SE5: GUI design discussion..

[David E. Gervais]

Primitive, don't be afread to say the whole saying.. "Keep it simple, stupid!" I am one of the few remaining people on this earth that still makes extensive use of this philosophy. That's probably why I find it hard to find work in the industry. The current status quo in the industry is "Complicated works!, Dazzle them with an over abundance of useless eye-candy and they will be drawn to it like a moth to flame!" and another phrase that can be extruded from the current industry is "Gameplay is a thing of the past, leave it to the archioligists and retro-gammers." Today a game only has to be good enough to incite people to buy it, having a game good enough to 'play' is secondary and not really necessary to ensure sales. All you need is a game with a little potential and the promise of a patch to make it the best game ever! In support of this theory, I dare you to name a single game that has been released in the past 5 years that has not had a patch released following the release of the game.

But I digress. Like I said I'm a deciple of the KISS philosophy and have been all my computing life!

Oh, and IMHO Malfador Machinations have released game 'upgrades/tweaks' and mistakenly called them 'patches'! So I give them an exemption from any association with the 'evil patches'

Cheers!

[Gryphin]

David,
I agree and I think the other expression that applys is:
“If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle the with bull *****, I mean cow manure”
The only other games I have been as satisfyed with are Empire Deluxe and CIV II.
The GUI's on both of those were easyier but the games were less sophisticated / deep / complicated.

[Suicide Junkie]

In support of this theory, I dare you to name a single game that has been released in the past 5 years that has not had a patch released following the release of the game.

Well, just about any console game, simply because they can't be patched

[Pax]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
For one example, I'm designing a new 'visual tech-tree' for the 'Research' window. I'm aiming along the lines of a flow-chart type layout, but also have a few 'different' things that I might try. Do you think this might be a good thing?

YES.

Absolutely. Further, a smaller window, so that if you click on a given advance / tech level, you get a list of the benefits.

Possibly highlight all the lines leading form that advance's prerequisites, and the lines leading TO everything that advance is a prerequisite FOR.

Alternately, you should look at Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri game; the Datalinks segment dealing with technology advances (and the resultant facilities and vehicle parts / abilities) might be a good source of inspiration for presentation of information, and depth of crosslinkage.

On another issue -- I'd love to see Build, Research,and Covert-Ops queues all use the SAME mechanic. Return to the days of being able to build more than ONE thing at a given spaceyard at once ... at the cost of overall speed.

However, I'd like to see slider bars used as well; perhaps instead of "divide evenly", assign SPECIFIC percentages of available effort/resources, to each item in the queu; for Covert operations, referring to the SE4 model, this would mean you could assign 1% to your Counter-intel, and 99% divided up among various offensive projects ...

For spaceyards, you could have one yard building troops, mines, fighters, and starships. 5% for troops, 5% for mines, 25% for fighters, and 65% for starships (and if your ships' design costs little enough, you might still be pushing one out the doors every turn).

Also, using the Research and Intel queues from SE4 as a basic model ... this owuld allow "Carry over" of available spaceyard capacity form project to project. So if you spaceyard takes 80% of it's capacity to build X que item, and you have that item set to repeat ... in four turns, you have built FIVE of them (rather than the currentmodel, where you build FOUR of them ... spending time IDLE each turn).

I know this isn't all a GUI issue (the carryover), but the two are tied closely together, since it involves using a SINGLE interface for ALL Queues. 8)

Thanks for taking the time to seek input from the community!

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Well, just about any console game, simply because they can't be patched

Oh, you're quick SJ! I can tell you like to think outside the box, and that's a very good thing!

Cheers!

[Fyron]

Dazzle them with an over abundance of useless eye-candy and they will be drawn to it like a moth to flame!" and another phrase that can be extruded from the current industry is "Gameplay is a thing of the past, leave it to the archioligists and retro-gammers."

This is the opposite of everything MM has ever done.

Also there should be several "main-screens", as someone already have suggested.
1: Building view (or something). Shows the system (without ships) and have information about all facilities and construction going on ( I especially miss an easy available list of systemwide facilities).
2: Movement view (or something). Shows ships and waypoints ++. Easy access to fleet information, easy navigation between systems.
3: Colonization View
4: ?

That would be bad and would create much unnecessary clutter.

[ February 24, 2003, 00:30: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[primitive]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That would be bad and would create much unnecessary clutter.[/QB]

And why would that clutter Fyron ?
Do you ever give ship orders and construction orders at the same time ?

Too separate the screens will free up space to make valuable information available. To push a button to toggle between screens is really not a whole lot of work.