Malekith

Dragon Age:The Burning Crusade Seriously, why is the Burning Legion invading Thedas?

That's what I signed up for also. But for some people the combat log, solid UI that acts as a frame to the game window, the dialogue system etc. are importand parts of that style and flavor. Call us strange. Okay, well let me try this from another angle. If you look back at the old BG dialogue window, it was possible to expand it to at least half the page. Now it is being constrained to a small box in the corner. To me, the only reason to keep it minimized like that is because you want to show some animations that take up most of the screen. But that seems unlikely. Wouldn't you rather be able to see a lot more of the text? Yes. But i expect that P:E will allows us to expand the dialoge and combat logs just us BG did. If not, then yes, it would be a negative for me.

In other words DA:I. It's coming anyway.

I starting to think that's true. It seems to me some people didn't want an IE game, just a modern RPG made by Obsidian. Some people don't want that. We want a game with IE era sensibilities made by Obsidian. I can't see how Sawyer will please both groups at the same time, since they want different things. Well... if you read the PE presentation on Kickstarter, it doesn't say they will be making an exact clone of the IE engine. Only that it will pay homage to those games. Personally, that's what I signed up for; a game with a similar style and flavor. Most of what has been discussed here has been pretty minor stylistic differences with some graphical variations. It's still the same type of interaction and controls. That's what I signed up for also. But for some people the combat log, solid UI that acts as a frame to the game window, the dialogue system etc. are importand parts of that style and flavor. Call us strange.

I starting to think that's true. It seems to me some people didn't want an IE game, just a modern RPG made by Obsidian. Some people don't want that. We want a game with IE era sensibilities made by Obsidian. I can't see how Sawyer will please both groups at the same time, since they want different things.

You say that like it's a bad thing It's not a bad thing, but if I wanted to read a book I would read one and not play a videogame. Videogames have all the powers of multimedia, why shouldn't they use them? By the same logic, you can always go watch a movie...

Can we have an option with no gaps? Even if it's a purely decorative part with no action buttons. Disablable of course. Could have something like that be the 'minimal' version, then have an 'IE' version that is chunkier

Please... please, take it away... I can't... I can't take it...

I actually find this statement a little bit troubling. One of the things I wanted to see over the original was larger portrait sizes. If you're cutting down the UI height then this is unlikely. That. I was hoping that the UI stayed fairly similar, but with the add on of bigger portraits in the right side of the screen.If anything i wanted a bigger UI .We'll see how that goes.

The worst sin of PS:T high level spell animations was that they weren't skipable. If you could skip the video after the first time everyone would love them. But for P:E, to have cutscenes for every high level spell would be too expensive. Better to use that money to have better spell animations overall and death animations a la Fallout. Strange, I just replayed PS:T and I could skip most of scenes of the high level spells (still some waiting though). The exception being cloud kill. Do not get me wrong, I disliked the aspect of waiting around for high level spells. It kills the flow of combat, especially with multiple casters. What I refer to is the animation quality in PS:T. Even magic missiles had a unique animation to it and when TNO casted it, it looked like a substantial attack. Perhaps, it was a number of factors, including both animation and sound. I thought it worked with the exception of those spells that stopped the flow of combat. I realize that I am not articulating this well. Sorry, i thought that you meant the cutscenes at the really high spells. Yes, the standard animations in P:T were gorgeous, and i wouldn't mind something similar.But preferably without the game pausing for a few seconds.

The worst sin of PS:T high level spell animations was that they weren't skipable. If you could skip the video after the first time everyone would love them. But for P:E, to have cutscenes for every high level spell would be too expensive. Better to use that money to have better spell animations overall and death animations a la Fallout.

What sould you suggest? DA:O? WoW? Skyrim? Truth be told, i have yet to see a good minimalist UI in an RPG.

You take it to the extreem. I agree with you, but Micamo has also good points. If the game gives me a power, it has to take it into acount. For me the gold standard in dialogues would be PS:T with the ability to use spells through dialogue like Bloodlines.(charm,dominate, etc.) I still rage when i remember Blood Magic in DA:O. You spent the whole game telling me how dangerous Blood Magic is because it can dominate others. And when i become a blood mage, the final ability is so useless i didn't even bother to take it. WTF??? The game would be infinitely better if i could use the final power to dominate others through dialoge. It would convey that blood magic is dangerous and would have made the player feel powerfull, and that he is doing something wrong. For plot critical dialogues you could have one or two mages present so you couldn't use the power in front of them. Easy. I have high hopes for P:E. Healing,resurection and teleport are out, and good riddance as they are things that never make sense in a setting. When you haven't powers that lead to plot holes, you can use your powers in a logical manner without breaking the game.

Now i feel bad that none of my most played games are an Obsidian product. Well, maybe Black Isle counts.

Baldur's Gate 2 (around 50 times ) Planescape:Torment ( 1 every year) Icewind Dale ( 1 every year) Icewind Dale 2 ( 1 every year) Baldur's Gate ( 1 every 2 years) Fallout 2 (5 times) Fallout ( 3 times) Sacrifice (10 times) Warcraft 3 (3 times)

In theory it's the best solution, and it will make the most backers happy. But it depends on how easy is to implement it. The budget and the timeline are tight as it is. I don't think anyone wants multiple UIs if it will mean less content. But if it's easy and cost effective then by all means go for it.

Fixed

I think Sawyer has said that he believes most backers will prefer it that way, but i don't remember where i saw it.

That seems kind of like it favors right-handed people. That's not very PC. A good compromise would be to have the vertical character-portrait rail be in the center of the screen, so that neither side gets favoritism, u_u...

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63851-update-54-art-update-work-is-in-progress/page-12?do=findComment&comment=1335403

What is this with the portraits to the left side? Josh already said that if they do a vertical side in the UI it will be in the right side.

The UI looks great for a 4:3 aspect ratio, but for a widescreen resolution the viewing area becomes too wide. It would be better if it had two sidebars like Baldur's gate

You and i disagree almost completely in what is good game design. From my perpective it's the people who want a "modern"( whatever that means) game will hurt the game. I don't believe either of us is wrong, but at the same time is almost imposible to make a game that'll please both of us. That's why i said that in divisive matters like that they should follow as close to IE as they can. And i don't consider myself "hardcore" either. I have seen people who consider IE games "casual" and wanted a more oldschool hardcore experience like Realms of Arcania. I disagree with them as well.As Avellone said, what matters is that the backers are happy with what we get. If the game has more broad appeal, great,we all hope for that. But the backers come first. And the only thing we have in common is love for the IE games. Sure, there were parts we didn't like, but that parts are different for each of us. Well .... yes and no again. There is no uh.... how should I say it "options" when it comes to UI design. Your UI is either easy to use, functional, and enhances your experience without getting in the games way.... or it doesn't meet those criteria. I promise you if they go to production with the current UI mock up as the basis over half or more of professional reviews are going to comment on it and mention that the UI is bad, because it is. There is no other way to say it. Lets look at modern UI designs in strategy RPG's. Like .... the game X-Com: Enemy Unknown. I know a lot of major review sites gave it game of the year. Almost everyone gave it PC game of the Year. Much like the IE games it has a top down isometric view even if it is fully 3d. Here is a link to a screen shot of the pc version during combat: http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/2kgames/xcom/enemyunknown/insideufo.jpg Obviously I am not suggesting this UI. That said... I want you to notice that every bit of info you could possibly want about the situation at hand is shown. I see my units hp and remaining action points, I see what skills and abilities my selected unit has, I see what he is aiming at, I can tell what my units name, rank, class, and buffs vs his target are, I can even tell how much ammo he has and what guns he has available. It is all right there at a glance. What else does this UI do? It doesn't block hardly any of the actual game screen. It is there, it is fully functional, it is easy to use, I have access to everything I would need to know or use on a regular basis, and my view is barely obstructed. That's a good UI. So this is a turn based strategy RPG that won PC Game of the Year pretty much no contest, and there is one key take away here. The only time reviewers mentioned the UI that I saw... was to say the out of combat in base UI was clunky. By comparison to the project eternity mock up the in base UI in Xcom was sleek as all hell. What scares me is the current posted mock up already blocks 16.3% (to be specific) of the screen at 720p and Sawyer said it was actually the smallest most compact UI mock up they had. Who knows how clunky and huge the other mock ups are. The statues are really neat looking and pretty, straight up, but they serve no function. Function is the core concept of the UI. I don't care how pretty and nice to look at the UI is, if it isn't functional, easy to use, all without obstructing or (distracting you from) the gameplay, then it is a bad UI. There is really no agree or disagree on that. You lost me at the reviewers part. Who cares about them? Notice how all your points come to "how someone who hasn't played the IE games and is used to "modern" games will think about this game?". To that i say who gives a ****? The whole point of kickstarter is to make games not in the way the "mainstream market" and the IGN reviewers want but the way backers want. Or else what's the point? There was no need for some of us to give 100-2000 $ 2 years before. We could simply buy DA:3 (IGN 9/10, i don't even need to wait for it to know) Fargo answered in the question "how you will attract modern gamers who didn't know the originals?" with "i don't care about them. I want for them to like my game, but my focus is the people who backed me". That is how kickstarted games should be viewed. Unless you believe that the backers would prefer a modern UI. Then and only then you have an argument. The reviewers who said in BGEE reviews that the main problems of the game were the "outdated" feel and the point and click gameplay instead of the genuine faults of the game(and it had many) are idiots.

Kickstarted game's audience is a special case. A large portion of them genuinely consider that modern games has moved in a bad direction. UI, combat, text focus vs cutscene focus, design direction in general. Many can't stand these modern elements. On the other side, if someone considers IE games meh and outdated, he shouldn't had donated in P:E. If someone wanted the IE experiense streamlined and "modernized", he has DA:O. Many of us considered that game mediocre at best, a pale shadow of the IE games, and hope that P:E will be way more "old school" for a lack of better word. While I am in the old school IE camp, I still consider DA:O to be a good game. It would have been even better if it didn't oversimplify it's gameplay, as can be seen from the "sucess" of it's sequel. Sorry for going a little of topic. I also liked DA:O.(but the UI was crap) But it had one huge flaw for me to consider it a worthy BG2 successor. Combat. First of all, all the combat in the game felt like filler. I think Feargus in an interview nailed it. He said that BG was a combat game with story, whereas DA was a story game with combat. Enemy variety(nonexistent),encounter design(bad overall) and simplified mechanics made combat utterly forgetable and a chore after a while. The game would be better if it had 90% less combat, and a LOT better if it had better enemy encounters and variety. I mean BG2 had the best encounter design of every game that i have played, and a huge enemy list. Think Planar Sphere.A simple side quest and it had more monster types than DA and ME series combined. Other than that it was a good game, but if P:E is something at that level i will be dissapointed. I hope for P:E to surpass BG2, and i expect something on par.

That's why i always prefer when the devs don't take our opinions seriously. Trying to please your audience is backwards. You should be making the game YOU as a dev wants to make, and have the audience form around that game, not the game formed around the audience preference since there isn't a consencous of what makes a good game among people. I do and don't agree. Yes a large portion of the "audience" is going to be crazy hard core niche people and if you design the game around their tastes you are going to hurt your game. That said there are plenty of people with sane ideas and suggestions that will work, be functional, and stick to the design concepts Sawyer himself said they were going for. Not every fan is someone who doesn't understand game design, you have to pick and choose. As the Dev you should make a game you like and want, but you should never ignore a good idea just because it didn't come from a Dev. I agree with that. Devs should always listen for good ideas. Except one thing. You and i disagree almost completely in what is good game design. From my perpective it's the people who want a "modern"( whatever that means) game will hurt the game. I don't believe either of us is wrong, but at the same time is almost imposible to make a game that'll please both of us. That's why i said that in divisive matters like that they should follow as close to IE as they can. And i don't consider myself "hardcore" either. I have seen people who consider IE games "casual" and wanted a more oldschool hardcore experience like Realms of Arcania. I disagree with them as well. As Avellone said, what matters is that the backers are happy with what we get. If the game has more broad appeal, great,we all hope for that. But the backers come first. And the only thing we have in common is love for the IE games. Sure, there were parts we didn't like, but that parts are different for each of us.