- Because it's just plain *stupid* from a design standpoint, to *not* be able to run the game in windowed mode and thus be able to use the computer for things other than the game. Particularly when the ostensible reason is to prevent third-party program use, which it doesn't accomplish in the slightest.
Yes. I really need to get a source on the fact that's basically a Sony demand for PS2 support.
- Because its macros aren't laggy and don't have an arbitary and excessively low limit to the lines (particularly factoring in SE's love of sidegrades rather than upgrades).
This is 100% true though, especially with the number of intentional gear swaps they present a player with.
- Because a lot of people have graphics cards that can be pushed to higher settings than the game otherwise allows.
While this is true, windowed mode has nothing to do with this. Honestly, it's a terrible port that doesn't use a video card's capabilities as much as it could. It's needed an overhaul since day one.
- Because not all Americans know zero Japanese, and thus appreciate the ability to type in the language. But they may not be so fully fluent that they'd want the entire game to be in Japanese.
This is also true, but had to do with the licensing of the IME tool Squeenix uses. It's not really worth it to pay more to have it in use for the US.
- Because it's nice to take in-game screenshots at the actual resolution that you see them. Or to take screenshots that include the dialogue window, or to take screenshots of cutscenes. (You can do all this anyway with good old Windows printscreen, it's just you can only take one picture without going and dumping the clipboard contents into a file.)
Sadly, the main reason is that they want to shove that "Copyright Square-Enix" tag on it. Maybe a compromise is in order.
- Because there's really no valid reason why you can't see alliance MP or anyone's TP. Especially since it's even sent to your computer unencrypted. It's not like it hides any gameplay mechanics the way hiding, say, the magic accuracy stat does. All it accomplishes is an added nuisance factor in that you have to be in the right party or get MP/TP reports from people.
TP is for teamwork, plain and simple. You aren't shown it so that you have to *gasp* work together in a group.
MP, I'll give you that though. The likely reason is space limitations on PS2, make sure to thank it.
Both of them are sent to the client
so that the client can reference the values when it needs to, not the player.
(This last point is *almost* true for distance to mob, but the non-plugin ways of knowing this number (for example, position on the radar) are inexact aside from stuff like the Double Agent assault or the Azimuth Circle event, so you can't *quite* say that it's entirely equivalent aside from the nuisance factor.)
Distance is just one of those things. With real experience, you can eyeball it. When you use a plugin to let you know for a long time, have fun when you can't use it anymore.
Long story short, it's a split really, lots of the stuff mentioned are legitimate UI concerns that even windower can't quite fix. Some of it is just laziness or people being spoiled. Either way, what other people have said. Don't announce it, and maybe some of these will get changed with the UI updates.
...though it wouldn't surprise me if they caved in (like with CoP missions) and put TP and distance in. They're really starting to cater to the lazy and whiny.
