High-res font = yay; Now, how about the title screen?

[Atomic_Skull]

The special thing about customization, is you don't have to partake at all.

No it's not that. It's the knowledge that someone else might change it, that he might be looking at someone, partying with someone in game right now who has changed their chat window from it's rightful screen spanning appearance and confined it to a corner of the screen, which fills him with the incandescent rage of a thousand blazing suns.

[Rhianu]

I personally like the current UI much more since it was something different from other MMOs, sure it may be outdated by new kids standards, but it was fresh and actually shows they put more thought into it than ganking x mmo's template and slapping on custom graphics.

You know why other MMOs share a standard interface? Because it works. FFXI has one of the worst interfaces in the entire MMO genre. Conforming to a good, solid standard is far better than creating a unique piece of crap. Deviating from the standard is only acceptable if what you're creating is better than the standard, and FFXI's UI simply isn't better. It's much worse.

Though FFXI was originally released in 2002, and the current MMO UI standard wasn't really established until 2004, but still, SE could have put a lot more thought and effort into it than they did. Some things in the UI are just inexcusably bad.

Honestly, I would say FFXI's UI is just as bad as FFXIV's UI, just in different ways. Thankfully, at least FFXIV is going to have its UI completely redone and brought up to modern standards. SE should get their UI team to give FFXI's UI the same kind of facelift that they're giving to FFXIV's UI with the coming Version 2.0.

[Runespider]

You know why other MMOs share a standard interface? Because it works. FFXI has one of the worst interfaces in the entire MMO genre. Conforming to a good, solid standard is far better than creating a unique piece of crap. Deviating from the standard is only acceptable if what you're creating is better than the standard, and FFXI's UI simply isn't better. It's much worse.

A lot of us started our MMO career with FFXI and as such is the standard we are used to, when I play other MMOs I hate the chat window systems they use. I also get irritated if I can't use the control system I'm used to.

I guess the only reason I can think of for this change is for super high res/widescreen players to make the chatbox a normal size. That's honestly quite a small number of people but at least I can see a point to it now, if that is the case they probably need an option to change the font size too though maybe.

[Rhianu]

Fun fact: other MMOs have configuration options and addons that allow you to change the chatlog and make it however you want. Don't like the default settings? Change them!

And actually, I think this change to the chatlog affects almost all PC players, and probably most Xbox 360 players as well. Hi-def computer monitors and TVs are very common these days.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Fun fact: other MMOs have configuration options and addons that allow you to change the chatlog and make it however you want. Don't like the default settings? Change them!

And actually, I think this change to the chatlog affects almost all PC players, and probably most Xbox 360 players as well. Hi-def computer monitors and TVs are very common these days.

Perhaps, but this style just doesn't suit the current active backgrounds, so I hope if they change this they'll change those horrible things too.

[Rhianu]

Active backgrounds? What do you mean?

[LeaderofAtlantis]

Ok, I'm tired of hearing the whole "Drop the PS2" thing. Let me say this - I play on PS2 because of these reasons:

1) I first owned it on PS2, so I got the expansions for it and therefore, didn't feel like buying them all over again initially (yeah, they're ultra cheap for PC now, I know)...

2) I like the PS2 controller and using my TV screen. Yeah, I wish I could get some of the clutter of the screen at times and better resolution will do that, but I feel comfortable with it, so it's my choice to play this way.

3) It still works, I've been playing on it for 7 years, with a controller and USB Keyboard (for chatting) - why take the time to get used to everything all over again on PC?

4) I did the macro save and switch when I tried playing on my brother's laptop when we were all visiting my mom last Christmas. It didn't transfer my macros over properly and well, my time is limited sometimes and redoing all my macros manually just isn't appealing to me.


NOW, All that said, Square-Enix should work hard to bring an HD and possibly even 3D experience to players on PC an XBox360 if possible. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to since it appears we download all animations, zones, gear, character looks, monsters, etc. to our hard drives anyway for faster reaction times on showing them, so why not, instead of the current files, it grabs and displays new HD versions of these files instead? Maybe I'm missing something, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

Maybe Square-enix is already working on this but the character models, zones, animations and such are taking a longer time, so in the meantime, in order to give us a taste of FFXI in HD, they're doing these little things. For the sake of everyone who wants to continue playing, but with newer graphics and such, I hope this is the case.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Active backgrounds? What do you mean?

The backgrounds you can change under config > Windows (I think) they're horrible.

[Rhianu]

Maybe Square-enix is already working on this but the character models, zones, animations and such are taking a longer time, so in the meantime, in order to give us a taste of FFXI in HD, they're doing these little things. For the sake of everyone who wants to continue playing, but with newer graphics and such, I hope this is the case.

Don't fool yourself. SE isn't working on redoing any of FFXI's graphics, no matter how much we would like them to. It's a nice thought, but it ain't happening.

The backgrounds you can change under config > Windows (I think) they're horrible.

Oh, you mean the menu textures? What does that have to do with the size of the chatlog?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Oh, you mean the menu textures? What does that have to do with the size of the chatlog?

So many games use different names for the same thing.

It effects it as the "textures" will look horrible with that style chat area.