MMORPG Interfaces, what do they lack?

PaperRabbit

Yes, what do they lack?
I'm working on my thesis and need to know what many of these intefaces lack, so I can make them better.
In my opinion they should be more simple, so I dunt have to read the instructions before playing XD or be customizable, what if I like changing items constantly and need that up all the time?
So, what do you guys think they lack or need in order to be better? I really appreciate your opinions in this matter.

Thank you!
-PaperRabbit

doc2552

well i'll ding in with my 2 cents on this one. 1st off MMO UI's depend totaly on the game and style of play, city of heroes, all u need is hp/mana/xp and quick bars. they are what all MMO's need i have seen them done in many ways (i like EvE onlines hp/armor...just looks cool) so to say its lacking something is very hard, for prue pick up and play well WASD works on most mmo's and u can change basic controls when u get into game 1st time, so i'm not totaly sure what you think we need, i say put a poll up on things you seem to think are missing  cos all the games i play have everything any1 could need and if u still play wow there r tons of add-ons for there UI

tylerwick

I agree with the above poster.. not alot of answeres in this area...  I would suggest hitting some of the Interface MOD sites... Like wowmods.com (was tat it?)  there are several others, theres eq2interface.com  , they seem to ahve the need to have somthing different in their intercae.. the basic package thats comes with the games are all I usually need.

PaperRabbit

I see, o.O;; .. Wow, thats really an answer I wasnt expecting. You guys not wanting or expecting anything else from these games, specially not on the way they work. Not that I have many ideas, those I pointed out are my main concerns, but really when you go into a new game not finding anything that bothers you?

For example, I play Dofus, and what really bothers me is having to drag new skills into the usable area, specially at first since I was just expecting them to appear there XD.

Thank you for the responses, I really, really appreciate your trying to help n.n, if you do find anything or remember anything, please dunt doubt on posting it here.

Thanks
-PaperRabbit

PS: thanks for the links tyler, I shall check them out! n.n

Pynda

I have a few ideas.

1.) I truly enjoyed the 3rd party advanced map for AC1 called 'AC Explorer'. Any player in the game could post notes to the shared database (which was searchable for locations and also words or terms used in these notes in game), you could auto generate shortest travel routes through portals, you could zoom in and out and look at the terrain anywhere in the world down to a few meters resolution, you could leave your own detailed points of interest notes, etc.. I found AC Explorer an extremely useful time saving tool to avoid doing things which I didn't like doing anyway. For example combing forums to retrieve small shreds of information at a time.

I realize many people object to this type of tool, but that "spoiler" information always gets around on websites with MMORPGs anyway. The trick is to make the world so vast and populated by unique mobs and POI's that using a tool like this doesn't ruin your experience. Something that requires more work on the devs part, so...

2.) Another neat AC1 tool was called the Monster Database. Again it was user updatable, gave good information on the multitude of damage/weakness types and different mob AI behaviour, and again it was able to be used on the fly in game. Of course we don't have many damage/weakness types in MMORPGs anymore these days, and the AI is usually basically all identical anyway. So what's it matter anymore.

3.) All the recent MMORPG's I've played have required a 3rd party interface to put up extra command bars in the main window (and place them according to personal preference). When I want to do something unimportant like perform a bow emote, I don't want to be screwing around with pressing or remembering 'shift + alt + cntrl+ b' (and then having my combat bars out of whack afterwards). Why devs don't put this feature in like modders always do, I can't fathom.

Astralglide

I think that having a fully moddable UI is key. Developers will never make everybody happy, but if they allow and support XML based UI mods, then people can have the UI they want.

lomiller

Originally posted by Astralglide


I think that having a fully moddable UI is key. Developers will never make everybody happy, but if they allow and support XML based UI mods, then people can have the UI they want.

 

A UI that is true “fully modable” is a bad idea because it makes writing bots very very easy.  Also, XML can’t really do anything you can’t do in dozens of different ways, its main strength is that it’s portable but that doesn’t get you anything in this context. 

Kyntor

Personally, I would like to see a game with a voice-to-text chat system.  This type of system has the benefits of a voice chat system (quick communication) without the disadvantages (loss of immersion).

CleffyII

I think they are excessively bulky now.  Some take up 50+% of the screen.  The unclosable windows are blocking my view from monsters trying to rush me from the back.  I would like to see UIs cut down alot and nearly everything hideable.  Or atleast an expertmode like alt-x that closes all the UI.

Devour

World of Warcraft has a VERY good UI system, the base stuff is customisable from the interface menu alone, it's fairly slimmed down and has lots of closeable menus, with a minimap.

And that's not even counting the many mods that have been made for it. Soulshard counters, item counters, old school arcade games, timers, map mods, fishing mods.

Easily one of the best UIs out.

lomiller

Originally posted by Devour


World of Warcraft has a VERY good UI system, the base stuff is customisable from the interface menu alone, it's fairly slimmed down and has lots of closeable menus, with a minimap.
And that's not even counting the many mods that have been made for it. Soulshard counters, item counters, old school arcade games, timers, map mods, fishing mods.
Easily one of the best UIs out.

 

While it’s functional, the out of the box interface in WoW is really pretty basic. It certianly doesn’t have the base functionality of EQ2’s UI. Both are modable/extendable but WoW mods are a lot easier to abuse to the point where it’s playing the game for you, which is also a big strike against it.  Modable is great but bottable is very bad.

 

Out of the box the EQ2 has:

-         All UI widgets can be dragged wherever you want to put them

-         All UI widgets can be resized/reshaped

-         All UI widgets can be hidden/unhidden at will

-         All UI widgets can be set for any transparency you desire

-         All UI widgets have separate mouse-over and normal transparency (I.E. you can set them to be hidden until you mouse-over the widget)

-         All frames and boarders have separate transparency settings

-         You can display up as many taskbars as you like. I typically show 4, and make them each into a 4X3 rectangle

-         A built in web browser so you don’t have to tab out to look things up

-         A graphical tool for creating/editing macros

-         Full implied targeting (I.E. you have a target and your targets target so if you target a mob, and cast a heal you will heal whatever that mob has targeted, if you target the main assist and attack you will attack whatever your target has targeted.

-         Built in spam filter that’s employs server side identification of spammers (I.E. it actually works)

-         A quality LFG/LFM tool. (I realize many other games have this, but WoW certainly does not) 

-         A lot of truly useful predefined chat channels.  The level-range specific channels and the crafting channels are particularly useful, but you have all the standard channels ooc, zone, yell, trading, etc.  

 

The only add-on that people consider really important is the EQ2 maps mod that gives you community maintained maps with all the points of interest, named mobs, NPC’s, and many quest item locations.  There are a bunch of fully modded UI’s and a bunch of other mods but they are not considered necessary like WoW mods are.  

Meltdown

Originally posted by PaperRabbit

Yes, what do they lack? I'm working on my thesis and need to know what many of these intefaces lack, so I can make them better. In my opinion they should be more simple, so I dunt have to read the instructions before playing XD or be customizable, what if I like changing items constantly and need that up all the time? So, what do you guys think they lack or need in order to be better? I really appreciate your opinions in this matter. Thank you! -PaperRabbit

Well something a lot of developers/players have mentioned is the idea of not seeing the "wires". And a clunky UI is certainly removing yourself from the game and breaking immersion. A lot of the MMO-genre is based off this immersion and getting us to lose track of RL (I'm serious). So a UI should encompass a simplistic approach that makes sense and the user is used to. Which is why with WoW's playerbase passing 9 million a lot of companies use the same/similar UI. Because some of the people who play WoW want something new, but if they encounter something new that they cannot easily get the hang of they will probably quit.

Customizable UI's such as WoW's, EQ2, Vanguards etc. are a great advancement for the UI of MMO's. Blizzard has taken a lot of the more popular UI Mods and put them inside the game. Putting creative control in the hands of the user has incredible amounts of power, not to mention giving a company ideas of their own for their UI.

The UI's grow and change much like the industry and it will slowly change depending on playstyle. The same can be said about the UI for console games, ie the controller. Think of early MMO's like the original Atari controller. It was clunky and daunting. Nintendo revolutionized the controller and gave it a small sleek appearance. And that trend continued on while complexity was added. And MMO UI's followed the same path starting with odd hand positions and slowly working towards a natural movement.