunderfury a few times.

Hrm, I didn't intend it that way. The acquisition of items is not that skill dependant. Most important is having lots of time. Belonging to a large guild helps too.

Items bought with real money throw off the balance of the game in both PVP and PVE.

Correction: Items throw off the balance of the game in both PVP and PVE. If anything, money might LEVEL the playing field. I quit when I realized that I would have to play the parts of the game I don't like in order to play those I do. Imagine playing a game of CTF in Quake where one side has 20%+ more health points and access to better guns merely because they've been playing longer.

These are practical reasons.  The bigger reason is it breaks down the fourth wall of the game.  It does make it less fun to know people are out there not playing by the rules.

If you consider the rules as those defined by the virtual "world", they aren't breaking any. They are doing nothing in the game that you yourself wouldn't do at various times.

What's your policy on CS aimbots, fractaled?

That's an exploit :) Anything that takes advantage of information that the server shouldn't be sending you (but often does due to technical issues/poor design) is an exploit. As is anything that manipulates the information you send back to the server that it doesn't handle properly (even though it should). And anything that automates what should be a human process is an exploit (this is a lot grayer though).

The loosest definition I've seen used is one that the protocol is the definition of the rules. If it allows you to TELL the server what your Z coordinate is, then flying is allowed. I don't subscribe to that though :)