SE:V, I'll be honest

[Cube]

Whoever designed the SE4 UI needs to come back and work on SE5. As it stands now, the interface is much too cluttered and busy, i.e. too many visual elements and no distinct organizational layout.

The SE4 UI had a minimalist technical feel and out-of-your-way quality that presented the game perfectly. It also had a cohesive graphical motif that gave it a palpable professionalism.

As SE5 stands at the moment (with its Starcraft command interface and OS X menu dock), it looks like someone just installed a badly designed WindowBlinds theme from 1998.

[Ludd]

Cube said:
the interface is much too cluttered and busy, i.e. too many visual elements and no distinct organizational layout.

The SE4 UI had a minimalist technical feel and out-of-your-way quality that presented the game perfectly. It also had a cohesive graphical motif that gave it a palpable professionalism.

I agree completely. SEIV was elegant in its design, SEV, unfortunately, is not.

I will still be buying it though.

[Raapys]

Actually, I'd have to say I love MoO3's way of dealing with colony/empire related options. I find the only thing I'm really micromanaging is when I want to have some ships ready fast, at which point I put a few of my best colonies to produce my desired ships only. There's some minor issues with the computer being slow to build the latest ship factories and the way the computer *always* build troops, etc. If you've set up your development plans nicely, you'll find that the AI actually make surprisingly intelligent choices when it decides on which DEA's to develop and such, though.

And AI competence aside, I really like the way the whole thing is set up and connected in the game(research, economics, planet development). There's obviously huge room for improvement, and the game is only half-done, but they really managed to set it apart from the regular micromanagement 4x games, bringing a far more epic feel to it. With the right hacked-exe patches and mods it's actually great fun.

Bump on the SEIV interface vs SEV's. Doubtful something like a major interface change will be done in a patch, though.

[eddieballgame]

Do I see MOO3 making a come back? With the last patch, mods, moddabilty, & STABILITY. This game (in my opinion) should be considered a classic. Alas, such is not the case, but the game does have a "feel" like no other.

[tmcc]

Regarding the designer of the SEIV UI vs that for SEV I am pretty darn sure that they are one in the same.

[AAshbery76]

I found the UI of SEIV took an hour or so to get used,I see no diffence in the SEV UI, apart from it looking 5 times nicer graphicly.

[Ludd]

SEIV look with SEV game improvements.

The perfect game game for me.

[Possum]

Cube said:
Whoever designed the SE4 UI needs to come back and work on SE5. As it stands now, the interface is much too cluttered and busy, i.e. too many visual elements and no distinct organizational layout.

The SE4 UI had a minimalist technical feel and out-of-your-way quality that presented the game perfectly. It also had a cohesive graphical motif that gave it a palpable professionalism.

As SE5 stands at the moment (with its Starcraft command interface and OS X menu dock), it looks like someone just installed a badly designed WindowBlinds theme from 1998.

Hear him! Thank you for articulating what I hadn't the wit to say for myself

[Thermodyne]

Well here is my two cents. The UI is clumsy and ruins the game play. This version will have a hard time fitting into slot 5 of the SE saga. It is missing that special something that the other versions had. With 2 and 3, I spent hours and hours playing in the beginning. With 4 it took a little longer to warm up to, but was still an evolution of the series. This one looks like/plays like a knock off. IMHO we have traded game strategy for eye candy. For those of us who loved SE3, this is quite a ways off the path. I wish MM all the best and I hope the game sells well, but as it is now, I don’t think this will be my cup of tea.

PS:

I was going to skip this part, but the days that I have the energy to post are too few of late.

I have to wonder as to the direction that the SE series is taking. It is becoming less of a strategy game and more of a FX game with each new version. I am left wondering who has the greatest amount of influence on the evolution of the game.

[President_Elect_Shang]

So many bugs, UI lost me totally; I wasn't even sure if this was SE or a cheap knock-off by a no-name company. I will wait to see if later patches clean it up. Presently there is no way I would spend my money on a game that comes across as a cheap attempt at mass market appeal which has fallen way short.

This sort of reminds me of Metallica with their drive towards mass market appeal. They have a few good songs in the present but the past was clearly superior.