December 2023 Version Update

I think the annoyance with the launcher is directly linked to the type of game you're logging into, XI is a slow paced and somewhat clunky game. So having a 30 second secure launcher where you have to click a few buttons seems kind of minimal to me. You're gonna be doing stuff when you login anyway.

If it was Overwatch or something, then it would be a much bigger deal to have a slow launcher.

I also don't see the Hz launcher as being some kind of big deal either, a) it's installing way less data so it's faster for that reason b) it's less secure and c) when you login you're gonna be lfg or traveling for 3 hours anyway.

Having a fast launcher for XI is like driving a ferrari to get to the park to play chess.

show us a launcher that is worse

Literally considered the first boss of FFXI by some for new players. If players have to watch a tutorial or seek help, to figure out how to setup an account and login, it is not a good UX. This isn't completely on PoL, the SE account page for FFXI isn't great either but PoL is not blameless.

Just because we are used to it, doesn't mean it is not a bad UX design.

The signup process is utter trash yeah, Square seem awful at this cause it's pretty bad on XIV too.

You spend so much time in this game waiting for stuff compared to modern titles it’s just become part of the experience. Waiting for your character to load every time you zone, waiting for your gear to load after zoning, waiting for the auction house list to load, running away from a conflux or similar interactive item because it DIDN’T load.. (hai 2 u sinister reign entry thingy), waiting for the pol viewer, getting stun locked by animations because you dared to draw your weapon at the same time a bunch of mobs decided to cast spells on you….

The whole game shows it’s age. Compare it to modern titles like 14 where you don’t even have zone loading delays and the infrastructure issues are obvious. It’s still (mostly) fine because the inconveniences are pretty minor. It’s bad but it doesn’t make the game unplayable. Not like the god awful lag the NA client had when oddy Gaol mobs first came out. THAT made the game LITERALLY unplayable.

Edit: I will add that I agree on the account setup being total crap. Just getting your login sorted is a bigger hassle than it has any right to be. Even for it’s time it was bad, but for a modern title it’s horrid.

Hurry Up and Wait Simulator 2023

Odyssey is still frustrating at times. I was clicking through the UI to pop Invincible for enmity last night on top floor Agons and it took four times before it finally went off. I wasn't playing when they released it so idk what those problems were, but Sheol C can still be unbearably and unplayably bad especially on certain floors.

Gearswap injects packets without using the game's built in resend function, so that's not entirely SE's fault there. Without gearswap, or with LAC+Sequencer, the client will resend the action every time it sends data to server until the server acknowledges it. So, one press will always activate(but could certainly have latency).

With gearswap, it gets sent once and if the data has to be resent it won't make it the second time.

20 years later and they didn't even manage to put a valid ssl-certificate on the server of the official website.

What benefits would that have for a website that is solely serving fixed data? Anywhere you can enter any information at all has a valid certificate. It might look more professional, but in practical terms it's going to use (ever so slightly) more resources for no benefits, as far as I can tell.

B-but no padlock icon is bad, I saw it on youtube D:

It would prevent shitty ISPs and public wifi providers from injecting ads or other js nastiness for tracking or whatever. Every site needs to be protected, even ones with static content.

Think it's a bit of a stretch to assume that applies to much (there will always be opportunities to modify content if you have a compromised man in the middle, and if simply altering the content of the html allows an exploit then that was a vulnerability you could have run into on any website you visited). That said, it was something I hadn't thought of. Still not going to fault SE that much for it, it has no reason to be high on their priorities.

This is more widespread than you might think.

Search: isp inject ads

It doesn't matter what content you're viewing, if there's no transport encryption it doesn't take a compromised mitm, it just needs an ISP that wants to maximize revenue by plastering ads over any content it can.

But to bring this back to SE (and to venture into stockholm syndrome territory), I guess we can at least be glad they're not advertising XIV or any of their other ***each time we log in or go to the POL site.

Maybe a matter of semantics, but I'd consider that a compromised mitm >.>

Some friends have been telling me about how they are receiving EXTREMELY low quality ads on IG/Facebook ad. They are so bad. I mean: it's a clip from a porn video (literally stolen from casting couch, brazzers, whatever, or sites that are memorable but long gone), everyone is still clothed, with a crappy AI voice-over that says "best {$occupation} in your area. Click the link below".

Terrible.

I got it! *** Yeah!