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Ten features Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn needs ASAP
It's been a long, agonizing wait for die-hard fans of Final Fantasy XIV, but A Realm Reborn finally launched this week. And as with just about any major MMO launch, sheer chaos has ensued. But that's not what I'm here to talk about (though I'm sure someone in the comments will do it for me). I'm a big sucker for quality-of-life features in MMOs because as far as I'm concerned, anything that reduces tedium and allows me to focus on the game itself is definitely a good thing. While the folks over at Square Enix have certainly worked wonders bringing Final Fantasy XIV in line with modern MMO design, things still aren't quite perfect. If you've got the time -- and let's face it, the servers are probably under maintenance as you read this -- I'd love for you to join me past the cut as I dish on the 10 features I'd like to see added to FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.
The Daily Grind: What silly thing has bothered you about a game?
I like Star Wars: The Old Republic a great deal, but it still bothers me that I can't just sit in a chair. Same problem with RIFT, which also takes forever to give starting Defiants access to an inn. It bothered me when I couldn't toggle to walk mode in Guild Wars, it bothers me that I can't wear spectacles with a cowl in Final Fantasy XIV, and I'll no doubt find something else irksome in every MMO from this point onward. None of these are game-breaking issues. They're not even issues where the cosmetic style of the game isn't where you'd like it to be. No, these are all problems that can be worked around quite easily, but just wind up feeling annoying. So what about you? What silly and ultimately irrelevant things have bothered you when you've played a game? Strange idle animations? A lack of environmental interaction where it should have been possible? Minor inconveniences? 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.
PC World's dashed WWDC expectations
While some people came away from WWDC feeling like it's Christmas in June, it doesn't look like PC World was among them. But after reading their laundry list of unrequited hopes and dreams for WWDC (WWDC No Shows: 10 Things We Wanted From Apple and Didn't Get), it seems like PC World really doesn't seem to get it. Let's walk through these points one by one, shall we? 1. The Apple Tablet We've been hearing rumors about this one since the Newton disappeared. I don't think anyone realistically expected the tablet to come out this year, much less at WWDC. It's getting to the point where every single event has people leaving and saying, "B-b-but where's the tablet?"
NY Times op-ed on the hate that dare not text its name: iPhone rejection
Considering that it's turned out to be one of the most successful products in consumer electronics history, the volume of nay-saying on the iPhone has been constant and ongoing -- many dismissed the phone when it came out, when it was announced, and even when it was just a glimmer of a hint of a rumor. Now the New York Times Sunday Magazine (and the accompanying blog The Medium) is featuring Virginia Heffernan's tale of hesitancy, anomie and frustration under the surely-not-meant to-draw-online-traffic headline "I Hate My iPhone." Interestingly, just pages away, the paper profiles several successful iPhone developers in a story about the App Store gold rush. Heffernan's criticisms of the iPhone swing between the rational (the challenge of adapting to the on-screen keyboard, AT&T's mediocre coverage) and the surreal (dislike of the device's "tarty little face" and how it "kept aloof from the animal warmth of my leather wallet"). In fairness, she does admit that she's not thinking particularly clearly. In the end, she returns to the AT&T store where the sales rep seemed to know that she was a troublesome case, and swapped out her iPhone for a Blackberry. It may be heretical to admit it here, but it's true: the iPhone is not for everyone... excuse me, they've come to take away my fanboy badge, this will take just a second. There, all done; I'm back. Yes, if you're looking for a high-speed texting and email platform because you live your life in text messaging, the iPhone's keyboard will frustrate you; if you don't care about the incredible universe of apps, the first-rate media player and the best mobile browser, you'd be better off with a Blackberry and a permanent keyboard. Yes, the iPhone's phone is probably its weakest offering, and the AT&T network has bigger dead zones than Anthony Michael Hall; if you can't tolerate the intermittent dropped call or fuzzy audio (or my personal top annoyance, the "I'm on 3G and my phone just doesn't ring" issue), and you want to focus on the phone, get a free RAZR or shiny Samsung. In my personal transition from the Blackberry to the iPhone, I found plenty of gotchas and things that took adjustment (#1 is not being able to keep an IM application running in the background, #2 is having to cycle through the home screen to switch apps, and #3 is not being able to easily copy URLs or phone numbers for use elsewhere), but I'm still finding new and enjoyable things about the iPhone every day; my Blackberry was staid and predictable, a useful tool but not a spark of innovation or a way for me to accomplish things I never could do before. I know there are thousands of unhappy iPhone users, and thousands more who haven't upgraded to the 2.x firmware, visited the App Store or explored one-tenth of the capabilities of their mobile computing platforms. When I saw a family friend a few weeks ago, a lady of a certain age, she was surprised and puzzled when I asked her where she synced her not-that-new iPhone ("I don't understand. If I want to put music or apps on it, I have to connect it to a computer? I have my grandchildren put photos on the phone for me!"). The iPhone isn't for everyone, and there's no judgement in that; you aren't obligated to love it, want it or find it useful. Forgive us, still, if we think that many of you (NY Times columnists excepted) will love it once you try it. [Hat tip to Apple 2.0]
BGR brings the pain: ten things wrong with the iPhone
Yesterday's Boy Genius Report post citing the top ten deficiencies of the iPhone (no copy & paste, no video recording, and more) has generated more than 100 responses, some suggesting a fix for many failings (jailbreak the phone) and others hopping on the Blackberry or Palm Pre bandwagons in the hope that competition for the iPhone will spur more software innovation from Apple. While the App Store may be the hottest thing since that soldering iron you accidentally left turned on that ignited your Dad's workbench (and that's why you're not allowed in the garage anymore), even the sneakiest third-party developers can't effectively replace what Apple has failed to provide.Given the sense of pent-up frustration from some (but not all) iPhone 3G owners over a laundry list of things the phone doesn't do, or doesn't do well, here's your chance to cheer or castigate Apple in the hopes of a brighter day to come. Vote in our poll and comment below with your top priorities for improvements -- or, if you're a happy camper, your favorite feature of today's iPhone.%Poll-25419%[via Smoking Apples/Twitter]
iPhone gripes
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are all well and good for Austrian nannies, but we ill-tempered TUAWians have had our fill of iPhone inconveniences. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more. Here is our abbreviated list of iPhone quirks that tick us off. We know you've got your list too (as do the 300-odd commenters at Engadget) and we encourage you to add your issues in to the comments. Why isn't iPhone Safari learning to auto-fill my user names? Why can't I start a search in YouTube, pop over to check the weather, come back and find the results of my search? Instead, the search terminates and the search field clears. Why isn't there a front-page address book app? Why can't I get consistent EDGE reception? I live in a major metropolitan area, damn it. Why can't I just get disk access without having to resort to extreme hackery? Why can't I SMS more than one person at a time? Why can't I receive a call while surfing the web like the Sidekick does? Why can't I just edit an outgoing e-mail address without having to go back and type it all in again? Why can't I maintain individual calendars instead of having them all lumped together? Sure, we can meebo, but why is there no built-in iChat? I hate paying thirty bucks a month for a voice plan that I don't use. I wish I could cancel the voice plan and keep the data plan but AT&T says I can't. Where's Flash? I want Adobe to fix the OS X Flash plugin, and then I want it on my iPhone. We admit that the existing Flash for OS X, if moved to the iPhone, would be an unmitigated disaster; it would drain your battery in about 3 minutes while causing the iPhone to burn its way through your pocket, melting the ground beneath you and sinking rapidly into Earth's molten core. One Flash video on my MBP causes Safari to spike to 70% CPU and kicks my fans into overdrive... that sort of unoptimized code on a handheld platform is a recipe for pain. When my screen gets all smudgy, why can't I just clean it on my shirt? I hate carrying around the iPhone wipie-cloth all the time. (Chartier claims his T-shirt works just fine). Chris U gets the best results from t-shirts made of hemp. You can also use shield lens care cloths from Hilco and other photography-quality lens-cleaning cloths. Why does AT&T keep sending me balance updates for my prepaid plan every few minutes, even when I haven't used the phone for anything? When I make a call or text? Fine. Send me an updated balance. But when the iPhone is just sitting there? Puh-lease! Why can't I delete the last-taken photo immediately from the camera interface without having to go to the photos section? That snapshot button is so super-sensitive, I keep taking pictures I didn't mean to. I hate having to navigate over to settings all the time. Why can't I just access the settings for a program (e.g. e-mail) from inside the program itself like I can with Weather and Stocks? The email account UI is positively dreadful. Tap 2/3 times to get into one inbox, then 2/3 times back out, then 2/3 times back into another one is for the birds. I hate the email UI and would love the chance to kick a responsible party in the pants for it.
Help the revolution: submit feedback
This is more of a public service announcement and reminder than anything, inspired by TUAW reader Jer's comment on my .Mac syncing UI silliness post. Jer asked whether we were submitting feedback to Apple concerning gripes like the one I blogged, and the answer is 'most definitely yes.' This brief dialog inspired me to take the opportunity to urge all Mac users everywhere to do the same.If you have a complaint, a feature request, or maybe you just found a bug in Mac OS X, or another piece of Apple's software, apple.com/feedback is a great place to go and tell them about it. Most of Apple's apps are categorized there, and it's a simple process for submitting your comment. While I don't believe it's in their policy to reply to anything submitted there, you can rest assured that it's one of the best places Apple uses to collect the information they use to keep tabs on how we like their software, especially when it comes to creating all those official bug reports you'll find sprinkled throughout their support and knowledgebase articles (besides, who wants to take bets that their engineers have TUAW in their newsreader?).So remember boys and girls, when it comes to feature requests, UI gripes and bug squashing: ask not what Apple can do for you... but submit some feedback so the world's best operating system can get even better.
