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Lets explore the minimalist UI concept.
rungard
Member Posts: 1,035
I am a big fan of this feature and i would go farther. They might as well. It doesnt look like they have much to lose, and they absolutely have to do something to seperate this game from the wow/eq/daoc clone stigma. Immersion is the best way to do this.
Health and Stamina
Imagine if you didnt know exactly how much health and stamina you had. You would have an idea but wouldnt know the exact number. You can increase immersion this way as you no longer need to represent these attributes with numbers but rather graphical elements. I would use a little beating heart that beats faster graphically and when you get below 20% you get an audible and graphical indication of this. Like your heart is about to explode. For stamina i would have your character panting when they went below 20%, and a more labored attack cry on attacks. Far more immersive than sterile bars. Little things do count.
this would be a great diversion for players because the focus is off the numbers and micromanagement and is kept on the moment of the fight. The subtle cues would enhance gameplay substantially, especially in first person.
Conditions
GW2 did conditions pretty good and i would extend that here with a different color screen border based on the specific condition. Its simple and is really effective. I would definitely have that. It doesnt have to be the whole screen, just the border.
Chat and equipment
Many people have access to a secondary monitor these days (i.e tablet) and there should be functionality to show these screens on the secondary monitor or tablet so they dont interfere with the game screen. You could have this as an option
Just some thoughts.
Comments
I say you take it a step further. If the person is blinded, have the screen go mostly dark.... if they are dazed, have the screen blur out.....
DDO did that, screen effects based on obscurity and blindness.
EDIT:
To expound on the subject itslef I will note I love the concept of a UI that is effectively eliminated from the screenspace and instead replaced by in-world elements and visual effects.
I also am pretty definite there is a largecrossection of people that would respond poorly to it. Best I have seen in concept is a compromise where screen space UI elements aren't constantly visible. They are few, mostly having to do with health and stamina type things or a chatbox, and they can border the window, but fade out rapidly when not being affected. Make them as unobtrusive as possible and toggleable just in case someone wants to abandon them entirely in favor of a screen effect like an angry red glow bleeding out from the edges of the screen. or the previously mentioned heartbeat. If you don't want a screen effect you still at least need a Dead Space like health meter visually embedded somewhere most likely, otherwise people just get antsy about exactly 'how much' health they have less. People seem to prefer a clear approximation if nothing else.
Something that ticks down as you lose health is more or less mandatory, just need to get clever in where one places it.
Perhaps overlay the health bar on the character themselves. Offer it like a normally invisible silhouette potentially broken into parts. When you are struck, the part that is hurt gets briefly hilighted in red and drains, then fades back out.
The rest is embedding user interface elements as something that exists visually in the world. In fantasy this might be your player popping a scrool or book out to read while the menu is overlaid for you on your screen. Sci-fi can easily get away with holographic displays or pda styled menus embedded. Something so that it isn't so disjointed from the game.
Just little touches like that can be integrated, but certain things still need graphical elements. You remove the hotbar? Then you will probably have to replace it with prompts that hover over or near a target when you have the option to use an ability. Or merge abilities with a more context driven interface already. Have a bunch of powers that are built into combinations of basic commands and then prompts when unique actions can be taken.
EDIT2: also love the screen idea, I tend to just leave a browser up so it's easy to tab and look things up on, but being able to shove UI elements off into it would be great.
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"Many people have access to a secondary monitor these days (i.e tablet) and there should be functionality to show these screens on the secondary monitor or tablet so they dont interfere with the game screen. You could have this as an option."
I agree with most of what you have listed here, OP, but the quoted portion is definitely one I would really welcome. I want nothing but a button bar and a minimap. I really hope they allow addons in the way Blizzard does. Say what you want, but I could have that game setup any way my brain could think up. Dual screen support would be really cool though.
That's how I took it. They mentioned a limited UI when talking about comabt, you won't have a screen filled with hotbars in ESO but rather the core of your attacks will be real-time. At least that's how I took the last interview I watched.
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If the UI looks like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG40NPkI4rA
I'll be happy with it. Granted a compass would replace the minimap but wow that is one mini minimap!
We should even take it a step further and get rid of health and magicka bars, and they should just regenerate really quickly when you're out of combat. Also, there shouldn't be any focus on equipment or stats, because that just takes you out of the game, maybe just have different weapons or something. It should be in first person, too; that really amps up the immersion. Another thing is that fantasy is a little too removed for me to get lost in. I mean, it's not a believable universe at all. It should be more modern; the setting should be some place which actually exists so that players can actually identify with the game more. They need to remove the focus on melee fighting, as well; because melee in first person sucks. They should just stick with guns. And the game should be more focused; nothing loses my interest faster than wandering around big, empty world with no objectives. They should be on smaller maps, but with more detail and better level design. The should be designed for PvP strategy. In fact, they should just keep the PvE and PvP separate. The PvE can have bigger maps, but with more structure and story, and also maybe an offline mode. I think the B2P model would suit them the best. After that, the could just charge people for different PvP maps, but wouldn't NEED to buy them. They could just have an optional monthly method where you get the expansions for free. I think you're on the right track here.
Would be an interesting change to staring at health/stam bars...Changes in display based on damage/status in other games make things feel much more frantic, so more involved... Especially in fp.
But...Beating hearts/panting could get pretty irritating over time, especially through a long grind. Or quite distracting if it just ends up like sex noises, as has happened elsewhere...
"Many" does not equal all. I do not have a tablet because I do not need one. There are many others like me who do not possess/need a tablet. Guess how many subs a dual screen game will get from us if we have to buy a tablet to use all available game features.
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