Karkarov

Personally I am not a fan of episodic content anyway but the reason so many are doing it these days is because it has worked for plenty. The Walking Dead from Telltale was growing rabid fanboys like the plague and it was episodic as it gets. Lionhead Studios even experimented with it on Fable 2 and it did okay at the time. Also I don't know why any of you, or the writer, are latching on Skyrim so much. The fact that he said "use the PE engine" already precludes it from being anything like Skyrim.

I have been playing BG2 recently. I got four words for you. WHAT IN THE HECK! I wish I knew because this same guy in Athkatla screams it out about every 5 minutes it seems like and he doesn't really sound like a professional voice actor doing it. And since that's what 90% of the voice work of Baldur's Gate is.... I find it really funny you guys seem to think you need VA like James Earl Jones or something. I am talking about maybe letting volunteers do some background noise or grunting sounds. Do you really think we need Jack Black for a "UGHHHH!!!" sound bite? You could even have the "free" background stuff just be people reading a script that is normal conversation then they layer it like over 4 other conversations so it just sounds like people talking in a crowd. This is the part that really leaves me scratching my head. Hiring professionals to do voice work is cheaper than someone doing it for you for free? What????

Eh I am far older than the 90's (not that I am a day over 25) and my job pays fine. It is still just a video game though and I don't want to invest in Obsidian I just want to make a decent charitable donation that helps them get this game going.

Oh we know Sensuki. You wouldn't ever be caught on the forum of a company that makes such low quality games as Skyrim and Fallout 3.

Says the guy who told me to get a life because you found my persistence annoying. You also used the "no offense but actually I do mean offense" tactic. Whatever I am, you're just as bad - or worse. I don't find your "persistence" annoying, I find it dumb. You claim I am "ramming my opinion" down peoples throats but I am not the one who created this thread. I am not even the one who linked the last mock up I did in this thread. I supposedly am jonesing for a UI just like Dragon Age and Xcom yet until this post I hadn't mentioned either of those games in this entire thread. In fact what is the one thing I did say in this actual thread that I feel is needed to make the UI satisfy me? The ability to hide the combat log. Well that and avoid the terrible U UI shape that was only ever used because they wanted a click only interface back in 1990 and needed to make room for all the buttons and resolution was too small to allow that otherwise. But please by all means instead of replying to what I just typed go scour the forums looking for other posts from other threads likely from months ago and start cherry picking sentences to take out of context and use those to reply to instead. If you could find a way to confine your reply to only one post this time though I am sure everyone would appreciate it.

I think the issue is that the U ui shape is basically 50% dead space for anyone with a normal modern resolution like 1080 or higher. Additionally people keep assuming "minimalist" means wire frame, NWN 1, or movable boxes for some reason. First off NWN 1 UI is atrocious, it is just plain bad. NWN also is NOT a modern UI, it is just as out dated as BG's UI is. That said there is plenty of room to do something artistic, functional, and also compact with your UI. It is just the loud and in your face forum users don't want to accept that and oppose anything that is different from BG 2 pretty much universally. Which doesn't make them right, or a majority, just really loud. .... Non-Trivial is actually the opposite of Insignificant. Also I don't want a more modern "looking" one. I want a more modern "designed" one.

Like I said in the original thread I don't see why so many people are totally opposed to the idea. It isn't like the game includes sweeping dialog. If people are willing to let obsidian use their voice free for stuff like "ugh arrrrrr I need healing!" and or "get your potions here" level combat grunts/background noise I don't see an issue. That is what most of the VA in the game will actually be according to info released up to this point anyway.

They have said you can play solo if you want but the game will not be designed around the concept and depending on your choices it may be very very hard to near impossible to actually accomplish.

Discussion require civility and mutual respect. Since Sensuki isn't very civil and there is clearly no mutual respect I think it is fairly clear what "this" was. Also the vocal minority is always the last person a designer should listen to. Everyone's opinion should count and has value to a point but when you basically ram your opinion down everyone's throat and admit that you don't care what other people think and feel you are "more important" than other forum users... well... Case in point. My ui mock ups evolved and changed based on feedback from posters. Sensuki's not so much. The fact that you guys have to keep falling back on petty insults and flames to me also speaks volumes.

That article was confusing as all hell and the writer uh... no clue what he is talking about. PC gaming has been dominant for the last few years, I can count the number of console exclusives I have bought in 3 years on one hand. Not the same for PC, and anyone with a good gaming PC will buy PC over console pretty much every time. Triple A console graphics? Until the PS4 came out consoles couldn't exceed 720p, PC gaming has been the best graphics for at least 3-5 years now. Also Skyrim is a PC first game, yes it's UI works well on a controller, that doesn't make the reality that the PC version is ridiculously better than the 360 or mostly broken PS3 version any different. Meanwhile the actual "new kickstarter" is just a bunch of vague ideas and excitement not an actual new kickstarter. *shrug*

It is just an efficiency issue. When you select a character the buttons on the action bar obviously change to reflect the character you have selected. So when you need to do a number of different actions on different characters it is just invariably easier if the action bar is nearer the portraits so there is as little movement as possible while you set up your actions. Puts less strain on the wrist long term, less movement of mouse, and makes it faster to perform. Short term not a big deal but over the course of hundreds of encounters? It adds up.

You sure do go about it in all the wrong ways. Your UI designs are always bad. You never suggest anything progressive that builds on good design changes from games released say.... in the last decade? You always flame and insult anyone who doesn't agree with you. Your opinion always comes down to "remake BG 2". I am sorry but if you were in charge of this game it would be an EXTREME niche product and more than likely go down in burning flames and be critically panned by pretty much everyone other than fanboys of the niche. So you will have to just deal with the fact that I would like a game that looks like it was designed in 2012 not 1994.

I think I will just quote you right back. No offense Sensuki, but I REALLY hope you find something better to do with your time than hunt down posts I made... what 6 months ago???, and repeatedly take them out of context. You seriously need to get a life and learn deal with people not agreeing with you. PS: All Sawyer said was there is no right left split with a gap in the middle. He didn't say it takes the whole bottom. Wait for an actual new mockup before making more assumptions. I won't care as long as the mostly useless combat log can be turned off.

My UI design does not "appeal" to any crowd. I simply designed it to have all the functionality that was available in the Baldur's Gate2 UI but would look nicer, take up less space, be easier to use with less mouse movement, have more options for people who don't value things like the combat log, and meet all the stated design idea's Obsidian cared about in their original UI mockup post. Also Stun, it isn't that your idea doesn't look good. It looks fine. The issue is that with smaller portraits it will be hard to differentiate the two meters at a glance making the UI a little tougher to use. Health tracking needs to be something you can do fast at a glance. Also for any users who might be color blind well... your concept just doesn't work to begin with. The bar would either just look all red or all blue to them. EDIT: While I am thinking about it this is why the bars on the bottom don't work either. Again, the idea is to make health tracking fast and simple so you can do it literally at a glance. The smaller you make the bars the harder you make it to track progress. With the bars vertically oriented you give room for easier to see and subtle changes to the status of the bars so smaller changes can have clear easy to see differences in effect from larger changes. In other words taking 6 stamina damage versus 8 might look the same on the bar if horizontally aligned... but vertically you may see a difference.

Of course when you go into "real chat" a larger central window would show up like in the IE games. However ideally the non conversation chat window with the conversation/combat log could be scaled to be taller, shorter, or just outright hidden if you want. A press of a button could hide it or make it visible, say "L" for Log. Thanks for the compliment as well, I appreciate it.

Pretty sure silver means something over 100.

Sensuki's concern is that way back in the mock up thread Sawyer basically quoted my final mockup version and said "this is pretty close to what we are doing". Since mine is minimalist while focusing on looking nice but being primarily about function he obviously hates it. Especially since one of my key sticky points is a chat box/combat log to the side that is optional to disable so that you only ever see it in actual conversation or if you purposefully pull it up.

Okay I am going to throw a few things out there. 1: Screen real estate in any form of action or strategy game is of prime importance and pretty much everyone centers their screen on their characters. This means center screen space is the most important space. Hence why a center based UI is "not" a good idea. 2: Most people are right handed. Right handed people have an easier time moving the mouse from the right to the left and a harder time moving from left to right. Hence the UI was designed to be left aligned. 3: Yes you could say my UI is "pretty" but that's because everyone complained my original mockup was too plain and had all straight lines. So I did a more artistic version. 4: Everything is placed in one spot BECAUSE you want it out of the way. You don't want your UI getting in the way of the game, it is just plain bad design. Additionally it means all the most important and key functions are all near each other which means when you do need to manipulate the UI it takes a minimal amount of mouse movement to do so.

I guess I will make a clarification on my earlier post. If you are using stretch goals to make more wilderness areas... I am not down with that. Wilderness area's ala Baldur's Gate were just bad. But if you want to use it to make more companions (within reason, like 2-3 more) so there is more alignment balance and less overlap in the companion options I guess I could be down with that. I am just wholly opposed to anything pushing the game out of it's 2014 release window.

At this point I am far more interested in seeing a finished product. If 1 new Wilderness area is going to push release back by a month or even 2 weeks I would rather we not bother with it. There comes a time when you need to look at your product and say "I have done enough" and apply the finishing touches then put it out there. Even Bob Ross would stop adding happy trees when he realized he had reached the point where putting in more would hurt more than help.

Lucky you, it keeps reminding me of that one Sword of Truth book that was so god awful bad I stopped reading it like 50% through, skipped to the last chapter, then said "Oh so that happens". The book in question was "Pillars of Creation".

Well unlike most people on this site I won't troll you for posting something that makes a couple decent points. That said.... Obsidian has already stated they don't intend for any console releases. Like the games Eternity is "inspired" by it will be released only on Computers. Second even though PS4 does support keyboard and mouse most people don't have a set up conducive for that near their PS4 and need those usb ports to charge controllers etc. Lastly this type of game honestly is just not aimed at a console market and would play terribly on a controller, it is asking a bit much of Obsidian to get a controller UI working as a result. I mention controller UI because even though you could use a keyboard and mouse on PS4 the thing is most PS4 owners again won't have that option for one reason or another and it assumes peripherals the average PS4 owner simply doesn't have for their PS4. All that said I am sure the PS4 is more than capable of running it no problem. Most of the PC letist's in this forum probably don't even have a PC noticeably stronger than a PS4. Some of them may have a PC that is quite weaker actually. I was recently playing Assassin's Creed 4 on mine and I have to say PS4 looks just as good as the PC version does.

I don't know, do I have to link my mock up again which includes all the elements found in every Infinity engine game, still has artistic elements, but still takes up less screen space than even the UI you just posted? I really don't understand how you guys think a block of static art enhances a UI. It doesn't it detracts from it. A UI is about function, and if part of the UI has no actual function than it is superfluous plain and simple. Even playing BG2 again recently I see even less point in the "big box of text" than I used to. I always minimize it to one line and only ever open it when I have paused and want to verify a weapon isn't working and what damage type is, or find out why a character went from 100% health to dead in like 3 seconds, and of course most often... just cause I want to know how much exp the thing I just killed was worth. Needless to say I am not finding myself using the combat log all that much. Knowing I missed because the RNG said I rolled a 1 doesn't help me anymore than knowing I missed because I rolled 2, all that matters is I missed and I can tell that happened cause the goblin is still standing there. In other news I do find your stats on portrait size pretty interesting. I say this because in the final mock up of my UI from way back I made the portraits what I felt would be the "optimal" size for the game. Turns out the current portrait specs are exactly 3 pixels wider and 1 pixel taller than my best guess was. Neato. Oh yeah buffs is simple by the way. You just create a universal "buffs/debuffs" icon that lights up a certain color. One color means you have buffs, one means you have debuffs, the other means you have both. Say blue, red, and purple. A simple mouse over and wait 1-2 seconds and up comes a full list of all the status effects in a pop up window.

Eh I will just refer to it as Eternity. I still think the Pillars thing is sort of lame.

As long as "late 2014" doesn't mean third week of December I will be okay. It would be really nice if they could get it out by late October or November though.