Delaware's engine

[AlanC9]

The problem is that there's no pathable z-axis. No way you're going to see that in the KotOR engine. Although I imagine it would be possible to disable collision detection for some things like branches, which would get rid of some annoyances.

 

I don't think 4 directions makes sense as an alternative to radials. You've got all of the disadvantages of a radial with none of the advantages of an all-out hierarchical menu. And limiting the primary categories to 4 only works if you're playing a simple game like KotOR.

 

Then again, I thought the ToEE radial worked just fine.

 

 

 

 

Something funny about these boards. Everyone's proceeding from the assumption that Obsidian's making KotOR 2. And yet there don't seem to be a heck of a lot of KotOR 1 fans here.

[Synaesthesia]

1) Menus that don't show you all the choices right away, and make you click a "show full menu" arrow at the bottom of the menu.  That's always the first thing I turn off when I install Windows.  Does anyone actually like that "feature" of Windows?

Yeah, I do. Why should I give a rats about options that I'm never going to use?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I would argue NWN's interface functionality. It spins off into too many sub-menus of sub-menus of sub-menus all in a outward radial fashion. It's not at all conducive to a steady game play, instead you spend all your time looking for things, particularly when combined with the three-level quick bar arrangement.

All this in a real-time game is just horribly awkward.

I think that the use of a scroll-through system like in KOTOR would work well, with a window for certain skills, abilities, feats etc. I find that quick and easy to navigate as it's essentially static, not spiralling off.

It's true that you had to learn what the symbols meant before you could make full use of the interface. But again thats not really functionality. Having 36 quickslots was rather handy too if you chose to use them. Though the arrangement was a little awkward to do one handed.

 

An interface that uses words instead of symbols, unless said symbols are blatantly obvious is always going to be more immediately accesable. I know this first had from playing games In Japanese. I dont know the words but I can after a while recognise what effect the symbols have.

[Kasoroth]

Yeah, I do. Why should I give a rats about options that I'm never going to use?

If it just gave you the option to customize the menus and remove things you never use, that would be fine. There are some things that I would probably remove just because they're worthless. What I dislike is Windows changing menus around automatically based on what options I use most frequently. If a frequently used command is buried somewhere in the middle of a 20 option menu, I'll learn quite quickly where it is, and the large menu won't bother me, as long as it's always in the same place. If a menu only shows 5 or 6 commands, but they're not always the same, or not in the same places, it's a lot slower to find the common ones than if they just showed them all and kept it consistent.

 

-Kasoroth

[Logan]

Yeah, I do. Why should I give a rats about options that I'm never going to use?

If it just gave you the option to customize the menus and remove things you never use, that would be fine.

If you are talking about Windows you can certainly customize the start menu, you can even drag things around or right-click and delete them.

 

If you are talking about MS office software, well you can't change the pull down menus but you can easily customize the quickbuttons so you never have to use the pull downs.

[AlanC9]

What I dislike is Windows changing menus around automatically based on what options I use most frequently.

You can turn this off, you know. For MS Word 2000, look under Tools>Customize>Options. I think other versions hide this somewhere else.

 

Logan, MS Office pulldown menus can be completely customized. Removing someone's Save, Close, and Exit commands can be an amusing practical joke.

 

Customizable menus would be a good thing in a game. I can't recall too many games that do this. Hell, sometimes you can't even get keyboard mapping.

[Phosphor]

It's true that you had to learn what the symbols meant before you could make full use of the interface. But again thats not really functionality. Having 36 quickslots was rather handy too if you chose to use them. Though the arrangement was a little awkward to do one handed.

 

An interface that uses words instead of symbols, unless said symbols are blatantly obvious is always going to be more immediately accesable. I know this first had from playing games In Japanese. I dont know the words but I can after a while recognise what effect the symbols have.

I rarely have a problem figuring out why symbols mean - often the game designers make the symbols fairly intuitive. Even NWN's symbols were reasonably easy to figure out.

The three quickbars of NWN were extremely awkward to use - a better system could have been used.

Ultimately it's radial wheels that are bothersome, both in TOEE and NWN. They take up too much room and require too much looking around in to find anything. A linear method is much better, as if you're going to have to look for things, at least it's in a manner that is easier on the eyes/brain.

[AlanC9]

The three quickbars of NWN were extremely awkward to use - a better system could have been used.

 

Such as? What's your suggestion?

 

 

 

I prefer game interfaces that don't work like MS Office, so I'm OK with a well-done radial

[tripleRRR]

I actually liked how NWN handled the interface, it was easy to learn and was fast enough to work without pause in a multiplayer environment online.

 

 

TripleRRR

[Tigranes]

Heh... after a little while I totally abandoned the radial, 36 hotkeys were often enough (or a little short for spellcasters) for me. Radial sucked because yes, it took you so long to find things (and i'd often click out of the menu by mistake), but I thought the symbols were relatively easy to learn. You can't play a wizard through the BG saga, for example, without learning most of the spell symbols.

[Karzak]

There is a vertical axis, they just chose not to utilize it.

The utilized it as a fixed axis. The engine was weak, no flying, no height advantage.

 

But then again it only took them 5 years!

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

There is a vertical axis, they just chose not to utilize it.

The utilized it as a fixed axis. The engine was weak, no flying, no height advantage.

 

But then again it only took them 5 years!

They could have done so much..... What they did was certainly a good idea, but the way they pulled it off was to make it prehaps a little too bland. It doesn't really have all that much immersion, it's the poor mans MMORPG if anything.... Kinda sucks.