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RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:24:17 PM

Yank

Posts: 175
Joined: 5/19/2004
From: Boston, MA
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I haven't read through this whole thread, so maybe I'm restating somebody else's point but I'm not sure what people expect. If most of the complaints are over how information is presented, I'm not sure I get the compliants. There is simply a vast amount of information to absorb no matter how well it is presented. You've just got a lot of time needed to sift through it and make decisions. I think the information availability is just fine, and some of the other touches like sortable column headings are excellent.

I'm always able to find what I need via the interface fairly easily. It just takes time to absorb the voume of what is there.

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(in reply to nihilimus)

Post #: 61

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:29:39 PM

riverbravo

Posts: 1320
Joined: 1/16/2003
From: Bay St Louis Ms.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yank

I haven't read through this whole thread, so maybe I'm restating somebody else's point but I'm not sure what people expect. If most of the complaints are over how information is presented, I'm not sure I get the compliants. There is simply a vast amount of information to absorb no matter how well it is presented. You've just got a lot of time needed to sift through it and make decisions. I think the information availability is just fine, and some of the other touches like sortable column headings are excellent.

I'm always able to find what I need via the interface fairly easily. It just takes time to absorb the voume of what is there.

I agree,with a game like this its best to take youre time and make sure youre moves sink in and you remember them.

What was TF 1167 going to do again?

Some things could be simplified but its far from being "tough to use".Once you get a grip you will start moving along pretty well.

_____________________________

I laugh at hurricanes!

(in reply to Yank)

Post #: 62

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:32:45 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yank

I haven't read through this whole thread, so maybe I'm restating somebody else's point but I'm not sure what people expect. If most of the complaints are over how information is presented, I'm not sure I get the compliants. There is simply a vast amount of information to absorb no matter how well it is presented. You've just got a lot of time needed to sift through it and make decisions. I think the information availability is just fine, and some of the other touches like sortable column headings are excellent.

I'm always able to find what I need via the interface fairly easily. It just takes time to absorb the voume of what is there.

The soritng and filtering is a VAST improvemet over UV. I wish I could "sub-sort" some though. Say something like filter to just AK's and then within that sort by tonnage and then base or by base then tonnage. Maybe even some general, configurable user preferences where can adjust list sorting defaults or have the game remember our last time in the list. For instance, I like to always sort my base units by type of unit first and then, if I could, by assault value. I always have to re-sort every time. It would be nice if I could tell the game I always like to see my lists sorted in my favorite way....

< Message edited by ZOOMIE1980 -- 7/26/2004 4:33:28 PM >

(in reply to Yank)

Post #: 63

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:35:03 PM

UncleBuck

Posts: 633
Joined: 10/31/2003
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Status: offline

Yes I played UV. But I still believe my opinion to be just a valid as yours. I said it is intuitive not friendly. It is intuitive, in that you ant to look at ships you hit the Port button, and then follow the buttons there. You want planes the Airfield icon etc. I deal with lots of electronic test equipment with many menus on "Soft keys" and this is much more intuitive than that. This is just not user friendly with how you achieve what you want to do. It is intuitive once you get into the menu.

UB

(in reply to Panzer76)

Post #: 64

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:36:35 PM

WhoCares

Posts: 653
Joined: 7/6/2004
Status: offline

You must have played to much UV

As someone completely new to all this (except a short period of PacWar) I see a lot of possible improvement in the interface.
Generally, there could be more interconectivity between various screens. When I check the ships in a port, why do I have to leave this screen, go to the base screen and only there I can create a new TF? Is it such a uncommon act to check the available ships first and then create a TF???

Yesterday, playing with the first (actually the second after the historical first turn) turn for Japan, I had this one land unit 100% prep'ed for Naga (sp?). Now, as somebody who doesn't know each and every location - where the **** is Naga??? Wouldn't it be nice, just to click (maybe right-click) the name and get teleported to that location???

It is very nice to highlight with red, if an airgroup is on a night mission - but why don't you mark all those airgroups in all the lists they might appear (base/carrier, all LBA,...) directly in red?

The Info screen would be of so much more use, if you could manage your production right from there. Why can't you click on a town and manage its production from there - even better make the numbers in the columns interactive, directly opening the HI screen of the respective town when you click on its number.

OPS and SIGINT should also be interactive. And a report like "XYZ Babs has taken a photo of 24,43" or "XYZ Babs has taken a photo of ABC Chinese Corps" doesn't really help you much. It should show a combination of both "XYZ Babs has taken a photo of ABC Chinese Corps at 24,43"

stopping now or I won't do anything else for the rest of the day...

I guess the main problem that leads to bad interfaces is, that they are reviewed by regular user, in this case, the designers themself and regular UV players. Instead, they should be reviewed by people like me, as we like to call them in Germany "DAU"s (Duemmster Anzunehmender User ~ dumbest assumable user).

Problably for the next game, the designers might hire their wifes, lock them into an office for a week, and collect all the feedback. Drawback would be, that the designers would have to make the laundry and handle the kids all on their own

< Message edited by WhoCares -- 8/2/2004 4:52:03 PM >

(in reply to UncleBuck)

Post #: 65

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:38:16 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: riverbravo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yank

I haven't read through this whole thread, so maybe I'm restating somebody else's point but I'm not sure what people expect. If most of the complaints are over how information is presented, I'm not sure I get the compliants. There is simply a vast amount of information to absorb no matter how well it is presented. You've just got a lot of time needed to sift through it and make decisions. I think the information availability is just fine, and some of the other touches like sortable column headings are excellent.

I'm always able to find what I need via the interface fairly easily. It just takes time to absorb the voume of what is there.

I agree,with a game like this its best to take youre time and make sure youre moves sink in and you remember them.

What was TF 1167 going to do again?

Some things could be simplified but its far from being "tough to use".Once you get a grip you will start moving along pretty well.

The auto-convoy stuff is messy for me. I'm about six weeks into the the big scenario playing Japan vs AI. I have my auto-convoy system set up but the map has become almost impossibly cluttered! Hard to pick out my human controlled TF's by just looking at the map. Be nice if we could filter the map to show just human controlled TF's and also hide the subs. I have 150 TF's running around my map, but trying to find that human controlled 4 AP troop transport going from Saigon to Borneo in the mess is problematic. I'm sure there is a way using the active TF list and filters and such, but I have yet to master the TF overload...

(in reply to riverbravo)

Post #: 66

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:48:28 PM

Panzer76

Posts: 68
Joined: 7/6/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: riverbravo
Its kind of a catch 22.
With a game this size not everything will be a click away.

Never asked for that :) But, by JUST enabling right mouse button, you could cut down the clicking significantly. You know, for the most common operations. This is the stuff Im talking about.

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Cheers,
Panzer

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either."

Benjamin Franklin

(in reply to riverbravo)

Post #: 67

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:49:28 PM

Damien Thorn

Posts: 1107
Joined: 7/24/2003
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Once again, I think it would be preferable if the game interface worked exactly like a standard Windows application written to Microsoft's User Interface Standards. Standard dialog buttons (like Ok and Cancel/Exit) in standard and CONSISTANT locations. Windows standard mousing, list paging, item selection, etc. Standard Windows menubar, toolbar, statusbar widgets.

Yuck! Who wants to play agame that looks like a spreadsheet? I once played a game that ran on windows 3.1 and I never got the feeling that I was in a game. It always felt like a program but never like a game. I guess I wasn't alone in hating it because no company makes games that look like windows. People don't want to think about spreadsheets and word processers when they play their games.

quote:

We all work in Windows in our daily work lives,

...and that's why we don't want to see them in our games.

The UI could be improved in many ways but making the game look like windows isn't one of them.

(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 68

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:50:56 PM

carnifex

Posts: 1295
Joined: 7/1/2002
From: Latitude 40� 48' 43N Longtitude 74� 7' 29W
Status: offline

I like the game, but I hate the interface.

The interface will be main reason I will get tired of this game. Too much clicking to perform totally routine actions.

This weekend a friend asked me about WITP. I showed him the game play, and he looked interested. But in all fairness I had to show him just how many damn clicks it takes to get through a turn. His face fell. He said, and I quote, "What is this? Nineteen Ninety?".

Don't get me wrong, like I said, I really like this game and I spent almost the whole weekend having my transports blown all to hell all around the Dutch Indies. But truthfully I cannot recommend this game to any of my friends without showing them explicitly just how much WORK is involved in the PLAY.

(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 69

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:51:55 PM

Mr.Frag

Posts: 13410
Joined: 12/18/2002
From: Purgatory
Status: offline

quote:

Hard to pick out my human controlled TF's by just looking at the map.

Instead of inventing complaints, how about following the RTFM! process.

F2 key.

(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 70

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:57:09 PM

The Gnome

Posts: 1233
Joined: 5/17/2002
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: carnifex

I like the game, but I hate the interface.

The interface will be main reason I will get tired of this game. Too much clicking to perform totally routine actions.

This weekend a friend asked me about WITP. I showed him the game play, and he looked interested. But in all fairness I had to show him just how many damn clicks it takes to get through a turn. His face fell. He said, and I quote, "What is this? Nineteen Ninety?".

Don't get me wrong, like I said, I really like this game and I spent almost the whole weekend having my transports blown all to hell all around the Dutch Indies. But truthfully I cannot recommend this game to any of my friends without showing them explicitly just how much WORK is involved in the PLAY.

I couldn't have stated it better myself. I LOVE this game, but I have to fight away the thought of "wow imagine how this could be with a good interface" in order to keep moral up. I suppose there was only so much time do get the game coded and running.

(in reply to carnifex)

Post #: 71

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:57:32 PM

Panzer76

Posts: 68
Joined: 7/6/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: UncleBuck
Yes I played UV. But I still believe my opinion to be just a valid as yours. I said it is intuitive not friendly. It is intuitive, in that you ant to look at ships you hit the Port button, and then follow the buttons there. You want planes the Airfield icon etc. I deal with lots of electronic test equipment with many menus on "Soft keys" and this is much more intuitive than that. This is just not user friendly with how you achieve what you want to do. It is intuitive once you get into the menu.
UB

I did not imply that my opinion was more "valuable" than yours, and Im sorry if it came across as such. What I meant was that new players should be the real testers of how good or bad the UI is, not UV veterans. What UV veterans thinks are "intuitive" may make no sense to new players.

_____________________________

Cheers,
Panzer

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either."

Benjamin Franklin

(in reply to UncleBuck)

Post #: 72

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 6:59:48 PM

mogami

Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
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"This weekend a friend asked me about WITP. I showed him the game play, and he looked interested. But in all fairness I had to show him just how many damn clicks it takes to get through a turn. His face fell. He said, and I quote, "What is this? Nineteen Ninety?".

HI, I recall Joel Billings once posted that GG still writes in 1990 code and the other programmers have to try to modernize it. He admitted this but pointed out the choice was 1990 or nothing since GG did not write in 2004 code.

(I think the staffs involved in the actual war would have been delighted to find they could run ther entire war operations with so few clicks and in so little time. In 1990 had I WITP rather then Pacific War I would have fainted. Since after all WITP for me in any case is the long waited for upgrade I never looked for it to "modernize" so much as for it to fill in the holes and expand the scope. This it does. Most of the games I play are old so I at least do not notice the "clunky" interface. It's what I have always been used to in wargames. I had a spot of trouble during testing when a minor default changed. (TF commander selection default switch from senior ship captain to Admiral unless you first selected no Auto leadrs. I constantly formed TF with Vice Admiral in command of TF with 3 MSW. Finally I had to request the default be change to "No auto select" so if I wanted a senior officer in comand I had to request one. I never could adjust to this minor change because I had learned the system the other way and it was second nature to me.
So I don't deny the current interface has weakness. Only I don't notice them because using it has become so natural for me. If I had now to adapt to a new interface it might cause me problems exactly the same as those of you used to the newer methods go through trying to use these old systems.

< Message edited by Mogami -- 7/26/2004 12:13:29 PM >

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Post #: 73

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:11:00 PM

Panzer76

Posts: 68
Joined: 7/6/2004
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And lets be honest guys, this togheter with poor gfx is the "problem" of war games. The typical devoted grognard turned game desginer has "zero" (hihi, pun intended) knowledge about almost anything else than the data, ie, historical correctness.

This was "fine" a number of years ago, when computer games was not big business, and war games even a smaller niche. But, in 2004... there really are no excuses.

_____________________________

Cheers,
Panzer

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either."

Benjamin Franklin

(in reply to mogami)

Post #: 74

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:17:02 PM

Captain Cruft

Posts: 3652
Joined: 3/17/2004
From: England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami
He admitted this but pointed out the choice was 1990 or nothing since GG did not write in 2004 code.

OK well can we have some old-fashioned 1990s procedural keyboard shortcuts back then please?

I never played PacWar much but did spend some time with WiR (basically the same interface). Yes it was clunky but once you learnt the KEYS it was pretty much super quick to use. WitP will never be like that because it is 95% mouse-driven.

I can't emphasise this enough, just because you have a GUI doesn't mean you don't use the keyboard.

< Message edited by Captain Cruft -- 7/26/2004 5:18:54 PM >

(in reply to mogami)

Post #: 75

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:20:35 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Damien Thorn

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Once again, I think it would be preferable if the game interface worked exactly like a standard Windows application written to Microsoft's User Interface Standards. Standard dialog buttons (like Ok and Cancel/Exit) in standard and CONSISTANT locations. Windows standard mousing, list paging, item selection, etc. Standard Windows menubar, toolbar, statusbar widgets.

Yuck! Who wants to play agame that looks like a spreadsheet? I once played a game that ran on windows 3.1 and I never got the feeling that I was in a game. It always felt like a program but never like a game. I guess I wasn't alone in hating it because no company makes games that look like windows. People don't want to think about spreadsheets and word processers when they play their games.

quote:

We all work in Windows in our daily work lives,

...and that's why we don't want to see them in our games.

The UI could be improved in many ways but making the game look like windows isn't one of them.

I disagree almost totally. We aren't talking about something looking like PowerPoint or Visio, at all. All those Panzer General genre games like Eastern Front, etc... were pure WIN32 apps with familiar menuing, dialog controls, and so on. But they used exetensive background brushing and ownerdrawn controls, to give a VERY game-like appearance, yet retained the highly functional standard Windows UI's. One of the single most popular turn based wargames in the 90's, Empire, was a 100% standard Windows interface. I have several recent war-games that are all standard Windows apps with standard UI widgets, just painted up real pretty. Hell, even Civ II and Civ-III, and all those SIMS were 100% PURE Windows UI's underneath. I think both were even written using MFC because they put the Visual C and MFC runtime dlls on your box if you didn't have them!

Things like bitmap buttons, textured list and dialog backgrounds complete with complex graphical elemets are ALL quite common, but they are still standard WIN32 GUI widgets.

And why waste so much programming man-hours debugging and proofing a home-grown UI and all its complexity and event management, when standard, usable, raock-solid and FREE Windows GUI toolkits are there for the taking! And many are CROSS-PLATFORM, meaning your game will run on Macs as well with nothing more than a cross compile and will present to a MAC user in a familiar MAC-like interface???

No brainer, IMHO.

(in reply to Damien Thorn)

Post #: 76

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:23:31 PM

dinsdale

Posts: 384
Joined: 5/1/2003
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzer76

And lets be honest guys, this togheter with poor gfx is the "problem" of war games. The typical devoted grognard turned game desginer has "zero" (hihi, pun intended) knowledge about almost anything else than the data, ie, historical correctness.

This was "fine" a number of years ago, when computer games was not big business, and war games even a smaller niche. But, in 2004... there really are no excuses.

You're absolutely right, and from reading the thread I would extend it and say that the typical grognard gamer will not let an interface stop them from playing, and given the choice of a better interface at the expense of other features would balk at such a change.

Just as predictable as a game having a bad interface is the flood of "it's all right " posts from all involved whenever the subject is brought up.

(in reply to Panzer76)

Post #: 77

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:24:52 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

Hard to pick out my human controlled TF's by just looking at the map.

Instead of inventing complaints, how about following the RTFM! process.

F2 key.

And where in the manual is that? Somewhere buried in the 250 pages I guess? The game's depth and complexity are its greatest strength and at the same time, it's greates weakness. It has the learning curve of an HP Openview/Prognosis/Tivoli....

And realize most of us have not spent every waking hour of our free time for the past two friggin' years learning every little nuance of the game.

Get life, Fraggo, you desparately NEED one.

(in reply to Mr.Frag)

Post #: 78

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:29:34 PM

Ron Saueracker

Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline

Phssssst, phsssssst!

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(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 79

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:34:53 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

"This weekend a friend asked me about WITP. I showed him the game play, and he looked interested. But in all fairness I had to show him just how many damn clicks it takes to get through a turn. His face fell. He said, and I quote, "What is this? Nineteen Ninety?".

HI, I recall Joel Billings once posted that GG still writes in 1990 code and the other programmers have to try to modernize it. He admitted this but pointed out the choice was 1990 or nothing since GG did not write in 2004 code.

(I think the staffs involved in the actual war would have been delighted to find they could run ther entire war operations with so few clicks and in so little time. In 1990 had I WITP rather then Pacific War I would have fainted. Since after all WITP for me in any case is the long waited for upgrade I never looked for it to "modernize" so much as for it to fill in the holes and expand the scope. This it does. Most of the games I play are old so I at least do not notice the "clunky" interface. It's what I have always been used to in wargames. I had a spot of trouble during testing when a minor default changed. (TF commander selection default switch from senior ship captain to Admiral unless you first selected no Auto leadrs. I constantly formed TF with Vice Admiral in command of TF with 3 MSW. Finally I had to request the default be change to "No auto select" so if I wanted a senior officer in comand I had to request one. I never could adjust to this minor change because I had learned the system the other way and it was second nature to me.
So I don't deny the current interface has weakness. Only I don't notice them because using it has become so natural for me. If I had now to adapt to a new interface it might cause me problems exactly the same as those of you used to the newer methods go through trying to use these old systems.

Well, see. There's a critical errant high level management error right there. Letting a hide-bound old-fart dictate application development and coding standards. This is the 21st century. In this century we use object-oriented design and emphasize stability and reusability of code through things like inhertitance and flexibility though concepts like polymorphism, all designed to shorten the development life-cycle, enhance stability, diminish the maintenance and modification headaches and bottom line, put out higher quality software with much less lifetime cost.

Any one partnering with Gary in the future best make sure they keep him completely away from the programming side of the house and let him do what he does best.

(in reply to mogami)

Post #: 80

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:36:37 PM

Mr.Frag

Posts: 13410
Joined: 12/18/2002
From: Purgatory
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

Hard to pick out my human controlled TF's by just looking at the map.

Instead of inventing complaints, how about following the RTFM! process.

F2 key.

And where in the manual is that? Somewhere buried in the 250 pages I guess? The game's depth and complexity are its greatest strength and at the same time, it's greates weakness. It has the learning curve of an HP Openview/Prognosis/Tivoli....

And realize most of us have not spent every waking hour of our free time for the past two friggin' years learning every little nuance of the game.

Get life, Fraggo, you desparately NEED one.

I'm sorry you are not capable of making it to page 13 of the 200+ pages ... they put it right at the front of the manual, but like everything else in life, you are too busy whining about it and spouting off how good you are to look.

(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 81

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:49:01 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzer76

And lets be honest guys, this togheter with poor gfx is the "problem" of war games. The typical devoted grognard turned game desginer has "zero" (hihi, pun intended) knowledge about almost anything else than the data, ie, historical correctness.

This was "fine" a number of years ago, when computer games was not big business, and war games even a smaller niche. But, in 2004... there really are no excuses.

You're absolutely right, and from reading the thread I would extend it and say that the typical grognard gamer will not let an interface stop them from playing, and given the choice of a better interface at the expense of other features would balk at such a change.

Just as predictable as a game having a bad interface is the flood of "it's all right " posts from all involved whenever the subject is brought up.

Appears we now have two "do not tresspass" areas that the support staff gets defensive about in a hurry. AI and now UI.

The game is VERY good. But it is what it is. Most of these comments are for Matrix and staff/partners to digest for the next round of new title launches, not for this one. I'm still confilicted about whether scaling a UV game to this one was a "good" thing. I get the feeling that they attempted a project requiring a "quantum physics" solution but tried to get there using a "classical physics" approach... And I have yet to decide if they suceeded.

(in reply to dinsdale)

Post #: 82

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:53:40 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

Hard to pick out my human controlled TF's by just looking at the map.

Instead of inventing complaints, how about following the RTFM! process.

F2 key.

And where in the manual is that? Somewhere buried in the 250 pages I guess? The game's depth and complexity are its greatest strength and at the same time, it's greates weakness. It has the learning curve of an HP Openview/Prognosis/Tivoli....

And realize most of us have not spent every waking hour of our free time for the past two friggin' years learning every little nuance of the game.

Get life, Fraggo, you desparately NEED one.

I'm sorry you are not capable of making it to page 13 of the 200+ pages ... they put it right at the front of the manual, but like everything else in life, you are too busy whining about it and spouting off how good you are to look.

No, like most everyone else here, I have a life outside of WitP, that prevents me committing 200+ pages of a game manual to memory. I imagine, a month into this game, what I don't know VASTLY outweighs what I do know about this game. And I expect that may be the case for long time to come, as well. I appreciate now knowing how to filter my map display, but regardless, take your smartassed RTFM comments and stick them in a warm dark place....

And yes, expect the complaints (what few I actually have) to continue.... It is what the forum is for in case you haven't realized it.

< Message edited by ZOOMIE1980 -- 7/26/2004 5:54:23 PM >

(in reply to Mr.Frag)

Post #: 83

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 7:59:09 PM

barbarrossa

Posts: 359
Joined: 3/25/2004
From: Shangri-La
Status: offline

well I for one have no life....but I still haven't RTFM!

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(in reply to ZOOMIE1980)

Post #: 84

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:15:22 PM

Marc von Martial

Posts: 10875
Joined: 1/4/2001
From: Bonn, Germany
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Damien Thorn

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Once again, I think it would be preferable if the game interface worked exactly like a standard Windows application written to Microsoft's User Interface Standards. Standard dialog buttons (like Ok and Cancel/Exit) in standard and CONSISTANT locations. Windows standard mousing, list paging, item selection, etc. Standard Windows menubar, toolbar, statusbar widgets.

Yuck! Who wants to play agame that looks like a spreadsheet? I once played a game that ran on windows 3.1 and I never got the feeling that I was in a game. It always felt like a program but never like a game. I guess I wasn't alone in hating it because no company makes games that look like windows. People don't want to think about spreadsheets and word processers when they play their games.

quote:

We all work in Windows in our daily work lives,

...and that's why we don't want to see them in our games.

The UI could be improved in many ways but making the game look like windows isn't one of them.

[image]http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/micons/m6.gif [/image]

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Post #: 85

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:15:48 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami
He admitted this but pointed out the choice was 1990 or nothing since GG did not write in 2004 code.

OK well can we have some old-fashioned 1990s procedural keyboard shortcuts back then please?

I never played PacWar much but did spend some time with WiR (basically the same interface). Yes it was clunky but once you learnt the KEYS it was pretty much super quick to use. WitP will never be like that because it is 95% mouse-driven.

I can't emphasise this enough, just because you have a GUI doesn't mean you don't use the keyboard.

Good point. Ctrl-<whatever> to do what a series of mouse-clicks might otherwise do. In standard Windows app development you usually have a large hierarchy of menus, sub-menus and sub-sub-menues or a series of dialogs to get to what you want to do. You then usually have an array of toolbar tools to use as shortcuts to the more common tasks. But you also have corresponding keyboard shortcuts. Newbies will use the mouse almost exclusively and then some of the toolbar tools, but experts almost always resort to keyboard shortcuts.

And I should be able select items in a list using the Windows standard up or down arrow and spacebar punch and hopefully even have a select-all option (and a keyboard short-cut to boot). Bottom line, ideally, one should not have to use the mouse at all if they don't want to....

(in reply to Captain Cruft)

Post #: 86

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:20:05 PM

ZOOMIE1980

Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

quote:

ORIGINAL: Damien Thorn

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Once again, I think it would be preferable if the game interface worked exactly like a standard Windows application written to Microsoft's User Interface Standards. Standard dialog buttons (like Ok and Cancel/Exit) in standard and CONSISTANT locations. Windows standard mousing, list paging, item selection, etc. Standard Windows menubar, toolbar, statusbar widgets.

Yuck! Who wants to play agame that looks like a spreadsheet? I once played a game that ran on windows 3.1 and I never got the feeling that I was in a game. It always felt like a program but never like a game. I guess I wasn't alone in hating it because no company makes games that look like windows. People don't want to think about spreadsheets and word processers when they play their games.

quote:

We all work in Windows in our daily work lives,

...and that's why we don't want to see them in our games.

The UI could be improved in many ways but making the game look like windows isn't one of them.

[image]http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/micons/m6.gif [/image]

Did Eastern Front look like Windows? Did Panzer General look like Windows? Did Civilization look like Windows? Does SIM City look like Windows? Does Microsoft Flight Simulator look like Windows? All are native WIN32 applications with standard Windows UI widgets under the covers. Get my drift here??? Once again, it doesn't have to look like Microsoft Excel to use a standard WIN32 UI.

Have any of you guys ever developed something other than a game???? Seems like you guys need an infusion of ideas from outside your collective "box".

(in reply to Marc von Martial)

Post #: 87

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:24:43 PM

Marc von Martial

Posts: 10875
Joined: 1/4/2001
From: Bonn, Germany
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Get life, Fraggo, you desparately NEED one.

you are welcome to discuss What you think can be improved or what you think that sucks. But you�r not welcome to insult people here.

Consider this an official warning. More insults and you�ll find yourself on a 2 week vacation.

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Post #: 88

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:28:00 PM

Marc von Martial

Posts: 10875
Joined: 1/4/2001
From: Bonn, Germany
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

Did Eastern Front look like Windows?

Have any of you guys ever developed something other than a game???? Seems like you guys need an infusion of ideas from outside your collective "box".

Yes and it turned me off, believe it or not. Not to mention the nice changes your normal Windows GUI suffered from CTDs of this applications.

No I never "developed" something else then a game, actually I only develop graphics for them. But I also not tell my software application developing coder buddies how much cooler there business applications could look like. Because I never developed one of that.

But to make you happy, we currently have two projects that are based on the Windows GUI. For both of them it�s very boring to develop interface graphics for ........

< Message edited by Marc Schwanebeck -- 7/27/2004 1:31:48 AM >

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Post #: 89

RE: saddened by poor interface - 7/26/2004 8:33:00 PM

carnifex

Posts: 1295
Joined: 7/1/2002
From: Latitude 40� 48' 43N Longtitude 74� 7' 29W
Status: offline

Yeah baby, INTERFACE THREADS always bring out the very best hostility :)

Non-Interface Thread:

1: My bombers are blah blah blah'
2: You need to yadda yadda....
3: Thanks!

Interface Thread:

1: The widget and the button blah blah blah!
2: I will kill you in real life!
3:....

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Post #: 90

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