The PlayOnline viewer is the most redundant piece of software I've ever encountered. I understand that FFXI is intimately bound to the POL infrastructure, but there's no need for POL to be a bad piece of software in itself.
This is based on the North American PC version of the POL Viewer with security token enabled.
Every time I log in, I have to:
- Enter my Square-Enix password twice in a row
- Endure a message about account security that is utterly meaningless because I always expect it to be there and say the same thing (Pplz getin' hax'd!), and I never read a word of it anymore, so if there's ever anything important or new, I'm unaware
- Get reminded for the 3000th time not to forget my friends or family
- Get beaten over the head about how the game is rated T for Teen and the reasons why (I've never played any Final Fantasy game that forces you to look at the rating WITHIN software EVERY time you play. In fact, I've never played ANY game besides FFXI that does that even once, much less every time I play)
- Accept the terms of the User Agreement for the 3000th time
Remedies for these issues:
- Ask me for my Square-Enix password once. This is a no-brainer. Even online banking websites don't require users to enter the same password twice every login.
- Add a box for the user to check "Do not show again" for the hax message, like nearly any software offers for redundant warning messages
- Stop reminding players about their friends or family if the POL account is over 30 days old
- Put the T rating on the same screen as the "Seekers of Adoulin sales have started" button, or trust users to know it's rated T and ban those who are under 13, per the user agreement
- Make us accept the user agreement only once on the first login. If needed, change the wording to "I understand that I will always be bound to this agreement so long as I use the service" or something similar
I believe that the North American Square-Enix HQ has some control over this (especially considering the ESRB rating), so pretty please, can we have it? For our 11th anniversary?