Owner of a Lonely Heart

Some new videos have popped up on the FFXIV channel. The one linked is a video about the motion capture and creation of the five races. I was hoping for a more in-depth look at character creation, but it was not meant to be. From what was said in the video, it seems like character customization will be ridiculous. They mention being able to change nose size, add moles, tweeze eyebrows, shave chest hair... What? It's in the video. See for yourself.

Now I'm all for customization, (especially since FFXI has, you know, none), but now we've gone to the completely opposite extreme. I mean, it's not like it's hurting anybody. It isn't as though they're forcing people to create incredibly detailed characters. I just wonder who is actually going to spend several hours adjusting the density of his character's nose hairs(probably more than I think).

They also mention that, at present, there are sixty different emotes in FFXIV... Wow. For someone like me, whose emotional spectrum merely covers "angry" and "not angry," that's a superfluous amount of emotion. One of the Lalafell looked like he was doing the chicken dance. I didn't even know that was an emotion.

But enough of FFXIV, I'd like to get real for a second. For the first time since I resubscribed to EGM after their long hiatus, I checked out their online magazine counterpart. Since the current generation of humans doesn't read and prefers to laugh and clap their hands at cutesy videos, EGM needed to give their subscribers something that could let them pretend they were watching Youtube videos instead of reading.

I am more than happy to simply have the print edition of EGM back, and have always shunned online newspapers and magazines. But today I said, "what the hell," and checked out the online magazine.

Honestly, it's pretty cool as far as online publications go. Unfortunately, it stills suffers from the same flaws as many other publications: overstimulation and nightmarish menu navigation.

Though to be fair, EGM online has one of the better organization of menus I've seen, and I could have lived with that if it were the only nuisance.

As I "opened" the "magazine" to "read" it, I was greeted with a video that automatically started playing. I skipped it, but I found it wasn't the only one. The magazine was full of videos, animations, and scrolling text. "I suppose this is a natural evolution," I said to myself. "In print, everything is still. Onine, everything is in motion." I chuckled snobbishly at their frivolous attempt to ammuse me with moving pictures and kept reading (if what I was doing could be called "reading").

It was then I noticed something. I was having trouble reading, and it wasn't just because I was squinting at small computer text on a reflective white background. There was music playing.

"Hm, what a strange place for music," I thought. "It's not like they have music in libraries and--oh, wait, yes they do. Libraries and book stores do stock CDs... And movies... And video games... What the fuck is wrong with this world?"

Just about every page of this magazine has music and sound effects. I love music, but... Come on, guys. I'm trying to read. I don't watch a movie, listen to a record, and read a book all at the same time. When I'm reading, I want to read. Anything else is just distracting.

Most of these intrusive little features can be turned off, skipped, or circumvented in some way. After that, what am I left with? It's now the same magazine I have in print form. Okay, that's not entirely true. If you have premium membership (which I do) the online publication has more info than the print, and I guess that's the real point of the online mag.

So why am I complaining about the online magazine? I have the print form, and I can turn off the distracting features of the online mag if I really want to read it. Well, I'm not complaining about the magazine itself. As I said, it's one of the more organized online publications I've read and the videos and music, while intrusive, are pretty cool. I just can't believe this is where we're heading, not only as gamers, but also as people. Are we really at the point when our culture-induced ADD is so strong we need all of this overstimulation while reading?

Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe it's not that we're so technology dependent that we've all but forgotten what a book is. Maybe it's just that gamers prefer to get their information from inaccurate, unimaginative wikis rather than from credible publications.