Persistent World Rountable: The RPG Interface...

#1 Any RPG I've played (that I played for a long time and enjoyed) had a customizable interface. I could move buttons and windows around all over the place and lay them out however I wanted and attach macros to the buttons, etc. That would be a great addition to any interface I think. Everquest had their GUI customizable via .XML files and that worked great - there are some really wild modifications out there :)

Here's my own personal preferences:

I like to keep things pretty clean and uncluttered, but with everything accessible quick. As for the inventory question, I don't see any pros or cons either way on splitting out the tradeskill items or keeping them in regular inventory. As long as I can get to them easily when I need to use them it works :)

Generally what I like shown on the screen at all times is health/mana/power/whatever critical stat you need to monitor frequently. Then I like a small compass-type window that shows what direction I'm heading and what my location is. Not necessarily a radar, just a simple compass. Any hotkeys that can be cast with a mouse-click or keypress should be on screen at all times. If I have power-ups or buffs (or curses for that matter) active, there should be an icon showing that, but when there's not, there shouldn't necessarily be an empty window blocking the view.

If it's a multiplayer game, the chat window is a must pretty much, but maybe with tabs to separate private chat/public chat/game messages, etc.

Any other windows (target information, pet info, quests, etc.) should be only popped up as needed, with maybe the option to have them off the side of the screen. Horizons allowed that and it was great. Have fairly seldom-used windows off the side of the screen, with only a handle visible, then when you move your mouse over the handle, the window pops out into view.

Anyway, that's my ideas. This could turn out to be a good discussion as I'm sure there are as many different preferences as there are players :)

#2 I like what EQ did when they allowed the interface to be changed through XML. My only gripe with that was that there was no validility testing program to test out new GUIs. Instead it was trial n error until a site came out with some examples and people took off from there.

My preferences to interface are as follows:

1. Must be able to bind any menu to a key. If I want to see a map then I would like a key for it. Not a button. Buttons are nice but I waste time doing the button when a key bind for map would be quicker.

2. Would like all interface objects to have some sort of transperancy to them. Configurable by the user.

3. The ability to have numbers and/or bars to represent my health and whatever else. This includes spawns on the screen that you attack.

That is all I can think about for now but I am sure more will come as the topic gets going.

#3 Josh interface for Minions is pretty much the most uncluttered I have have seen.

But I have to admit tho I liked FFXI online interface a lot and it works with controllers. after you config your controller right I truly get to have a uncluttered view of the world.

If i see something in my line of sight I just clicked a button to highlight and my option window opens up. If I click to deselect the menu goes away again.

Since torque allows you to cast a ray from the eyeview I think a lot of neat functions can be open up if you design a GUI that functions with a bit of real worldness to it.

eg., Whats this in front of me. Ok its a NPC or Monster you can chat, fight, or give something to it.

eg., Whats this in front of me. Ok its a Sword of great busting. You can pick it up.

John H

Edit:

The only other GUI I can think of that I think was simple and efficient was the one Sierra uses with all the graphic games like Hero's quest, Space Quest etc.,

The mouse would be a eye, a mouth,a hand or a sword you just click the mouse button to change into the icon you needed. This would work well with the cast from eyeview thing.

#4 What i would like for the game gui while your playing, is the option to have any menu i like go off the edge of the screen, so for things like inventory, you could just have a tab at the top which you could roll the mouse over, and it comes down.

For representing health of other characters, do you think it is best to have say a box displaying the health or having a floating bar above them?

Also what jonny mentioned about the ray cast from the eyeview got me thinking... what would you prefer, have a right click on something and a menu pops-up, or say when you are looking at something, say a sword, a menu appears in the corner giving you the possible things you can do, like pick up, talk(not to a sword of cause), kill, give etc etc? Or you could have both!

Suppose when it comes to UI's everyone has their personnal likes and dislikes, so the more options you include the better.

#5 I think City of Heroes nailed the user interface and got it right. It's simple. You show/position whatever information windows you want to see and it remembers it. How it's stored is irrelevant but the fact is it's stored for each user in their profile so lets you play the way you want to play. They also made each information window very specific to the function (target window, chat, health, powers, etc.) so you don't have a single window for multiple purposes, although it might be nice to be able to combine them if you were an information whore and wanted to see it all.

#6 @Bill: Yeah they have a pretty good interface. My only gripe is I cannot make the map window transparent at all. If I could change that to something like 30% opacity I would be in heaven.

#7 I've seen a few MMOs that allow you to drag little icons of your abilities out of the gui as sort of hud elements - so that I could have a circle of common combat abilities around my avatar, or some other combination.

I think that being able to easily minimize or hide the entire interface is important (eg. using the tab key in photoshop), as is the ability to assign custom hotkeys.

#8 I'd like to continue on this and get some more feedback on the inventory GUIs.

Do you guys like the idea that when a player right-clicks anywhere, the inventory interface comes up? It seems to be even quicker than a hotkey!

Now, about the options for the items themselves. In the inventory GUI, one option would be that when you click on an item, you get a popup (use, drop, info, etc.)

Another option would be that when you hover, you automatically get a popup with the same options but might seem a little bit Windows-like.

Yet another one (and I know there are probably dozens more) would be double-clicking on an item uses it, right-clicking displays info, while dragging it away from the GUI and into the world drops it.

I'm mostly refering to a 1st or 3rd person RPG. What do you guys think?

Nick

#9

Quote:Do you guys like the idea that when a player right-clicks anywhere, the inventory interface comes up? It seems to be even quicker than a hotkey!

Not a bad idea, thought whether it works or not depends on how much other stuff is going on in your GUI, but it has potential.

Quote:Another option would be that when you hover, you automatically get a popup with the same options but might seem a little bit Windows-like.

For the inventories, this would be nice, as long as it didn't get in the way of any clicks or other mouse interaction with the item under it.

Quote:Now, about the options for the items themselves. In the inventory GUI, one option would be that when you click on an item, you get a popup (use, drop, info, etc.)

Eh, I can go either way on this. Reason being the amount of windows popping up in this GUI setup. You could make a small information area on the inventory screen, and then display the info there. I just worry that if you have that many windows, would it worry the user that they have to get rid of all of them to get back into the fight? That would be a subconscious worry of course, stemming from cluttered Windows desktops, and not necessarily a rational one since you can probably get your inventory windows to all disappear with one-click.

The last list of features sounds all well and good, the standard inventory features. Not bad, and I do like the "hover menu" idea :)

#10 That should be the goal I think. To have a system that is as less cluttered as possible and the ability to perform actions with the fewest clicks possible.

Just wondered what people thought about the idea of using popups, though in a smarter way.
And what about the option of mixing/combining items? At first, it might seem to be a one way solution where all you need to do is drag an item and drop it into another one and see what happens. But that could take away from the fun or gameplay factor since a player would just sit there draging and dropping items left and right!

Nick

#11 "Smart" context menus are a great thing, unless they're overdone of course ;) I'm planning to have a similar menu for interacting with objects in my game, showing a menu of what's available to be done with an object if you right-click on it.

The tradeskill problem is something I haven't yet gotten any ideas on, but I see the same problem. A lot of games make tradeskills seem like an after-thought, where you just drag and drop and there's not much else to it.

I think maybe a system with semi-transparent "plans" appear where you're building something, and you can put the pieces of it in that area and watch the transparency go away, somewhat similar visually to the building of ships in Homeworld(I really loved that effect, and it shows progress as part of the object itself). You can do it with a shader, or playing with textures, etc, but I think that making the object something bigger than an icon in the game is one way to do it.

Another way is something I'm working on which is to split the tradeskill window off from the inventory window. Who puts stuff together in their backpacks, anyway? People should have workbenches that allow them certain amounts of space where they can work easier(bonuses to skills), and mount tools(bonuses when using tools), etc. Workshops where they can create, and use/house larger tools and machines. Doing all that pushes the interface back into the 3D world itself, and makes the GUI just a way to interact with it, instead of making it part of the world like in the present generations of games.

#12 @Ted I really liked that idea of using objects in-game to craft stuff. DTS objects that are specialize to be use for crafting by players.

When a player clicks on the object the Craft GUI opens and you put your materiels in place. Blacksmithing uses a forge object and maybe a anvil
Cooking would be a firestone oven or even a open fire.

Either way you could only make crude stuff without the benefit of tools and proper gear. FF gets away with it because they use MAGIC to make things.

And thinking of how Josh has qualities to different items in MOM, the quality of the equipment will add to the realism of whatever item your trying to create.

John H

#13 I like that idead too guys.

So to combine objects, you would have a Craft GUI but instead of bitmaps you'd use DTS objects with animations right? That would be really nice. But I still need to think about how to combine them in a way that would require the player to "think", instead of just doing trial and error. I think that's important.

And now that I think of it more I like the idea of separating the tradeskill from the inventory but both will still need to be viewable at the same time right?

I'll have to checkout Homeworld too to get an idea of the building of ships.

Nick

#14 @Johnny: Exactly. And beyond that I'm looking to expand the magic in the game to include rituals, which is something I haven't seen yet(it could well be out there). Basically, it's the same "plan-style" set up, but where objects of magical importance(candles, etc) are placed and then the player spends a certain amount of time following a multitude of steps in order to achieve some end. Kind of vague, but being magic, you can have a wide variety of purposes to it, like strong blessings, curses on people who are not in sight, maybe in order to finish some magical ointments or objects, or maybe as part of the crafting process(which would result in a magical weapon, not just one that's enchanted).

When you involve the GUI in gameplay, you get a deeper connection, and hopefully one that's more fun.

@Nick: No, I was thinking of still using icons in the GUI itself, but having the GUI more accuately reflect the way people craft. If you're going to use DTS objects in a GUI, why not do away with the 2D portion of the GUI altogether and have the player craft in-game? That can be done too, and it takes some of the tediousness out of it. My way was something of a hybrid, sort of like having the 3D environment there, but with a 2D GUI to help manage it. Either way, it's a lot better than dragging and dropping icons inside your backpack, which is how it's done now...

#15 I actually really enjoyed NWNs Interface: The radial menu (A center with eight commands steming from it)

What many users over looked was this was binded to the Number pad, and traversing the menu system could be accomplished rapidly.

5 opened and closed the menu. The surrounding keys where binded to the 8 submenus/commands.

You could select a command several levels deep before the menu even had time to be drawn.

This menu was also context based. The radial menu would show the commands available for whatever item had the focus.

However, this is really only an option for those proficient with a 10-key.
Another draw back was your hand could become very tired.
Plus in their system new menu items could appear and mess up the key combonations you had memorized.

But it was very nice.

#16 I played with something similar, though it was more inspired by a combination of menu systems from Maya and SWG. Instead, I'm doing a right-click context sensitive menu. It would probably be easier to have a hotkey for that menu if you already have an object selected.