Forums » Suggestions
External RSS feeds may kill the game's immersion, but I guess I wouldn't be diametrically opposed to them if they weren't a standard feature.
Otherwise, nice job, Leber. The colorized chat box is a great idea.
The background view in each station already is live, btw. But it would be nice to have a "window" with a clear view of the station or any other graphics relating to missions etc.
I've always thought a cool widget would be to have an "observation deck" panel in the station which gives you a fixed position view of the outside world, like being in a turret that doesn't fire.
Otherwise, nice job, Leber. The colorized chat box is a great idea.
The background view in each station already is live, btw. But it would be nice to have a "window" with a clear view of the station or any other graphics relating to missions etc.
I've always thought a cool widget would be to have an "observation deck" panel in the station which gives you a fixed position view of the outside world, like being in a turret that doesn't fire.
Let's start pooling money on PayPal to ship Leber to WI ;-)
Um, I'm already IN Wisconsin, looking for a way OUT. Someone gimme a $100,000 a year art director position in Arizona and I leave tomorrow.
Anyway, to take into account Cygnus X's observation about running out of button space, what if we had "drawers" or something that expanded when clicked on? It's another level of clicking, but you could tuck the "rarely-used" items in there, so that you only had to access it when you needed to alter your graphics settings or something obscure.
Oh, speaking of altering graphics/video settings: I'd like to have presets that I could save for THAT as well. Three presets would be fine. One for "ultra-low-res", one for "filming and/or screenshot mode" and one other one.
Oh, also I'd like hails to be different for each character instead of the same account-wide.
Those two suggestions don't seem to be "overly complex", or maybe they are, I dunno.
I will attempt a second revision of the pretty UI pictures soon™.
Um, I'm already IN Wisconsin, looking for a way OUT. Someone gimme a $100,000 a year art director position in Arizona and I leave tomorrow.
Anyway, to take into account Cygnus X's observation about running out of button space, what if we had "drawers" or something that expanded when clicked on? It's another level of clicking, but you could tuck the "rarely-used" items in there, so that you only had to access it when you needed to alter your graphics settings or something obscure.
Oh, speaking of altering graphics/video settings: I'd like to have presets that I could save for THAT as well. Three presets would be fine. One for "ultra-low-res", one for "filming and/or screenshot mode" and one other one.
Oh, also I'd like hails to be different for each character instead of the same account-wide.
Those two suggestions don't seem to be "overly complex", or maybe they are, I dunno.
I will attempt a second revision of the pretty UI pictures soon™.
"I think it's because there are occasional loading issues, so you can exit the game without forcing it to quit."
Yea... but, what the hell are they doing as the defailt 'just-hit-enter' selection? *blip* oh, oops... I just logged out, and in the middle of a group mission too! damn..
EDIT:
P.S. somebody put LeberMac on the UI development team PRONTO!
Yea... but, what the hell are they doing as the defailt 'just-hit-enter' selection? *blip* oh, oops... I just logged out, and in the middle of a group mission too! damn..
EDIT:
P.S. somebody put LeberMac on the UI development team PRONTO!
Question: Does the mac cilent support anti-alaising, and multipass rendering? I like Lebermacs Idea of the expandable menu's which I could see being done with Vendetta at higher res, however doing it for lower res machines and getting it to fit right may be a bit tricky.
*Lebermac* mind directing me? lol
*BTW i'll be unveiling the User guide site soon, - information for the most part, however functionality is really all im working on."
Heres something i'd like to see, related to a large ship issue. For example.
Say player A docks with Station A, However Player A is in a capital ship/ HAC. In order to handle this issue of docking large vessels, drybocks should be implemented. Heres the idea thou. A dry dock is located fairly far away from the station, instead of docking with the station, the ship docks with the drydock, then in a smaller transport vessel, you're transfered from the dock to the station.
*would write more... but im gonna go play vendetta now... ^^"
*Lebermac* mind directing me? lol
*BTW i'll be unveiling the User guide site soon, - information for the most part, however functionality is really all im working on."
Heres something i'd like to see, related to a large ship issue. For example.
Say player A docks with Station A, However Player A is in a capital ship/ HAC. In order to handle this issue of docking large vessels, drybocks should be implemented. Heres the idea thou. A dry dock is located fairly far away from the station, instead of docking with the station, the ship docks with the drydock, then in a smaller transport vessel, you're transfered from the dock to the station.
*would write more... but im gonna go play vendetta now... ^^"
Hi everyone. Please keep the suggestions coming.
Thanks for the mockup Leber, I like your chat ideas.
Also, everyone, please know that there are a great many features that we would love to put into this interface right now, but are simply not going to be possible immediately. The current UI is a springboard for new content, a starting point and nothing more. Half of my "starting point" isn't even implemented yet, as things like putting the station in my Welcome panel, or loading related station text, apparently can't be done yet. Ideas like tickers and such are great, and in fact are mentioned in our pre-alpha game design, but we won't be able to implement that in the immediate term. HTML-ish text is also something that I would like, and has been discussed, but I'm not likely to get that immediately.
It is most useful, for the moment, for us to focus on improving the workflow and usability of what already exists. Usability is also not simply based on what's important to our veteran players, but rather how intuitive the interface is for a complete newbie. The latter was one of my biggest goals. This is why I stuck the subtabs on the right-hand side, despite the fact that I knew it would create more mouse movement: it visually delineates which root tab the content relates to. If it were on the right-hand side, it is place geographically below a root tab, which may be unselected. The "tab" coloration and other obvious pointers would hopefully make it clear, but I've found that a surprising number of first-time gamers play VO.. so I went wildly out of my way to try and make the basic tab layout as simple and clear as I could. It was my hope that I could make things easy enough for vets through hotkeys and ship preconfigs.
The actual tab content arrangement within the right/left scneario (which subtabs go under which root tabs), on the other hand, I'm happy to rearrange. I would also love to unify the Ship Equip and Weapon Groups.. and even Ship Select. In fact, there's a whole lot of stuff I'd like to do, that I've either been told we can't do yet, or just.. hasn't been implemented yet. There's a number of technical issues that have cropped up here and there.. double click works only in certain dialogue types.. the auto-sizing of the UI sometimes truncates or overwrites areas of the interfaces, blah blah. This is the *first generation* new interface.. don't look for the ideal, we aren't going to have it yet. Let's focus on doing the best we can with what we have, and give us some more time to work on the underlying UI and add new interface types.
Buttons were supposed to be a fixed size. But, they aren't, and some of them are huge (and scalable). It's both ugly and difficult to tell there's a button there, and it's something I'd like to change.
The colors (red), windows folder icons, and related incongruities are not intended. Some default graphics or odd color selections were used during implementation, and I haven't had a chance to replace them yet. No one wants this to look like Windows (me least of all), it's just the defaults that Ray used.
The loading screen "disconnect" is supposedly no longer auto selected as of beta4, so I'm not sure what people are talking about there.
We'll add chatting while loading/between sectors as soon as we figure out.. umm.. how to best implement it. Another technical issue with the new UI innerworkings.
The new default game resolution is 800x600. Everything has to be legible within that res. We no longer support 640x480, but we aren't willing to require 1024x768.
There's supposed to be more information in the character select panel. It isn't there yet.
Please keep the suggestions, and even mockups, coming. But keep in mind, we are trying to get the new client as stable and workable as possible in the shortest period of time. I'm not even sure if we'll be able to implement *any* of these suggestions before we production-ize the client, although I do hope to rearrange things a little. The purpose of this thread was not to invent the ideal interface, which takes us another two months to implement :). The purpose here was to deal with minor usability and workflow related concerns: tab arrangement, "tab-key" selection, hotkeys and the like. Regardless of what Ananzi may think, redfining a few hotkeys is pretty trivial. Completely changing around the interface and adding news tickers and things.. is not.
Thanks for the mockup Leber, I like your chat ideas.
Also, everyone, please know that there are a great many features that we would love to put into this interface right now, but are simply not going to be possible immediately. The current UI is a springboard for new content, a starting point and nothing more. Half of my "starting point" isn't even implemented yet, as things like putting the station in my Welcome panel, or loading related station text, apparently can't be done yet. Ideas like tickers and such are great, and in fact are mentioned in our pre-alpha game design, but we won't be able to implement that in the immediate term. HTML-ish text is also something that I would like, and has been discussed, but I'm not likely to get that immediately.
It is most useful, for the moment, for us to focus on improving the workflow and usability of what already exists. Usability is also not simply based on what's important to our veteran players, but rather how intuitive the interface is for a complete newbie. The latter was one of my biggest goals. This is why I stuck the subtabs on the right-hand side, despite the fact that I knew it would create more mouse movement: it visually delineates which root tab the content relates to. If it were on the right-hand side, it is place geographically below a root tab, which may be unselected. The "tab" coloration and other obvious pointers would hopefully make it clear, but I've found that a surprising number of first-time gamers play VO.. so I went wildly out of my way to try and make the basic tab layout as simple and clear as I could. It was my hope that I could make things easy enough for vets through hotkeys and ship preconfigs.
The actual tab content arrangement within the right/left scneario (which subtabs go under which root tabs), on the other hand, I'm happy to rearrange. I would also love to unify the Ship Equip and Weapon Groups.. and even Ship Select. In fact, there's a whole lot of stuff I'd like to do, that I've either been told we can't do yet, or just.. hasn't been implemented yet. There's a number of technical issues that have cropped up here and there.. double click works only in certain dialogue types.. the auto-sizing of the UI sometimes truncates or overwrites areas of the interfaces, blah blah. This is the *first generation* new interface.. don't look for the ideal, we aren't going to have it yet. Let's focus on doing the best we can with what we have, and give us some more time to work on the underlying UI and add new interface types.
Buttons were supposed to be a fixed size. But, they aren't, and some of them are huge (and scalable). It's both ugly and difficult to tell there's a button there, and it's something I'd like to change.
The colors (red), windows folder icons, and related incongruities are not intended. Some default graphics or odd color selections were used during implementation, and I haven't had a chance to replace them yet. No one wants this to look like Windows (me least of all), it's just the defaults that Ray used.
The loading screen "disconnect" is supposedly no longer auto selected as of beta4, so I'm not sure what people are talking about there.
We'll add chatting while loading/between sectors as soon as we figure out.. umm.. how to best implement it. Another technical issue with the new UI innerworkings.
The new default game resolution is 800x600. Everything has to be legible within that res. We no longer support 640x480, but we aren't willing to require 1024x768.
There's supposed to be more information in the character select panel. It isn't there yet.
Please keep the suggestions, and even mockups, coming. But keep in mind, we are trying to get the new client as stable and workable as possible in the shortest period of time. I'm not even sure if we'll be able to implement *any* of these suggestions before we production-ize the client, although I do hope to rearrange things a little. The purpose of this thread was not to invent the ideal interface, which takes us another two months to implement :). The purpose here was to deal with minor usability and workflow related concerns: tab arrangement, "tab-key" selection, hotkeys and the like. Regardless of what Ananzi may think, redfining a few hotkeys is pretty trivial. Completely changing around the interface and adding news tickers and things.. is not.
Sweet. Any idea on when double-click and click-and-drag options will be in the client? Right now, that's the most noticably missing thing, I think.
Thanks for the info, Incarnate. Good stuff to know.
I really think (just my opinion, of course) the best thing to do for GUIs is to unify as many things as is practical.
--A small and simple example - on the character select screen, you have all the characters on the left side of the screen - people's main character usually in the upper left corner. The 'play' button is in the lower right part of the screen. While the layout looks good... the flow is completely gone.
--If you moved the 'play' button closer to character buttons... you have much less of a problem finding the thing. If you wanted to unify it even more - instead of having separate tabs for each character, you would only have one 'floating' window with either all of the characters' names, or place for one character's name in which you could cycle through all of the characters. Whichever character was selected, more detailed information about that character would come up all cool-like on the larger part of the screen.
I think the tab placement in the new UI is O.K. (I'm fine with them, but there could be better). The real problem with them is that you have to change them around so @#$% much - and the tab pattern on the right just doesn't flow easily.
I agree with Harry - no matter how complicated or simple a UI layout is, I think its important for the user to be able to interact with the UI in as many ways as possible.
Quick-fix suggestion - Maybe you could switch between the top tabs (or side-tabs) with the tab-key?
I really think (just my opinion, of course) the best thing to do for GUIs is to unify as many things as is practical.
--A small and simple example - on the character select screen, you have all the characters on the left side of the screen - people's main character usually in the upper left corner. The 'play' button is in the lower right part of the screen. While the layout looks good... the flow is completely gone.
--If you moved the 'play' button closer to character buttons... you have much less of a problem finding the thing. If you wanted to unify it even more - instead of having separate tabs for each character, you would only have one 'floating' window with either all of the characters' names, or place for one character's name in which you could cycle through all of the characters. Whichever character was selected, more detailed information about that character would come up all cool-like on the larger part of the screen.
I think the tab placement in the new UI is O.K. (I'm fine with them, but there could be better). The real problem with them is that you have to change them around so @#$% much - and the tab pattern on the right just doesn't flow easily.
I agree with Harry - no matter how complicated or simple a UI layout is, I think its important for the user to be able to interact with the UI in as many ways as possible.
Quick-fix suggestion - Maybe you could switch between the top tabs (or side-tabs) with the tab-key?
Could you please add a User-modificable-view? we got one when the ship isn't moving, it would be great if we could stick the cam WHERE EVER WE WANT (just on the cockpit of a valk! could you just imagine how awesome it would be?!?) Please, I've been asking for sooooo long...
I think Zyl had a pretty good idea for smoothing out the ship-selection & purchase & setup process, which would really mean only moving tabs & buttons around. But I can't find his pics.
Incarnate mentioned hotkeys, which is so obvious I never even thought about it. How about you get a "hint" when you hover over a button? For example, if you hovered over the "Launch" button, you would see a little popup that gave you the hotkey for launch?
And, is it "easy" to make what you type come out in the color which corresponds to the channel you are gonna say it in? I seem to recall Miharu being excited about user-defined custom colors for the different chat channels. Well, more excited than usual.
I'm sure the devs have read all the material they could on UI theory. I'm with Doukutsu, having multiple ways to accomplish the same thing in an interface is good. Tabbing thru categories to change "focus" is good. Double-clicking should always open up or activate whatever it is that you're clicking on. (Like the stories in the news)
Incarnate mentioned hotkeys, which is so obvious I never even thought about it. How about you get a "hint" when you hover over a button? For example, if you hovered over the "Launch" button, you would see a little popup that gave you the hotkey for launch?
And, is it "easy" to make what you type come out in the color which corresponds to the channel you are gonna say it in? I seem to recall Miharu being excited about user-defined custom colors for the different chat channels. Well, more excited than usual.
I'm sure the devs have read all the material they could on UI theory. I'm with Doukutsu, having multiple ways to accomplish the same thing in an interface is good. Tabbing thru categories to change "focus" is good. Double-clicking should always open up or activate whatever it is that you're clicking on. (Like the stories in the news)
Inc:
"The loading screen "disconnect" is supposedly no longer auto selected as of beta4, so I'm not sure what people are talking about there."
oh, well, I kinda learned to avoid it at all costs in beta3, and considered myself lucky enough to do so... if it's fixed, I didn't notice =D
EDIT:
Suggestion:
have a double-click on a news article in the station work the same as selecting and clicking the 'read article' button.
"The loading screen "disconnect" is supposedly no longer auto selected as of beta4, so I'm not sure what people are talking about there."
oh, well, I kinda learned to avoid it at all costs in beta3, and considered myself lucky enough to do so... if it's fixed, I didn't notice =D
EDIT:
Suggestion:
have a double-click on a news article in the station work the same as selecting and clicking the 'read article' button.
Have the current character selected be hilighted when in the character select screen.
We do currently have "tab-selection" between controls. The problem is, the control isn't always hilighted.. another technical UI issue. Also, sometimes the tab ordering is a little weird.. yet another technical issue.
We also have hotkeys, and it's my intention to make the hotkey a slightly different color in the tab/command name display (since the keys are all letters within the actual tab or command name).
We also have tooltips, which you can see on the Accomplishments in your character info and a couple of other places. But.. the tooltips are still kind of large and ugly and distracting (and they have no popup delay yet), so once I tone them down a bit we intend to use them much more widely.
I'm aiming to make as many ways to accomplish things as possible. I've spent a lot of time working in 3D programs with hideously complex interfaces.. although the UIs of Max and Maya have come a long way from the scary nested menus of 3DS4 or SoftImage|3D, everyone who really works with these programs just sets or memorizes a lot of hotkeys. I don't want to force people to use hotkeys to do things quickly, I just hoped they would help mitigate the issue. I recognized that in order to split things up into more easily/quickly understood categories.. I *had* to complicate the interface (which would require more clicks to do things, even with somewhat idealized tab ordering).. there was just too much data. I think there is a happy medium to be found here though, that has enough clarity to be navigatable by a newbie, and also sufficient flow and quick-movement features to be simply traversed by an experienced vet.
I'm also trying to improve categorization and visual identification within data displays. For instance, the recent (imperfect) reorganization of addons (rockets grouped together, mining beams grouped together, so on).
Click-to-drag and drag-and-drop are both possible, and I agree they're the intuitive thing to use for interfaces like the new Ship Equip menus and such. I'm not sure when they'll be implemented.. so many bugs and things lately.
Text colorization should be possible, but I have to work out a plan for all of this and talk it over with Ray.
Double clicking on newsposts is clearly the desired behaviour, but again, double-click doesn't work at all for certain types of dialogues right now.
Fully configurable interfaces (station, HUD, whatever) are the long-term goal. But, I wouldn't reasonably expect to see much of this for several months. We have our work cut out for us just to get this all to work, and work well.. and then add all the new gameplay we've been planning. There's also some exploitation concerns with exposing Lua.. so we'll have to sandbox that, and carefully go through and determine which functions should be allowed and which should not.. which takes still more time. Total configurability is what we want, and we're headed there, but it's a little ways out yet.
We also have hotkeys, and it's my intention to make the hotkey a slightly different color in the tab/command name display (since the keys are all letters within the actual tab or command name).
We also have tooltips, which you can see on the Accomplishments in your character info and a couple of other places. But.. the tooltips are still kind of large and ugly and distracting (and they have no popup delay yet), so once I tone them down a bit we intend to use them much more widely.
I'm aiming to make as many ways to accomplish things as possible. I've spent a lot of time working in 3D programs with hideously complex interfaces.. although the UIs of Max and Maya have come a long way from the scary nested menus of 3DS4 or SoftImage|3D, everyone who really works with these programs just sets or memorizes a lot of hotkeys. I don't want to force people to use hotkeys to do things quickly, I just hoped they would help mitigate the issue. I recognized that in order to split things up into more easily/quickly understood categories.. I *had* to complicate the interface (which would require more clicks to do things, even with somewhat idealized tab ordering).. there was just too much data. I think there is a happy medium to be found here though, that has enough clarity to be navigatable by a newbie, and also sufficient flow and quick-movement features to be simply traversed by an experienced vet.
I'm also trying to improve categorization and visual identification within data displays. For instance, the recent (imperfect) reorganization of addons (rockets grouped together, mining beams grouped together, so on).
Click-to-drag and drag-and-drop are both possible, and I agree they're the intuitive thing to use for interfaces like the new Ship Equip menus and such. I'm not sure when they'll be implemented.. so many bugs and things lately.
Text colorization should be possible, but I have to work out a plan for all of this and talk it over with Ray.
Double clicking on newsposts is clearly the desired behaviour, but again, double-click doesn't work at all for certain types of dialogues right now.
Fully configurable interfaces (station, HUD, whatever) are the long-term goal. But, I wouldn't reasonably expect to see much of this for several months. We have our work cut out for us just to get this all to work, and work well.. and then add all the new gameplay we've been planning. There's also some exploitation concerns with exposing Lua.. so we'll have to sandbox that, and carefully go through and determine which functions should be allowed and which should not.. which takes still more time. Total configurability is what we want, and we're headed there, but it's a little ways out yet.
Ermm, the Statistics and Accomplishment boxes are kinda wrong, at least when you switch to a higher res, it really isnt easy to scroll it either (it jumps 4 or 5 lines for pressing the down arrow once)
Heres a screeny..
http://yodaofborg.ath.cx/images/beta5.jpg
Heres a screeny..
http://yodaofborg.ath.cx/images/beta5.jpg
That's some good stuff to know, Inc. I don't think user-configurable UI is terribly important, as long as the base UI is good.
Ok, here's some suggestions for the layout and functionality of the new UI:
Tab layout would look like this:
STATION:
1. Cargo Holds/Commodities
2. Ship Outfits
3. Station Net (Missions/News)
4. Promenade (Chat/Station Info)
SHIP HANGAR/BAY:
1. Active Ship (Outfits/Ammo/Weapon groups)
2. Inactive Ships
3. Purchase New Ship
CHARACTER:
No ideas as of yet...
STATION NET:
Should be non-existant: most of the items would go in the first STATION tab. Could be replaced with UNIVERSAL INVENTORY, because I haven't quite figured out where to put that yet.
The "Nav Map" button would be found in the bottom right part of the screen - perhaps above/below "Options" or above "Launch."
-----------------------------------------------
Ok, so some general rules with this setup:
••All info for items (commodities/outfits/etc) would NOT be shown on the same screen where you buy them. Wherever you find these things under the tabs, there will be an 'Info' button somewhere easily located (probably next to buy). Clicking on this button would bring up a new window with info on that item (or even a quick list of all the items in the previous window, but without any buy options. The only exception to this would be the "Purchase Ship" window.
••If there is a UNIVERSE INVENTORY tab, it would be very similar to the one we currently have, but you can sell ANY of the items from ANYWHERE (maybe there would be a fee for having the items sold from another station - but I digress).
••On almost all Buy/Sell/Load/Unload buttons: clicking on them brings up a dialogue box asking for specifications on the following:
-If buying/selling/loading/unloading cargo, dialogue box asks how many units. Box would also have ALL button, as well as price bought/sold (and if implimented, the original price they were bought and highest price they've been sold).
-If buying a ship outfit, dialogue box would appear asking of you would like to outfit the part immediately on your ship. If "Yes" is clicked, another box would come up with a topdown view of your ship, and you would click on the proper port where you wanted the outfit. You could even go so far as to add _another_ box asking if you wanted to sell the old outfit, but that would be a bit much if you ask me...
-After buying a ship, it would ask you if you wanted to buy outfits for the ship. If "Yes" is clicked, it takes you to the outfit tab. Clicking "No" brings you to the Active Ship tab. Buying a ship automatically makes it your active ship.
••Upon entry of any station, a box appears asking you if you would like to re-arm your ship, and telling you the cost thereof (maybe certain stations wouldn't carry certain types of ammo... but I digress again). If you have any cargo a box could also come up asking you if you would like your cargo unloaded into the Station Hold.
-----------------------------------------------
Now that THAT is out of the way, here is how the content in the tabs would look. Keep in mind that there's a lot more space created because the info about the items is replaced by the "Info" button:
STATION:
1. Cargo Hold/Commodities-- The left side would look pretty much like it does now, only it would be cut into three parts (the purchase commodities box on the left and two boxes - Station Holds and Ships Holds - on the right, one on top of the other. Between the Station and Ship boxes would be "Up" and "Down" arrows. Again, clicking on one of these with a cargo highlited will bring up a dialogue box. Perhaps a third arrow pointing from Ship to Station could be made to transfer ALL of the ship's cargo into the station. You could put the sell button(s) anywhere. Ship and Station cargo hold values (i.e. 13/24) would also be displayed either above or below those boxes.
2. Ship Outfits-- I'm not too sure what to do here. You could have all of the outfits on the same page (like the old UI), or you could add MORE sub-tabs right above the list (they would be mini, of course) with the sub-categories in them (small/light/other/mines/payload/etc). The screen would be split, with the larger box (Buy) on the left, and the smaller (Sell) on the right. The Sell list would obviously have all your owned outfits there (and would even have your 'equipped' outfits on the list, but these would be marked as such).
3. Station net-- split screen - Missions on one side, news on the other (right/left or top/bottom).
4. Promenade/Bar/Lounge-- not sure of specifics here, but it would be part station chat and part nifty station info/graphics. Maybe even take the station chat off of the chat bar at the bottom.
SHIP HANGAR/BAY:
1. Active Ship-- Has a small top-down view of your ship ('zoom' button brings up spinning 3-d model along with the info). Also combines ship 'Outfits/Equipment' with 'Weapon Groups' and aaaalso 'Weapon Ammo.'
2. Inactive Ships-- Would pretty much be the same as the current "Your Ships" tab.
3. Purchase Ships-- Same as current.
PLAYER:
No ideas at this time...
COMMERCE:
1. Ledger-- suggestions have been made about this before - I don't really have any ideas on this, except for it to include buy/sell prices at different stations and pilot buy/sell records. Something to that effect anyway, to help traders. Maybe you could select a specific commodity and based on your past trading experience it would tell you the projected top three places to sell the item and the top three places to buy it...?
2. Universal Inventory-- Pretty much how it is now, except like I said before - make it possible to sell items (maybe even ships) from anywhere. Maybe a fee/percentage if you are doing some long-range selling (again, a dialogue box telling you how much the fee would be...
--------------------------------------------
Add some drag-n-drop goodness and some double-clickage and you're set (well, at least for the station interface.
One last thing. You know, it would be really freaking cool (TM) if we had spinning 3D graphics for the info screen of the commerce/ship equipment items. Like, a spinning Xithricite crystal and stuff like that. I know this would take up some time, buy hey - you guys have Luis now, right? Plus, you don't have to do anything fancy like make collision meshes for them. It would just be a rendered 3D model. Unfortunately, this probably would add to the client download size... but maybe it doesn't even have to be textured.
Ok, holy freaking cow, that was long. Has anybody seen my life? I seem to have lost it. I'm going to bed.
EDIT: almost forgot about the "Set Home Station" thing. Is this going to be kept long-term? Err... maybe put it in the "Launch/NavMap/Options" box... somewhere under the "Promenade" tab, or stick it up next to the station name in the upper right-hand corner.
Ok, here's some suggestions for the layout and functionality of the new UI:
Tab layout would look like this:
STATION:
1. Cargo Holds/Commodities
2. Ship Outfits
3. Station Net (Missions/News)
4. Promenade (Chat/Station Info)
SHIP HANGAR/BAY:
1. Active Ship (Outfits/Ammo/Weapon groups)
2. Inactive Ships
3. Purchase New Ship
CHARACTER:
No ideas as of yet...
STATION NET:
Should be non-existant: most of the items would go in the first STATION tab. Could be replaced with UNIVERSAL INVENTORY, because I haven't quite figured out where to put that yet.
The "Nav Map" button would be found in the bottom right part of the screen - perhaps above/below "Options" or above "Launch."
-----------------------------------------------
Ok, so some general rules with this setup:
••All info for items (commodities/outfits/etc) would NOT be shown on the same screen where you buy them. Wherever you find these things under the tabs, there will be an 'Info' button somewhere easily located (probably next to buy). Clicking on this button would bring up a new window with info on that item (or even a quick list of all the items in the previous window, but without any buy options. The only exception to this would be the "Purchase Ship" window.
••If there is a UNIVERSE INVENTORY tab, it would be very similar to the one we currently have, but you can sell ANY of the items from ANYWHERE (maybe there would be a fee for having the items sold from another station - but I digress).
••On almost all Buy/Sell/Load/Unload buttons: clicking on them brings up a dialogue box asking for specifications on the following:
-If buying/selling/loading/unloading cargo, dialogue box asks how many units. Box would also have ALL button, as well as price bought/sold (and if implimented, the original price they were bought and highest price they've been sold).
-If buying a ship outfit, dialogue box would appear asking of you would like to outfit the part immediately on your ship. If "Yes" is clicked, another box would come up with a topdown view of your ship, and you would click on the proper port where you wanted the outfit. You could even go so far as to add _another_ box asking if you wanted to sell the old outfit, but that would be a bit much if you ask me...
-After buying a ship, it would ask you if you wanted to buy outfits for the ship. If "Yes" is clicked, it takes you to the outfit tab. Clicking "No" brings you to the Active Ship tab. Buying a ship automatically makes it your active ship.
••Upon entry of any station, a box appears asking you if you would like to re-arm your ship, and telling you the cost thereof (maybe certain stations wouldn't carry certain types of ammo... but I digress again). If you have any cargo a box could also come up asking you if you would like your cargo unloaded into the Station Hold.
-----------------------------------------------
Now that THAT is out of the way, here is how the content in the tabs would look. Keep in mind that there's a lot more space created because the info about the items is replaced by the "Info" button:
STATION:
1. Cargo Hold/Commodities-- The left side would look pretty much like it does now, only it would be cut into three parts (the purchase commodities box on the left and two boxes - Station Holds and Ships Holds - on the right, one on top of the other. Between the Station and Ship boxes would be "Up" and "Down" arrows. Again, clicking on one of these with a cargo highlited will bring up a dialogue box. Perhaps a third arrow pointing from Ship to Station could be made to transfer ALL of the ship's cargo into the station. You could put the sell button(s) anywhere. Ship and Station cargo hold values (i.e. 13/24) would also be displayed either above or below those boxes.
2. Ship Outfits-- I'm not too sure what to do here. You could have all of the outfits on the same page (like the old UI), or you could add MORE sub-tabs right above the list (they would be mini, of course) with the sub-categories in them (small/light/other/mines/payload/etc). The screen would be split, with the larger box (Buy) on the left, and the smaller (Sell) on the right. The Sell list would obviously have all your owned outfits there (and would even have your 'equipped' outfits on the list, but these would be marked as such).
3. Station net-- split screen - Missions on one side, news on the other (right/left or top/bottom).
4. Promenade/Bar/Lounge-- not sure of specifics here, but it would be part station chat and part nifty station info/graphics. Maybe even take the station chat off of the chat bar at the bottom.
SHIP HANGAR/BAY:
1. Active Ship-- Has a small top-down view of your ship ('zoom' button brings up spinning 3-d model along with the info). Also combines ship 'Outfits/Equipment' with 'Weapon Groups' and aaaalso 'Weapon Ammo.'
2. Inactive Ships-- Would pretty much be the same as the current "Your Ships" tab.
3. Purchase Ships-- Same as current.
PLAYER:
No ideas at this time...
COMMERCE:
1. Ledger-- suggestions have been made about this before - I don't really have any ideas on this, except for it to include buy/sell prices at different stations and pilot buy/sell records. Something to that effect anyway, to help traders. Maybe you could select a specific commodity and based on your past trading experience it would tell you the projected top three places to sell the item and the top three places to buy it...?
2. Universal Inventory-- Pretty much how it is now, except like I said before - make it possible to sell items (maybe even ships) from anywhere. Maybe a fee/percentage if you are doing some long-range selling (again, a dialogue box telling you how much the fee would be...
--------------------------------------------
Add some drag-n-drop goodness and some double-clickage and you're set (well, at least for the station interface.
One last thing. You know, it would be really freaking cool (TM) if we had spinning 3D graphics for the info screen of the commerce/ship equipment items. Like, a spinning Xithricite crystal and stuff like that. I know this would take up some time, buy hey - you guys have Luis now, right? Plus, you don't have to do anything fancy like make collision meshes for them. It would just be a rendered 3D model. Unfortunately, this probably would add to the client download size... but maybe it doesn't even have to be textured.
Ok, holy freaking cow, that was long. Has anybody seen my life? I seem to have lost it. I'm going to bed.
EDIT: almost forgot about the "Set Home Station" thing. Is this going to be kept long-term? Err... maybe put it in the "Launch/NavMap/Options" box... somewhere under the "Promenade" tab, or stick it up next to the station name in the upper right-hand corner.
OK, I've been gone for quite a while, so long in fact that you could consider me a newb again... So, Incarnate, here goes the impressions of a semi first time player:
First of all, the argument for separating the horizontal and vertical tabs in the station interface was to make it clearer for new players? Doesn't work; I found it utterly confusing. I played for the first time in what, two, three years last night (not counting a couple of logins over the last week to set my controls for this new joystick I bought; last night was the first time I actually *played*). And I'm still not used to the interface. There's a learning curve there due to the illogical arrangement of buttons, and as others have noted, there's a distinct lack of workflow which makes the whole in-station process even more confusing. At first I kept clicking "Sell Items" with my free engine/free laser selected, trying to get rid of the free bus once I bought my first ship. I struggled with the interface for at least 10 minutes before I finally figured out how to sell ship parts and then finally the hull. And guess what, I already forgot again, though I'm sure it'll come back to me once I'm ingame again.
OK, that's my major "rant"... Now some small things that can be easily fixed, some even in under 10 minutes.
1) The character selection screen is too bare; the buttons for the characters should contain some info about them (licences, credits, location?), possibly abbreviated, and when you select them, the great void in the right hand side of the screen should replicate this info in a somewhat more verbose form, and some extra info like what ship they're currently flying, what their home station is etc... Possibly with their location/destination/home station also shown on a universe map. Don't bother with the local solar system grids; they don't matter as much as the universe map and trying to cram them in there is more work than it's worth. Other info you could put in there would be the current mission the player is on, if it's one of those missions that continues even after you logged off, the cargo they're carrying in their current ship, the damage state of their ship if they're not docked (100% hull when they are docked, duh) and basically anything you could think of that might be useful info.
2) In that same login screen, doubleclicking a character should log in with that character; I see no reason to do a grand tour of the desktop surface just to get from "select character" to the "play" button. You guys probably thought of this already, you mentioned something about problems with doubleclicks not working for several UI elements, but I'm just putting it here for completeness sake.
3) In the new beta client clicking the chat output area automatically focuses the text entry box. I also noticed that clicking stuff like "Guild", "Sector" etc... (different chat types, under the chat area) also gives focus to the text entry box. Clicking the magnifying glass to enlargen/shrink the chat surface takes focus away from the text entry box though. There are only two reasons a player would click there:
*They want to do some serious chatting, so they want the chat area enlarged. Focus should immediately go to the text entry box, so they don't have to click twice.
*They're either done chatting, or don't need as big a chat area anymore. So they minimise the chat area, and either continue chatting, or already having the mouse in their hand, start clicking through the interface. In the first case, it'd be helpful if the text entry box would have the focus; in the second case there's no UI element that should logically get the focus now, and it doesn't hurt to let the text entry box remain focused since already having mouse in hand the user already knows where he wants to click and will do so, regardless of what UI element has the focus.
4) Flight Assist should be denoted in your HUD in a clear and visible way. I should not have to find out whether I have it turned on or off by decelerating and checking if my speed indicator goes up after reaching zero, or by checking if the "current speed" lags the "set speed" in the speed indicator or not. It's like driving a manual without a gear stick, but two buttons instead (gear up/gear down) and no indicator whatsoever what gear you're currently in, instead letting you find out through the engine noise and how much the car accelerates when you punch the gas.
5) When planning a route in station, the navigation screen replaces most of the station interface, including the most useful button one can click after having set the route... Yes, I'm talking about the "launch" button. Why do I have to close the nav menu before I can launch? It's a logical action to perform from within the nav menu when docked...
OK, these are the main issues with the game/interface I seen so far in my first couple of hours since two years or so. What follows next are a couple of suggestions to make life easier on us joystick users. I assume I'm the only one using one of these to play the game though, so I wouldn't exactly call them urgent fixes; that's why I put them way down the bottom of this post, separated from the rest.
6) When playing with the mouse, I can quickly turn around using mouselook. If the game hasn't changed this since I last played 2 years ago, it's even possible to look behind you with the mouse while turboing away from a foe, then release the turbo, and the ship spins around to face your foe. You have the bastard in your sights at all times, even when your ship is faced away from him. Why is this disabled when I play with a stick? I can still use the mouse to turn the ship around and shoot and whatnot, but the mouse acts like a joystick now instead of using mouselook. I personaly have a HOTAS setup (Saitek X52 for those interested) with a mouse built in; I'd like to make good use of it for mouselook, even when my main means of aiming the ship is the joystick. And while we're on the subject: most sticks have at least one 4/8-way hat switch. Might be a good idea to make use of it for "looking around" in space, like in most space shooters.
7) For people with a nice programmable HOTAS setup, such as myself... Not that I think there's too many of us out there playing this game... It would be nice though, to be able to move around the interface using keyboard shortcuts. And I'm not talking context sensitive ones, but stuff like "next/prev tab", "next/prev subtab" (for example by using alt-arrows and ctrl-arrows) and finally stuff like switching pane focus, and being able to buy stuff by pressing up/down to select the item, and left/right to change the amount, then buy by using the trigger on the stick or something. The desktop of a HOTAS user is a crowded place; there's no way around having to use our keyboard for ingame chat, but the compulsory use of the keyboard for anything else should be minimised as much as possible. Heck, go out of your way, and make sure the station interface is usable using the hat switch found on most sticks, and a couple of fire buttons.
8) Setting the throttle of a HOTAS setup to "Throttle" screws it up in "flight assist = off" mode (doesn't do anything). I had to set it to "accelerate". This means the ship accelerates at a rate determined by how far I push the throttle forward/back, and when I want to maintain speed I have to center it. The way it should work is like this: pushing it to 50% should set my speed to 50%. The ship should decelerate to a standstill when I reach my idle detent, and it should afterburn when I reach my afterburner detent. That's what those detents are there for. When I pull it back beyond my idle detent, the amount I pull it back beyond that point should set my backward speed.
9) Ooh, last one... When I go to the controls menu, in a default install, a load of actions are not bound to keys. This should change; every primary action (not alias stuff, but primary actions) should be bound to a reasonable default keypress.
Edit: damn this post is huge... Hope I make enough good points to warrant such a long post. ;)
First of all, the argument for separating the horizontal and vertical tabs in the station interface was to make it clearer for new players? Doesn't work; I found it utterly confusing. I played for the first time in what, two, three years last night (not counting a couple of logins over the last week to set my controls for this new joystick I bought; last night was the first time I actually *played*). And I'm still not used to the interface. There's a learning curve there due to the illogical arrangement of buttons, and as others have noted, there's a distinct lack of workflow which makes the whole in-station process even more confusing. At first I kept clicking "Sell Items" with my free engine/free laser selected, trying to get rid of the free bus once I bought my first ship. I struggled with the interface for at least 10 minutes before I finally figured out how to sell ship parts and then finally the hull. And guess what, I already forgot again, though I'm sure it'll come back to me once I'm ingame again.
OK, that's my major "rant"... Now some small things that can be easily fixed, some even in under 10 minutes.
1) The character selection screen is too bare; the buttons for the characters should contain some info about them (licences, credits, location?), possibly abbreviated, and when you select them, the great void in the right hand side of the screen should replicate this info in a somewhat more verbose form, and some extra info like what ship they're currently flying, what their home station is etc... Possibly with their location/destination/home station also shown on a universe map. Don't bother with the local solar system grids; they don't matter as much as the universe map and trying to cram them in there is more work than it's worth. Other info you could put in there would be the current mission the player is on, if it's one of those missions that continues even after you logged off, the cargo they're carrying in their current ship, the damage state of their ship if they're not docked (100% hull when they are docked, duh) and basically anything you could think of that might be useful info.
2) In that same login screen, doubleclicking a character should log in with that character; I see no reason to do a grand tour of the desktop surface just to get from "select character" to the "play" button. You guys probably thought of this already, you mentioned something about problems with doubleclicks not working for several UI elements, but I'm just putting it here for completeness sake.
3) In the new beta client clicking the chat output area automatically focuses the text entry box. I also noticed that clicking stuff like "Guild", "Sector" etc... (different chat types, under the chat area) also gives focus to the text entry box. Clicking the magnifying glass to enlargen/shrink the chat surface takes focus away from the text entry box though. There are only two reasons a player would click there:
*They want to do some serious chatting, so they want the chat area enlarged. Focus should immediately go to the text entry box, so they don't have to click twice.
*They're either done chatting, or don't need as big a chat area anymore. So they minimise the chat area, and either continue chatting, or already having the mouse in their hand, start clicking through the interface. In the first case, it'd be helpful if the text entry box would have the focus; in the second case there's no UI element that should logically get the focus now, and it doesn't hurt to let the text entry box remain focused since already having mouse in hand the user already knows where he wants to click and will do so, regardless of what UI element has the focus.
4) Flight Assist should be denoted in your HUD in a clear and visible way. I should not have to find out whether I have it turned on or off by decelerating and checking if my speed indicator goes up after reaching zero, or by checking if the "current speed" lags the "set speed" in the speed indicator or not. It's like driving a manual without a gear stick, but two buttons instead (gear up/gear down) and no indicator whatsoever what gear you're currently in, instead letting you find out through the engine noise and how much the car accelerates when you punch the gas.
5) When planning a route in station, the navigation screen replaces most of the station interface, including the most useful button one can click after having set the route... Yes, I'm talking about the "launch" button. Why do I have to close the nav menu before I can launch? It's a logical action to perform from within the nav menu when docked...
OK, these are the main issues with the game/interface I seen so far in my first couple of hours since two years or so. What follows next are a couple of suggestions to make life easier on us joystick users. I assume I'm the only one using one of these to play the game though, so I wouldn't exactly call them urgent fixes; that's why I put them way down the bottom of this post, separated from the rest.
6) When playing with the mouse, I can quickly turn around using mouselook. If the game hasn't changed this since I last played 2 years ago, it's even possible to look behind you with the mouse while turboing away from a foe, then release the turbo, and the ship spins around to face your foe. You have the bastard in your sights at all times, even when your ship is faced away from him. Why is this disabled when I play with a stick? I can still use the mouse to turn the ship around and shoot and whatnot, but the mouse acts like a joystick now instead of using mouselook. I personaly have a HOTAS setup (Saitek X52 for those interested) with a mouse built in; I'd like to make good use of it for mouselook, even when my main means of aiming the ship is the joystick. And while we're on the subject: most sticks have at least one 4/8-way hat switch. Might be a good idea to make use of it for "looking around" in space, like in most space shooters.
7) For people with a nice programmable HOTAS setup, such as myself... Not that I think there's too many of us out there playing this game... It would be nice though, to be able to move around the interface using keyboard shortcuts. And I'm not talking context sensitive ones, but stuff like "next/prev tab", "next/prev subtab" (for example by using alt-arrows and ctrl-arrows) and finally stuff like switching pane focus, and being able to buy stuff by pressing up/down to select the item, and left/right to change the amount, then buy by using the trigger on the stick or something. The desktop of a HOTAS user is a crowded place; there's no way around having to use our keyboard for ingame chat, but the compulsory use of the keyboard for anything else should be minimised as much as possible. Heck, go out of your way, and make sure the station interface is usable using the hat switch found on most sticks, and a couple of fire buttons.
8) Setting the throttle of a HOTAS setup to "Throttle" screws it up in "flight assist = off" mode (doesn't do anything). I had to set it to "accelerate". This means the ship accelerates at a rate determined by how far I push the throttle forward/back, and when I want to maintain speed I have to center it. The way it should work is like this: pushing it to 50% should set my speed to 50%. The ship should decelerate to a standstill when I reach my idle detent, and it should afterburn when I reach my afterburner detent. That's what those detents are there for. When I pull it back beyond my idle detent, the amount I pull it back beyond that point should set my backward speed.
9) Ooh, last one... When I go to the controls menu, in a default install, a load of actions are not bound to keys. This should change; every primary action (not alias stuff, but primary actions) should be bound to a reasonable default keypress.
Edit: damn this post is huge... Hope I make enough good points to warrant such a long post. ;)
Leber, think you have me confused with someone else, or my memory is going one. The only thing I have posted is the character selection screen, which has basically been implemneted now.
Okay, implement a players online screen viewable from ingame. It may be more appropriate for down the road to actually make this some form of /who search. A limit on how many entires it can return would save the servers some bandwidth if the game ever sees a mammoth number of players with similar names. (i.e. /who *wookie* could return "Ima Wookie", "Wookiewnnabe", and maybe 48 other names with wookie in them.)
Clip the EULA! Let us agree to it once on inital login, then when we have patches. The EULA every time is a bit redundant. It is the responsibility of the account holder to make sure that any users he allows on his account comply with it. There is nothing currently prohibiting another user from commandeering a post login client.
Conscise logging. Not just to errors.log, but a serialised set of files (name based on character name and login time/date) stored in a subdirectory, that contain all chat seen by that player during the session. Of course, an option to turn this feature off should be included, since some people don't care and/or don't want thier disks loaded with cruft.
Offline buddy invites. Allow players to send /buddy invite to players not logged in, instead have the invited player confronted with the invite upon login. This way buddies who can't get online at the same time can still relay messages and see each other if they ever do catch themselves online.
Lastly, implement a faster character switching feature. Right now, we log off, then log back in. Why not allow us to "log off" the character and return to the character selection screen, and "exit" the if was actually want to leave the game immediatly.
Applogies for any dupes.
Addendum: On the new client's character selection screen, incorporate the name selection there so character creation is simplified to one click.
Addendum: Character specific macros!!!
Addendum: The magnifying glass on chat and ship view while docked are rather non-intuitivly placed. Perhaps the far and upper right hand corner of all views would be better? Also, the icon is not very clear in purpose, I feel this should be boxed or circled to indicate it as a button. This percieved understatment could be due to its location however.
Okay, implement a players online screen viewable from ingame. It may be more appropriate for down the road to actually make this some form of /who search. A limit on how many entires it can return would save the servers some bandwidth if the game ever sees a mammoth number of players with similar names. (i.e. /who *wookie* could return "Ima Wookie", "Wookiewnnabe", and maybe 48 other names with wookie in them.)
Clip the EULA! Let us agree to it once on inital login, then when we have patches. The EULA every time is a bit redundant. It is the responsibility of the account holder to make sure that any users he allows on his account comply with it. There is nothing currently prohibiting another user from commandeering a post login client.
Conscise logging. Not just to errors.log, but a serialised set of files (name based on character name and login time/date) stored in a subdirectory, that contain all chat seen by that player during the session. Of course, an option to turn this feature off should be included, since some people don't care and/or don't want thier disks loaded with cruft.
Offline buddy invites. Allow players to send /buddy invite to players not logged in, instead have the invited player confronted with the invite upon login. This way buddies who can't get online at the same time can still relay messages and see each other if they ever do catch themselves online.
Lastly, implement a faster character switching feature. Right now, we log off, then log back in. Why not allow us to "log off" the character and return to the character selection screen, and "exit" the if was actually want to leave the game immediatly.
Applogies for any dupes.
Addendum: On the new client's character selection screen, incorporate the name selection there so character creation is simplified to one click.
Addendum: Character specific macros!!!
Addendum: The magnifying glass on chat and ship view while docked are rather non-intuitivly placed. Perhaps the far and upper right hand corner of all views would be better? Also, the icon is not very clear in purpose, I feel this should be boxed or circled to indicate it as a button. This percieved understatment could be due to its location however.
so... when do we get the Lesbian Mudwrestling?
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12058#146409
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12058#146409
It was recommended that I post this here:
You should be able to double click on a wormhole to access the map for the sector it goes to.
You should be able to double click on a wormhole to access the map for the sector it goes to.
/me concurs w/ dirknibleck. Some previous suggestions along the same line:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9740
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7382
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6784
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9740
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7382
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6784
As soon as the devs open up the UI to me and I learn Lua and decide to dedicate the time to it, Cunjo, then I will make a special lesbian mudwrestling tab. Hah.
Back on topic: Double-clicking and single-clicking should always accomplish the same thing throughout the interface, no matter whether you are in space or docked.
Oh, and I would like to see WHO is in-sector when I am docked, like a sector-list in the station tab somewhere.
Back on topic: Double-clicking and single-clicking should always accomplish the same thing throughout the interface, no matter whether you are in space or docked.
Oh, and I would like to see WHO is in-sector when I am docked, like a sector-list in the station tab somewhere.