Social Interface Lacking

There are numerous aspects of FFXI that I miss in this game. One, in particular is the social interface and interaction.

- No message system. If you plan an event with others, and, for whatever reason, something comes up in RL that precludes you from being there, there is nothing in this game that allow you to communicate that to the others involved, short of logging in and, hopefully, catching the others on line, or inconvenience others in the LS to relay the message.

- No LS message system. It's just plain hard to orchestrate events without the ability to communicate with the rest of the LS. This is most effectively done with this feature. You simply log in, and there it is.

- LS management with the ability to clean up the LS with current restrictions is totally inadequate. With the # of people coming and going, why should we have to start up a new LS every few months to overcome this limitation?

- The current search feature is pure rubbish. Further, and yes, I'm nosey, I for one, enjoyed the ability to /sea not only party searches that worked, but also, what my friends were up to. What zone were they in, what job were they currently working on, etc. Often this would stimulate interaction that currently doesn't exist today without the /search feature.

- Delivery box - often I end up hanging onto items that my friends are looking for. This can be painful, from an inventory perspective. With a dbox feature, I could just send these items, and presto, problem solved in large part.

I'm sure there are other features that would enhance the social aspect of this game that I've missed. Please feel free to add to my list. IMO the more social interface capabilty in the game, the more enjoyable the experience. I'm aware that there is a cost to these capabilities, but it seems to me the game experience enhancement might well outweigh the costs in this regard.