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The Daily Grind: Do you take part in forum rage?
It's a generally accepted fact that the official forums for any given game are a cesspool of invective, animosity, and rage. Whatever recent changes have been made to a game, you can be sure that there will be an outpouring of rage that detail how the changes were too big, not big enough, or didn't affect real issues. If World of Warcraft is unexpectedly down, there will be plenty of people ready to explain how this is the downfall of a hugely successful game that makes millions of dollars. The flip side to this is that it can be cathartic to just open up and complain on the forums. Even if you know full well that launch week results in server issues for every game, it helps let out frustrations to just explode about those server issues on the forums. The other side would be that this sort of behavior contributes to an atmosphere of negativity rather than discussion. So do you take part in forum rage? Does it depend on the conditions or the problem? Or do you just stay out altogether? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What quest has frustrated you more than any other?
I have a relatively acrimonious relationship with most of The Secret World's investigation missions for reasons too ornate to detail here. Hell and Bach, however, deserves special mention. It's not that it's one of the game's worse examples, but that the actual mechanics behind clearing the mission are very finnicky. You have to click a series of symbols in just the right way to spell out a phrase, but the symbols are close together, it's easy to miss a click, and to top it off it won't work if you have the reference guide open as you do so. For all-time frustration, that mission ramped up pretty highly, although I enjoyed it once I cleared it. But it's not about what frustrates me, it's about what frustrates you. So what quest has frustrated you more than any other? Was it unclear in its objectives, or were its clearly stated objectives just dizzyingly hard to actually accomplish? Or was it something even more mundane, like a Final Fantasy XI quest that irritated you because you could never find the other people to do it with? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Lion: Ten things that bug me
It's not that I hate OS X 10.7 Lion. It's an excellent operating system. It's just that there are a bunch of things that make me throw up my hands and say, "What were you thinking, Apple. Are you trying to make the MobileMe Operating System?" Are there no OCD slave-drivers left at Infinite Loop any more making sure that each OS feature is absolutely perfect? So I'm going to take a few deep breaths. I'm repeating this mantra: "Lion is meant for iOS-to-Mac switchers." There's plenty to love in there, but maybe not as much for veteran Mac users to latch on to. Now, let's get on to the complaining. [*] On Lion, the default behavior for scrollbars is that they disappear when you stop scrolling (check 'Always' in General Preferences to show them in perpetuity). It's cleaner, right? Simpler, right? Not if you do any text editing on a regular basis. GUI elements shouldn't pop in and out of the screen. It's disorienting and ugly. Scrollbars give you context -- important context, at that. On mobile systems scrollbars may be extraneous, but on desktops they're not. Whenever you want to ask yourself, "How much of the file does this visible portion represent?" -- a scrollbar answers with a glance. Who killed my "Save As" menu item and what are these odd imposters they replaced it with (check out TextEdit to see what I mean)? Save a copy? Save a version? Export? Duplicate? Did someone design this system after too much Nyquil? What was wrong with the old options? People want to save their work or create a copy. When they move between paradigms, they should be able to export to a new format. Beyond that? Not so much. The new autosave and versioning features may be powerful and snazzy, but Apple might have forgotten to think of the actual user experience here. [*] I miss choosing "Don't Save" from the keyboard. You used to be able to use Command-D in Snow Leopard. Not in Lion. It's the fine touches that got tossed from the OS. Something helpful, handy, and obvious to anyone who does enough editing that their hands want to stay centered on the keyboard without reaching for a mouse. (Thanks to everyone who pointed out Command-Delete. You guys rock!) I hate Lion's zooming windows. To get the full effect, jump into TextEdit or Safari and type Command-N a few times in a row. Drives me batty. Brings on migraines. No way to disable it that I have found -- and oh how I have tried. Can't find any good preferences to tweak on that. In the New and Improved QuickTime Player, you can no longer go Full Screen on just one screen. Instead of turning my second monitor into a full playback device, the way I used to with Command-F on the external, QuickTime Player insists on blacking out both my screens and moving playback to my primary monitor. Yuck. It's Command-3 for now, I suppose. I miss the automatic black backdrop and full zooming. [*] Bring back the Lozenge -- that small button at the top-right of Finder windows that hides and reveals the sidebar. I miss it. There's a workaround (right-click/show-hide) but it's all a matter of recall, not recognition, that key component of user design. A lozenge offers an affordance, an object that invites interaction and provides a helpful feature. Forcing users to remember an obscure menu option is less friendly and more frustrating, especially when condensed windows offer no clues as to why they're "broken." [*] Reversed scrolling is horrible. Bring me a touch-screen Lion and we'll talk. But for regular Lion installs, especially on iMacs and minis equipped with good old mice vs. touchable trackpads, it just doesn't make any sense. (To switch to the old scrolling, go to your Mouse or Trackpad system preference and uncheck 'natural' scrolling.) It's gray. Everything is gray. Gray, gray, gray, gray. Ugly gray scrollbars, ugly gray toolbars, it's like the entire OS was designed by a Communist-era Soviet committee four years behind on the next five-year plan. Grey linen is *not* the new Aqua. [*] Autolocking my files, Lion? That's not cool. I don't want Lion to prevent me from editing files that I rarely access. Lion does *not* know better than me, so stop protecting me from myself. That's why I have Time Machine in the first place. [*] Lion hides my Library folder. I know what the Library folder is and I want access to it, thank you. (chflags nohidden ~/Library/) Again, Lion's trying to protect me from myself. Not surprising, considering that there are millions of potential iOS-to-Mac halo switchers out there who don't know better than to mess with the Library's contents -- but not cool. You cannot access Safari's new Downloads popover unless you are either actively downloading something or save at least one prior download in the list. As with Snow Leopard, you can still paste a URL in the downloads pane to start a new download -- but *not* if you cannot access it. Unfortunately, customizing the toolbar only produces a disabled button unless you have that single prior download. So frustrating. An angry NYC cabbie doesn't have as many gestures as Lion. Many gestures contradict each other in various apps/OS areas. And there's no way to naturally discover them. If there isn't some natural correspondence between what your fingers do and what happens on the Lion screen, it's broken. Farewell to thee, blithe Rosetta. Thou wert too much needed, too easily overlooked, too little loved, too late appreciated. Among all the now-unavailable PowerPC apps, two will be sorely missed... RIP Eudora 6 and Quicken for Mac. I loved you guys. [*] I've managed workarounds for all starred items, and mentioned a couple of the most critical (lack of scrollbars and/or backwards scrolling might actually make you throw your computer out the window, if you're the irascible type). While some are simple preference settings, other workarounds may involve ugly UI scripting (I used QuicKeys), editing defaults at the command line, and so forth. I'll be detailing these in upcoming posts. [**] Okay, so that's slightly more than 10. I didn't realize I would be graded on math.
The Daily Grind: What behaviors get your goat?
There are people who you don't like in any MMO, and that's more or less a given. But sometimes even the people you like can drive you into a paroxysm of rage. You could have known someone in the game for years, rely on them implicitly, and yet always feel that tickle of rage when they start slowing down in order to loot things in the middle of combat. (Or if you're playing City of Heroes and they stop mid-fight to tinker with their Enhancements, which is even worse.) The problem is that these sorts of behaviors aren't bad things by themselves -- none of them have a major impact on gameplay, and they're not large enough to force an argument or discussion. But they irritate you, even though they're not a big deal, and you can't help but notice them. What sort of stupid human tricks bother you when you're playing? People looting in combat? Not mentioning when they need a quick break to recharge? Talking too much or too little? Let us know!
The Daily Grind: What little bug is a big problem?
You know the one. It's a tiny bug, a problem that only comes up once in a blue moon -- if it's even a problem and not just a slight problem like a model clipping issue. You really shouldn't care one way or the other, it's so irrelevant... but you care. You can't help but care. The very thought of it bothers you. And even though it's something so obscure that you're not sure if anyone has even bothered reporting it other than you, or so rare or so unnecessary, you still get angry when all sorts of other minor bugs get fixed and this one persists. We're not talking about bugs that people can legitimately point to as impacting quality of play today, like the infamous Vanish bug in World of Warcraft. We're talking about those minor issues that you can't let go of, sometimes even long after you've stopped playing the game. What small and ultimately irrelevant bug just can't help but get your goat every time it comes up? How do you try to work around it? Have you reported it once, multiple times, or not at all with the expectation that the developers must know about it already?
Dealing with app-noxious app-oholics
The other day I had the fortune of hanging out with TUAW's own Mike Rose and our old colleague David Chartier in Chicago, and my main fear going into the meeting was that, given what a bunch of iPhone geeks we were, we'd just spend the whole time showing off apps on our iPhones. Not that seeing cool apps isn't awesome, but if you've ever had anyone excitedly show you what an app can do, I think it gets to be a little much. And I'm not alone -- though yes, the iPhone does a lot of things that we have never been able to do before, it is possible to get "app-noxious," a term coined by MSNBC to describe people who are way too excited about what their iPhone can do. Yes, we know already, there is an app for that. Give it a break.This isn't the first time this phenomenon has popped up, and if you own an iPhone, you probably already know about it anyway -- I was definitely looking for made-up ways to use SnapTell Explorer when I first installed it. So next time you feel the urge to break into someone else's conversation to let them know about this app you bought last night that does exactly what they're talking about, hold your tongue, at least until you're not interrupting.And of course that doesn't mean that app nerds can't still be nerds about it -- yes, though Rose and Chartier and I didn't spend the whole time showing off apps to each other, we each did bring out phones at least once to show off just how great this new app we just got was.[via MacDailyNews]
The Daily Grind: Your biggest MMO pet peeves
A recent thread on the Ten Ton Hammer forums about "biggest WoW pet peeves" caught our eye the other day. After reading some of the responses there, we got to thinking about some of the things in general that annoy us in different MMOs. One of the truly universal ones was gold-spam. It seems no matter what format they have to take, up to and including piles of dead gnome bodies arranged to spell out their domain, they'll do everything they can to annoy us. (After all, 300 dead gnomes, while great as a Horde member, still cause lag.) Another thing we agreed on was "1337 5p33k" (or "elite speak" for those who speak actual English) which just makes us want to hang people's characters by the toes and use them as in-game pinatas. While those are two that many of us agreed on, there were far and away many other things that really annoyed us in various games. How about you? Are there any things that really make your skin crawl? For that matter is it the people or the game that trips your pet peeve off? Did they design in a pet peeve on you? Or maybe your pet peeve is how your computer behaves when running certain MMOs?
iPod owners report whining sound emanating from 2G nanos
In a thread over at the Apple Discussions forums, dozens of iPod owners are reporting high-pitching whining and / or buzzing sounds emanating from their 2nd Generation iPod nanos. Many of the owners cite that their units are fully functional despite the whining, although the volume of the unwanted sound varies between each report; for example, russgra states that the whining sound was the first thing he noticed after picking up his 8GB nano, although Energie claims that he wouldn't have noticed had he not seen the problem popping up in forums. There doesn't seem to be any correlation to any particular model within the range either, with 2, 4, and 8GB owners all reporting the annoyance -- notably, none of the reports notice any sound on their previous generation nanos, leading some to suggest that it's caused by a new or upgraded component such as the backlight or battery. In the interests of investigating the problem ourselves, we commandeered a nearby 2GB nano -- although we could hear a faint whining sound once pressed to our ear (which oddly changed tone after we shook it), we found the whine to be inaudible unless we practically lodged it in our ear. Could it be that this encounter is simply a reverberation of the post-Consumermas hangovers, or is this scenario a repeat of the whining problems with the MacBook? If the latter case is true, then it's worth noting that Apple was relatively quick to fix the problem and silence the buzz, along with the vocal minority of people who had brought the issue to the attention of everyone else.[Thanks, David B.]
Xbox 360 Annoyance #016: Moving
I never thought I'd find myself writing one the Xbox 360 annoyance articles, and yet here we are. I was moving yesterday, and naturally I decided I should take my 360 with me. It's ironic that with the new generation of gaming we have lost some wires, but gained many others. Wires, so you know, are the bane of my existence -- as they are for many technology enthusiasts. If you want to enjoy your 360 properly -- i.e. high definition and surround sound -- you need to configure a lot of wires. Of course you have the video cables, in my case VGA, which requires an audio adapter to work on my TV. You have separate audio cables, optical if you want surround sound. And, of course, if you have surround sound, you have numerous cables to deal with to hook up your sound system, maybe even a separate receiver. Then you have your ethernet cable, which must be hooked into a router, which has its own set of cables to deal with. Even if you use the wireless adapter -- a hardcore gaming no-no -- you'll still have to deal with a router at some point. It's easy enough to overlook these things the first time you pull your 360 out of its box, but it gets tedious when you move to a new place. Here's hoping someone finds a way to make the entire gaming experience wireless before the Xbox 720 arrives.
It's great at parties (Xbox 360 delight #005)
Having a crowd of non-gamers over for a party is always hard work. Do you try to convince them of the myriad temptations of World of Warcraft? Thrust a PSP or DS into their clammy, alcohol-filled hands? Load up Halo 2 and watch as they try to get to grips with look inversion? Or do you give up on what is undeniably a golden opportunity to recruit newbies to the gaming banner, and get out a DVD instead? None of the above: all you need is an Xbox 360. The wireless controller, a perfect addition to any modern coffee table, kicks off the festivities by looking so tempting that someone at the party will invariably press random buttons until they hit the Guide button, turning both the controller and the console on. The tactile whooshing of the Dashboard and its blades encourage further experimentation, and this is where it gets good. None of the launch titles are particularly party-friendly, although depending on your guests you may be able to get away with a bit of PGR3 (for example). However, the Xbox Live Arcade is perfect for parties, quickly making the 360 the centrepiece of your gathering. With a little gentle encouragement, you can get a reluctant friend to try out Geometry Wars, and voilà -- suddenly everyone wants a try. If, however, one of the non-gamers should beat your high score, you might want to take advantage of the 360's media streaming functionality to turn it into a jukebox, thus hiding your shame. After all, there are plenty of other party games available--SingStar, Donkey Konga and anything involving DDR all go down extremely well with non-gamers, but the Xbox 360 somehow manages to get them using the controller and interacting with the console on a far more involved level. Three or four parties later, you may even have a new Xbox 360 fanboy or two. Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010Other Xbox 360 delights: 001, 002, 003, 004
