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GUI-First Look
makkah
Member Posts: 72
http://images.mmorpg.com/features/444/images/444_1.jpg
Looks pretty cool. Icons are a bit hoaky, but at least progress is being made.
Comments
I really liked all the lower right icons. The only thing I might change about them is maybe to make their pictures more intuitive. From left to right my interpretation of them are as follows:
Melee Combat Mode, Special Powers, Unknown, Unknown, Healing or Combat Magic, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Missile Combat Mode, and Life/Death Pannel.
The life preserver is a little weird. It doesn't fit a fantasy setting in my opinion. So it could be done away with and replaced with a more appropriate image. The others are pretty cool. I wouldn't mind them staying the same if some explanation as to their meaning were given in notes IG if you moused over them before you clicked them.
I only liked a few of the icons at the top center of the GUI. From left to right:
Liked, Unsure, Disliked, Liked, Liked (backpack symbol), Unsure, Unsure, Liked.
The swamp water also looks like Asheron's Call 1's swamps too much in that it's got out-dated graphics. The trees and branches and everything look realistic but drabby at the same time (which is alright for a swamp setting I guess). The creature looks alright, but could use some touching up on the art.
I also know that some people are opposed to compasses in this game as is seen in the upper right corner of the GUI. I'm not really opposed to them as long as if you go into a stealth mode you won't be detected by others. I'm not really well-informed on the specifics of the IG compasses. Could a dev elaborate?
"Put your foot where your mouth is." - Wisdom from my grandfather
"Paper or plastic? ... because I'm afraid I'll have to suffocate you unless you put this bag on your head..." - Ethnitrek
AC1: Wierding from Harvestgain
Honestly all the icons make decent sense to me. Deffinetly a style of its own. I like the hand drawn look. Also alot of the icons appear context based. Sorta like that damned chalice representing questlog in WoW. All in all I like it alot. The graphics appears great. Nowhere near as good as what they came looks like when you see it running in the videos. Which is the shame of screenshots. Rarely captures the essence of a game.
The GUI looks great. So do the graphics. I like the drab look of the swamp and the creature. Very nice.
The lower icons are just our testing abilities. Not sure what abilities they will eventually link too, but I don't see you all getting that last ability which is a super secret power.
Anyone begging for it will have the cat squad sent to their houses to screech and jowl all night long below their bedroom window.
I don't see why the devs won't make the UI customizable so that those who don't like that compass can remove it or move it around. I'm sure now that they've shown the UI they'll elaborate more on it's features.
GM Illuminatis
World Builder
Hero's Journey
I like the UI, its a different look which seems to fit with the feel of the game as I see it - nice...
Just wondering though, the bars under the icons (Main, Debuff etc), will they change the icons above them and will you be able to change both the title and the conent to your own style of play so that you could have a bar called say, "1st Line Offense" which would include debuff, DoT & main offesive attack withing the same icon set?
Cheers....
Oh and will that poor Lurk be able to fight back in release?
Currently Playing: GW2
Currently Following: Elder Scrolls Online
Games in my wake: Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
Screen shot was very informative in it's own right. That is not to mention all the great info on the races in the Q&A.
I did notice you left out the one race. I am hoping that you will provide us with more info on them in a future Q&A though.
Humility before Honor.
It appears that there are only 10 actions available to you at any time. If this is the case, please reconsider. I am sure there are many many more things that a character can do in combat, or non-combat that would require initiating. I like the styling of it, just not he limitation on # of actions.
Current game I am playing limits to 20 buttons available at any one time, and 8 sets of those 20 buttons. It is clear that 20 buttons is not enough, and people would love the space for more. Granted 10 buttons lines up great for the 10 number keys, but are we playing a graphical or a keyboard based game? Current game uses shift to access the second row. (Of course this is a classless game, so maybe that affects it).
I think the map could use some help. I prefer drawn looking maps that are not quite accurate, but give you a good idea of where you are.
And lastly can we make that information window smaller, and have more of the information in the actual graphical representation.
Just some thoughts,
marc.
~~ FGM Razu ~~
~Hero's Journey~
Here is the largest problem I see in gaming today. HJ is being developed by a company that is based in the text world today. Although there is a great amount of people that would like to memorize all of these keystrokes to do this or that and be able to do things like ctrl-shift-F7 to heal the teamate they are looking at, my opinion, based on playing Saga of Ryzom, is that the keystroke methods should be available, but should not be forced on the player as the only means.
Likewise, you should not be forced to use buttons... The mainstream folks(read casual players), whether you like them or not, do not want to have to memorize commands. I enjoy keystrokes a lot too, however I am considering the fact that keystrokes and text actions do not do well for the new and or casual gamer.
In Saga of Ryzom, it is not initially mapped to use the WASD keys for character movement, and you cannot image the number of people screaming about this in the first day or two of starting out. Although it easily remaps keys to do whatever whatever you like, and if you do the digging, that is fine. But why on earth would you force a new player to fight with learning a text action interface in the first days of playing a game "the impression period" when they can have silly buttons that are easy to understand and easy to use?
Hope my point is clearer now.
P.S. BTW, I am not sure where it is better to try to communicate to the folks from HJ at, here or at the play.net forums. Personally (no debate needed) the play.net forums give me a headache, I can't follow a conversation to save my life. So I think I will stick to here even though it may not get read as much.
marc.
Well, the hotbuttons look fine to me. My only concern is whether or not we can change between tabs quickly with the keyboard.
I liked the WoW (after the chat bubble patch) style myself. You started with only 12 slots, but you could easily increase it to up to 48. The skills on the first row you could activate by pressing the number keys plus - and =, and the rest could be assigned to other keys, or (as I had it set) Alt + #, and Ctrl + #, and even Shift + #.
I'm guessing you can rename those tabs whatever you like, which will be perfect. I mean, not everyone will have 10 Debuff, 10 Support, and 10 DoT skills in addition to their 10 Main skills.
Here's my wish. I want to have the option to hold Alt to display the skills on the second tab. When I release, it shows the first tab again. Ctrl can be used for the third tab, and Shift for the fourth. The fifth tab... well, I don't think many people will need to swap over to the RP tab that quickly, and hopefully we won't need to have 50 skills all ready to use at an instant.
Of course, having 20, 30, or even 40 skills on screen at a time isn't a bad idea, as long as they don't take up much space. My suggestion? Make it so you can drag and scale everything. Being able to scale each part of the UI seperately is important because the icons might be a little big for some people, but they don't want to shrink the font or map. Others might only want the map to be smaller, or want to move it to another corner because they had it there in a previous game.
Now this is the part where I go and try to guess what everything (other than the skills) actually is.
The purple bar at the top is probably XP. Under that in the left appears to be Life (red) and Mana (blue). I have no idea what that helmet icon is over by the Swamp Lerk's Life and Mana. The icons, from left to right are probably...
???, Character Sheet, Skills, Quest Log, Inventory, ???, Help, Options
I have no idea what that number in the middle is, but it could be XP remaining. It almost looks like a year, but that would be a really wierd place to put the year.
"Grenmeer Swamp" is obviously the current zone, and then we see a compass. The + and - probably change the size of the mini-map. There are two blue dots on the mini-map, and one of them appears to be the Swamp Lerk, but what about the other? Do all monsters always show up, or is some sort of tracking ability active? I guess the two hands must be the PvP setting.
The speech balloon on the chat window would probably have some standard chat options, but no chat tabs seem to be present. (I hope we can have multiple chat windows open at one time to keep combat messages in their own area. In WoW I even had an entire window just for General Chat and Trade because they were so spammed.)
Then there's the Sword, Sword & Shield, Shield, and Move(?) icons. These could be stances. I think I remember reading something about changing around your offense and defense. If this is the case then it's probably something like this:
Sword: High damage and low defense stance.
Sword & Shield: Balanced stance.
Shield: High defense and low offense stance.
Move(?): Unlock yourself from combat so you can move around freely.
Can any GM's give me a hot or cold on this?
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Actually the standard keyboard based interface has nothing to do with text based games and everything to do with optimizing the standard controller interface for the PC (i.e. mouse + keyboard). Every FPS game out there uses the WASD movement scheme so any PC gamer is familiar with it.
Similarly, almost every MMO or even single player RPG uses some standard keys. WASD for movement, 1-0 or 1-= for abilities, F1 - Fx to target group members, tab to target nearest enemy etc. Games that don't use this, or at least something very similar, by default create confusion. One of my biggest complaints with D&D Online was the fact that they used Left-Click and drag for mouse look vs. the standard Right-Click and I couldn't swap them without breaking some of the other mechanics.
I know there are people that play using nothing but the mouse but if you use a standard interface that's still a valid option without forcing either the keyboard player or the mouse player to "go digging" to configure the interface. For example, Guild Wars uses a mouse movement system (click on the ground to move there). I hate that type of movement since I'm always accidently clicking on the ground near a target when what I really wanted to do was click the target. The good thing is they also use the standard WASD movement system so without changing any options I could move around the way I'm used to and if I accidently started running towards something because I clicked on the ground near it I could just hit one of my movement keys to stop it.
I only played Saga of Rhyzom for a short time but I remember hating their UI. You're right I could have gone digging to configure it the way I was used to but, combined with some frustrating gameplay decisions, I found it much easier to just uninstall the game.
You made some nice guesses about the interface, now to debunk some of it:
1. That's not mana by the health bar.
2. That big blue number is not the year, its not experience remaining, and its not mana.
However, I am unsure if I can reveal what those are just yet.
~~ FGM Razu ~~
~Hero's Journey~
Humility before Honor.
Yes I was aware of that and I have turned it off. The main point I was making was that while it was there for those that liked it they also had, by default, the standard keyboard movement that most are familar with. I didn't have to dig around in the menus trying to figure out how to turn something on to make it work.
Excellent -- however, I do hope for some ability to adjust the UI slightly. For example, scaling, resizing and re-coloring.
-- The XP Bar stretching fully across the top of the screen I think is too prominent. XP Bar toggle ON/OFF would be a nice feature.
-- Also, the very large number at top-center of screen seems far too prominent unless that is some vitally important information which must be known at all times -- however, I think it probably is a mere "counter" of some kind. Would rather see that minimized, reduced or removed.
-- The icon buttons look good, are intuitive and the style seems to blend well with the game.
-- The size of the UI seems to take up a good amount of space on the screen, so I would hope that "scaling" might be available to shrink the size.
-- Would also appreciate the ability to re-color the hue of the UI. The screen shows a sort of steel-blue color and it would be nice if the overall UI color could be changed.
-- The fonts on the UI and in the chatbox are "unremarkable" and somewhat bland. I thought that more stylized fonts might be available. Something like a distinctive "Hero's Journey" font specially chosen or created for the game.
-- I think it might also be good if the entire GUI and the chatbox (but perhaps NOT the icons) could be Alpha-faded, and the text in the chatbox could be timed to disappear after x-number of seconds.
-- Overall, looks like a very attractive, informative and intuitive GUI.
***
The game world that I have seen in screens and trailer look excellent. They seem to be "dense" and "full of stuff," so to speak. Swamp is thick with growth, forests rich with trees and undergrowth -- even the desert area was attractively designed.
Mobs -- some of the most unique that I have seen for a long while.
The weapon being held has a thoughtful design (neither too big nor too small, btw) which makes it look "multi-purpose." Example: It has a slashing blade with a piercing point, above which is a "ripping" hook. The hilt has two sharp "punching" points -- one directly below the user's hand to use as a straight punch or uppercut, and one at the back of the hilt looking to be used to poke someone behind or to bring down your fist in hammer-like striking fashion. I do NOT know if any of those moves are, in fact, available in-game; however the well-thoughtout design looks extremely good. Not only does the weapon look "cool" it also looks "useful" in several fashions.
(REPEAT: thanks to the Devs for making the weapons neither too BIG nor too SMALL. They look perfectly scaled to the character size. I also presume there are larger weapons available, such as polearms and other two-handed weapons which would look more formidable than a small one-hand sword. Although I personally prefer beautifully designed bows and vicious-looking daggers, which I believe the game already has.)
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1) If I have any suggestions it would be to see "overhead" damage numbers (toggle on/off -- helps you focus on the screen rather than the chatbox).
2) And color-coded text in the chatbox to denote the various categories. Example: RED for combat damage, GREEN for healing, BLUE for magic spells, etc. Something like that.
***
~ Ancient Membership ~