Writing a story - opinions needed

Kyrwolf · #1 08-18-2010, 12:38 PM

Hello there -
I'm working on a story for MMORPG about UIs and heard a lot of folks chatting today about the new EQ2 UI and the Profit UI. If you don't mind, I would like to ask some questions and your responses may be included in the story.

Why do you use a UI from a third party?
What do you think devs need to keep in mind when designing game UIs?
What do you think is the best third-party UI for EQII and why?

Thanks. As the community, your opinion is valued. I don't mind the new EQII UI at all, think it is streamlined and convenient, but figure there may be many others that do not care for it. So I'm trying to go to the folks that play the games and know what they want.

THEDragon · #2 08-18-2010, 12:59 PM

Why do you use a UI from a third party? mainly because the "default UI" is lacking the features that a vast majority of the 3rd party's have by default. I'm not a healer, but for the past 6years folks that do play healers have used 3rd party UI's because of the "click to cure" option that the default UI lacks. I also enjoy the freedom the 3rd party UI's offer, color, functions and "tweak-ability".

What do you think devs need to keep in mind when designing game UIs? the "devs" need to understand who they are making changes for, not the "corporate knuckle-heads" that don't play but rather the "players". there is a thread on their official forums and they listed "who" they consulted about the new UI changes and NOWHERE in their own list was the "players". The "devs" and their "higher-up" should ask the end-users what they want and why, then do it.

What do you think is the best third-party UI for EQII and why? I have listed some of my reasons for using a 3rd party UI above and the one i chose to use, and have since i started playing EQ2 is ProfitUI. It has the features im looking for, and has all the "tweak-abity"i need.

anyways....thats my 2cp

tknarr · #3 08-18-2010, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyrwolf

Why do you use a UI from a third party?
What do you think devs need to keep in mind when designing game UIs?
What do you think is the best third-party UI for EQII and why?.

#1: Functionality that isn't present in the default UI (eg. click-to-cure), and a visual appearance that differs from the default UI (often because my own preferences in a UI differ from what the devs were looking for for the default UI).

#2: One size fits all, doesn't. The needs of a veteran raider with years of experience in the game, for instance, may be radically different from those of a brand-new player starting their very first character. And what a healer wants in their UI may be radically different from what say the tank wants. You can't make a single UI that's good for everything across that wide a range. It's like trying to make a single vehicle that simultaneously performs like a Formula 1 race car on the track and hauls 80,000 pounds of freight like a tractor-trailer. Your best bet's to create a UI system that's flexible enough to let people with experience create special-purpose mods for it, while you concentrate on making a solid entry-level UI to give people the basics needed to get started. And don't assume your initial choices are necessarily the best. It's not a coincidence that the new default UI introduced with GU57 took a number of design elements from UI mods like Profit and Fetish: those mods were so popular precisely because people preferred their design choices over those of the old default UI.

Also, designers should bear in mind that not every player's the same. Red and green, for instance, may be obvious color choices for "bad" vs. "good" (eg. for health bars), but they're also very bad choices for the large minority of players who're to some degree or another red-green color-blind. People have different ideas of comfortable text size, comfortable UI theme colors and so on. Don't get so enamored of your own preferences that your UI can't accommodate those sorts of differences.

#3: ProfitUI, but that's mainly because I'm comfortable with it. You'll tend to prefer what you're familiar with, most of the time. My own preferences are for a few bits of functionality like click-to-cure and a design that's as compact and clean as possible, keeping the UI elements from obscuring my view of the game world.

Kyrwolf · #4 08-18-2010, 01:17 PM

Thanks, so far.

for the record, I will probably close on taking opinions at the end of the day so I have time to put this all together and craft the story.

Maozem · #5 08-18-2010, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyrwolf

Hello there -
I'm working on a story for MMORPG about UIs and heard a lot of folks chatting today about the new EQ2 UI and the Profit UI. If you don't mind, I would like to ask some questions and your responses may be included in the story.

Why do you use a UI from a third party?
What do you think devs need to keep in mind when designing game UIs?
What do you think is the best third-party UI for EQII and why?

Thanks. As the community, your opinion is valued. I don't mind the new EQII UI at all, think it is streamlined and convenient, but figure there may be many others that do not care for it. So I'm trying to go to the folks that play the games and know what they want.

1) As a raid healer in Eq2 I find that having a UI like ProfitUI in indespensible. With click to cure, click to heal, condensed and minimized screen clutter, and the ability to modify these for my personal needs I just can't run with out them.

2) As stated above - Consult the players, keep in mind that not everyone that has a great UI idea is a programmer with years of experiance. I am working at learning the system that S.O.E. uses now and find it to be moderately hard even given the fact that I have studied some code. With a slightly better system in place they may find the number of subscribers increasing as this is definately the I gotta have it my way generation

3)At current I would have to lean to ProfitUI as I find it the most versatile, fastest, and with the best overall appearance. I do have to mention that it is not for everyone and that DrumsUI and FetishUI are both excellent in thier own. I could write a story a mile long just comparing the pros and cons of these 3 alone lol.

I hope this helps
Maozem

**lordebon** · #6 08-19-2010, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyrwolf

Why do you use a UI from a third party?
What do you think devs need to keep in mind when designing game UIs?
What do you think is the best third-party UI for EQII and why?

Re #1: Because it lets me eliminate dead space / excess and put information where I want it. It also lets me use features not found in the default UI. Although people swear by it, I don't actually use click-to-cure, I use a set of macros with hotkeys that is faster. But there are other features not found in the default that I do use.

Re #2: Customization is king. Give players the tools to customize their UI, and more importantly (and here is where EQ2 is lacking) make it easy to apply custom UIs. It doesn't have to necessarily be easy to make UI customizations (although it is nice for some things), but making it easy for people to apply already-made custom UIs is important. Make the custom UI experience part of the game itself.

Re #3: I prefer Fetish Nightfall. I don't care for Profit's appearance and how it does some things, while Fetish I like pretty much out of the box. It's clean with minimal wasted space and offers some power-tools for advanced users.