The core concern being raised there isn't "I personally want convenience," it's that in reality players will use maps, databases, auction tools, and global channels whether they're in-game or not. Given that reality, it's fair to question why a developer would deliberately give up control over those systems and push the majority of players into alt-tabbing or second-screening, especially when the stated goals are immersion, cohesion, and world-building. That isn't about preference, it's about outcomes.
Where I push back is the idea that "players choosing to use third-party tools" somehow meaningfully preserves the intended experience. Once 90-95% of the playerbase is doing it anyway, the distinction between "designed" and "not designed" becomes academic. At that point, the experience is shaped by those tools, just without any artistic control, UX consistency, or safeguards. Saying "the most efficient path isn't the only path" doesn't really address the fact that most players will take the efficient path regardless, and design doesn't exist in a vacuum where player behavior can be hand-waved away.
I also don't fully buy the argument that this is about avoiding "controlling player behavior." Every design decision controls behavior implicitly. Choosing not to include a map, auction house, or global chat doesn't stop players from using them, it just externalizes that behavior. You're still shaping outcomes, just indirectly, and often in ways that undermine the very experience you're claiming to protect. If immersion matters, letting it be mediated by ad-riddled third-party sites is a strange hill to die on.
If you know players will map your zones anyway, then ignoring that reality doesn't preserve some pure experience, it just means the mapping happens outside your ecosystem. The player experience is still constrained but now you've just forfeited your role in shaping it.
Ultimately, I think the disagreement comes down to this: one side is talking about intent, the other is talking about results. You can absolutely design around a philosophy of minimal tools, but once the real-world behavior is predictable and consistent, pretending it doesn't exist doesn’t make the experience more authentic, it just makes it less coherent. That's not an attack on the devs' vision, it's a critique of whether the implementation actually achieves what that vision claims to value.
