With great power comes great responsibilityIf it ain't broke, don't fix it. There's much wisdom in that old adage. However, development teams can't seem to just leave well enough alone. Much like any kind of dough, overworking something can easily make it a mess in the end. That's what's happened with PowerToys, regrettably. Guess it's time to get into it. Here goes...
What did they DO?!For starters, because we have Tab to cycle between zones and adjusters, there's no genuine need for us to have Ctrl + Tab to focus on zones and adjusters. On the user's end, these do the same thing, except the latter follows the mouse. The problem with this is that we can just as easily forgo it to interact with said zone or resizer with the mouse already. This is legitimately not needed. Second, the resizers are quite accurate - and have been for at least two years. Using the arrow keys to move the resizers is totally not necessary. Even if one makes the argument of accessibility, that's easily countered by making it a setting. Instead of imposing it on everyone, make it an option for those who explicitly need it. The feature otherwise gets in the way, as it adds a line to the text dialogue box that blocks our view. Click the 'x' to close said dialogue box, and it closes the editor just like Cancel does. We can move it, but that creates extra steps and costs us time. To be clear, this is for the Grid layout. It's just not a good experience. To get around it, users have to use the Overlap layout. Here's the thing: the controls absolutely don't need to be different between them. How it is now is confounding.
To be honest, edge snapping would be a benefit to both. This would make it less of a pain to nail those corners and avoid Taskbar obstruction unless we intentionally extend or place a window there. To be clear, we're suggesting two snap positions along the bottom of the display: one at the Taskbar's top edge, and the other on the bottom border of the display. Make that available to both, and it'll be a win. With that, we can transition into resizing zones in Grid layout. Having to create a new zone each time we resize is a headache. It's not always necessary. If we're trying to adjust for the Taskbar, it can't be done. And to add to that, the windows now automatically snap their bottom edge to the bottom border of the display when the Taskbar is hidden. Why is there no setting to turn this off? Why was it changed in the first place?! It's an odd and disorienting addition. It's also not necessary without the appropriate settings.
The big bad...Finally, the ultimate evil is the odd zone interaction with the Taskbar. In the latest version, all open windows automatically vertically expand when the Taskbar hides. This is highly irritating because there's no way to stop it from happening on the current build. There are no responsive settings for it, so it's imposed on users. We hate this one the most. We go through all of the trouble of lining up our zones over the Taskbar with pixel perfect accuracy and, as soon as it slides out of view, the windows get taller. But that's not all! When revealing the Taskbar, they don't shrink back down to size. Now, this would be more acceptable if they reverted, but they don't. Instead they stay that way and the Taskbar slides over them. This 👏🏾 Looks 👏🏾 Terrible 👏🏾 Who asked for this? If you convinced them to make this change, you're fired! Nope! Just fired! Clear your desk and get out! To get around this, we have to turn off the Hide Taskbar setting in Windows, which is frustrating. We don't want to do that, but we have to in order to make our open windows retain their form. Ugh! It's so ugly now! There you have it. This is what we think holds PowerToys back at this point in time. It's just not as easy to work with as it used to be, and that's largely due to unnecessary changes, fixes, and some bad ideas that break the otherwise streamlined experience. The users just don't need all of that.
What do you think? Are we being hyperbolic? We certainly don't think so. User experience is vital to the success of most applications. Do you have any frustrations with PowerToys that you'd like to voice? You know what to do. Don't forget to like and share! Thanks for reading. Ciao!
Medal of Honor didn't have that problem. Players who didn't have access to adequately priced internet plans got to enjoy themselves with a game wherein ping was not always king. To expand on this revelation, millions simply could not purchase higher tier internet plans back then. The services were flat not available in many areas. To bring those services, the cities had to pay the companies for the expansion and the residents would have to pay premiums for the plans. Consequently, this left those millions paying inflated prices for slow broadband. And by slow, we mean 3 - 6 Mbps. If one was lucky, they'd have access to 12 Mbps. With a better overall online multiplayer experience insofar as connection handling, things seemed rather good for the franchise. Lots of people applauded the effort; lots of people called it boring and went back to Call of Duty. It is what it is. However, the game was successful enough to justify a follow-up title: Warfighter. This is when it all went to hell.
There were big promises to defeat Call of Duty. Out with the old gameplay and in with fun killstreaks, new maps, a plethora of skins that suited different playstyles, more diverse weapons, outlines for marked opponents, blah, blah, blah. It didn't work. Why? Because the code was garbage. Thousands reported broken PS3's after playing the game. One of our team was affected. How can one produce a game so bad that it ruins the console that it's to be played on?! How did they miss that?! Easy. They didn't care. It launches, the content is there, and shrug if it costs the player hundreds of dollars in damages. That's exactly what it did. More, it barely ran like a finished game at all. Issue after issue was reported and they hardly did a thing to fix it. EA stayed the course with the utmost stubbornness and watched us writhe. No support. Period. But that's not the big slap in the face. The added insult to injury was the angry outbursts by execs who thought us spoiled and totally lacking in appreciation of their work. Who would appreciate being cheated out of a $60 game?! Who would celebrate having their $400 - $500 console destroyed by said game?! Who's going to cheer for a game that hardly works and would receive not a lick of support?! They nixed the franchise to punish the players for a game that the players didn't even break! See below. Oh, it's not over! Here's more!Now for the power flex. He did exactly what he said he would do. Not only did EA have allies helping to censor him, he never got the refund that he was entitled to. That's right; he had to eat the loss. Suffice it to say, these are very questionable ethics in the gaming industry. This also shows a major problem with gaming channels not standing up for their community. Very many would rather build hype and take the money than do what's right. Seeing the forest for the trees, EA decided to release another entry into the franchise in December 2020. It didn't sell well. Hell, there was hardly any marketing for the title and, honestly, almost no one was checking for it. With what they did to Battlefield, fans of EA are getting fed up, and reviving Medal of Honor once again won't bail them out. Two months later, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was on sale on Steam. It continued that every other month until March of this year. Here's the proof. No one's falling for this; just look at that view count! A brief background...The World War era was Medal of Honor's bread and butter. It's what made the games so rich and fun. But even a return to the glory days can't revive this series. You see, these titles were released between 1999 and 2007. That is an awfully long time ago by modern standards. They went from yearly releases, waiting three whole years, and jumped straight to modern era combat. That's not a good transition. Medal of Honor [reboot] was released in 2010. Fans of the long-time franchise rejoiced. Warfighter was released in 2012, and fans were dismayed. EA then withheld the title for eight long years, killing virtually all connection to the audience. The company that introduced Medal of Honor, DreamWorks Interactive, was launched in 1995. In 2000, it was purchased by EA, kicking off a long tradition of the publisher eliminating competition by buying and dissolving the brands. It was renamed as EA Los Angeles shortly after the acquisition, then renamed Danger Close games in 2010. The studio was closed in 2013 after the monumental failure of Warfighter, and only some of the staff were moved to DICE LA. Battlefield started in 2002 with Battlefield 1942, produced by EA DICE. Medal of Honor initially competed with Battlefield successfully, and EA didn't like that. Had they not gotten to make use of their monopolistic practices, we'd still have a beloved franchise that remains popular today. Goodbye, old friend...There you have it. That's what happened to Medal of Honor. Sad, isn't it? Sadder still is that we gamers have no allies in an industry so rife with corruption. Many lawyers acknowledge that customers have valid complaints worthy of litigation, but they've spent decades serving tech companies in such a way as to completely remove them from accountability. Tech companies, especially game studios, have some of the best protection on Earth. It's nearly impossible to sue them, even with class action, and the overwhelming majority of attorneys WILL NOT take the case regardless of how strong it is and how many were negatively affected. This is why there will be no justice for Tor, who had all of his games arbitrarily invalidated by Ubisoft just because he took a six month long break from gaming. He lost hundreds of dollars and he won't be compensated for it.
We're entering the fray to change that. Not only do we outright believe that it's time to go back outside and play again, we're planning to make video games as well. We won't shield ourselves from consequences. When we fail, we'll fail as a community, and we'll dust ourselves off and try again. At least our company will represent our audience with maximum integrity. We want you to love our games, and we want to inspire you all to make your own. We understand the need to decentralize gaming as a whole. No small group should sit atop the whole and rule unopposed. We all deserve a shot at artistic expression and success. With that, we bid farewell to a beloved friend. We continue to reach out to phantoms made manifest by modern evils, clinging to false hope and your salvation, as we gape at shadows of the past. Forever shall you be sorely missed. Rest in peace, Medal of Honor. May we see you again on the other side. Thanks for reading. Take care.
The two teams behind the revival of the franchise even had a public discussion, and it this very subject was included in that conversation. A member of the development team, Jean-Francois Major of Tribute Games, even specified that nostalgia was the driving force for his group. Coincidentally, at around the same time, DotEmu was considering reviving another classic Beat 'Em Up. As outlined by Cyrille Imbert, Executive Producer at DotEmu, they already had interest in doing another Beat 'Em Up title before they even finished Streets of Rage 4. He later continued in that direction, detailing that his team was inspired by fan interest in retro games. Feel free to watch the entirety of that dialogue below.
Some of you are probably laughing in Tekken 3: Tekken Force Mode right about now. Do you see where we're going with this? The fact of the matter is that the genre slowed down but didn't actually die. We can't just arbitrarily ignore the arcade pack re-releases of classic Capcom titles like Final Fight, Captain Commando, The King of Dragons, Warriors of Fate, and Knights of the Round for the Wii. And what about Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons or Double Dragon Neon? How convenient is it to skip over the Dark Knight games: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Batman: Arkham Knight? And don't even get us started on the mobile games that were released for this genre! If we talk quality, Dragon's Crown, Odin Sphere, Dust, Tekken Force, and the Dark Knight games all led the pack. Even if we took the perspective of success, Dragon's Crown and the Dark Knight Games were tremendously successful. There's actually no genuine connection to use to make such a bold claim as Streets of Rage 4 paved the way for Shredder's Revenge. Considering all of the emulators and massive download numbers for the retro Beat 'Em Up games, that isn't the case by far. Fan interest paved the way. Demand paved the way. A thriving, though currently small, community paved the way. Streets of Rage 4 had almost absolutely nothing to do with it. Bias and scooping [wildly ridiculous claims to get attention for a supposed story first] are how we get hot takes like this. It's shameful, really. Real gaming journalism comes with a heavy dose of integrity that we all must take. It's not enough to just have something to say, especially when one's opinion can so easily misinform the reader. That isn't okay. Watch out for that clickbait, folks!
Thanks for reading. We'll talk again soon!
Seriously, we can't show enough gratitude to those of you who kept our site relevant in the rankings by coming back to check for new information. The boss caught the decrease in readership and there was HELL to pay! It's clearly not the only time we've done it either. We're actually pretty backed up with content, so you all will likely get more than four this month - unless we screw up again. Please forgive us 🙏🏾 We'll do better.
UbisoftConnect is required for all games dating back to Assassins Creed II. There is no way around it, no matter where you bought your official copy from. If you play on console, you're fortunate enough to not have to go through the extensive trouble of installing the additional software, signing up or logging in, sitting through the secondary validation process, and going through double validation each time you launch the game. If you're no stranger to this, you're already aware that Uplay was crap. You're also aware that UbisoftConnect is crap as well. Console players instead get the streamlined process. The team could easily do this for PC but simply won't. Software that doesn't work well should NEVER be required for a customer to play a game that they purchased fair and square. Furthermore, Ubisoft should disclose additional software requirements on EVERY listing for EVERY game prior to purchase. Knowing that customers will likely back out at that point, the publisher instead buried it and made it a part of the initial installation to justify denying refunds and to skirt the law. Technically they told us before we played the game for the first time. This is shady, and it's high time we boycott the company for it. We hate it because we played ACII, AC: Brotherhood, and AC: Revelations all on PC. We bought these titles on Steam back in 2015. Guess what. The requirement wasn't there that time. Though the games were no longer officially supported, Ubisoft went back and updated them with the additional software. This software is so bad that it can seize the game, and it does so even on other platforms. The part of Immortals: Fenyx Rising that we hated THE MOST was unlocking something in UbisoftConnect and accidentally opening the browser. It would take up to 10 minutes to connect and load the page on a 400 Mbps connection that functioned optimally. That's insane! THEN it would take up to two minutes for inputs to register, and up to a whole minute to close it.
The biggest problem with this is...Such a practice allows Ubisoft full control of content that you pay for. This means that they can block you from your games and invalidate your licenses to play any time they wish, for any duration (including permanently), and for any reason. Think we're joking? Guess again. But wait! There's much more! The employee mentioned in the update is either flat out wrong or being dishonest. The gaming giant actually HAS banned a player who owned games for inactivity. This isn't a joke post or a hoax. Here it is again with screenshots. This is predatory, and now players suffering the same will have to repurchase their games. This is an example of the type of corruption that occurs when companies are allowed to lobby governments and directly engage politicians to "protect their interests." So, companies have found a way to deny buyers their property rights. True enough, you buy a license to play a game. However, that license is YOUR property, and no producer of that license should have a right to void that license unless you violate their terms of service intentionally. You only violate their property rights by stealing the work, copying the work, reselling the work without their approval, or altering the work. One could easily argue that companies like Ubisoft are why Stadia got such a bad rapport in the beginning. In conclusion...It's time to discipline these brands. These types of strategies may be good for short-term profit, but they're ultimately bad for the industry. And if the industry fails, we all suffer. For starters, most people can't actually afford a subscription only world. It's unaffordable. However, the big wigs think this is the way forward because it widens their profit margins. This is just ridiculous. We need to cone this dog before it chews off its own tail.
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to like, comment, and share. Peace! |
Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
|