Update #54: Art Update - Work IS in Progress!

[Darren Monahan]

Above is a UI mockup that Kaz has put over the original Kickstarter image. What do you think?

I know what you are thinking. What the hell have the artists been doing?? The art in this game should be half done by now! Right?

That's what I want to know! Why isn't the game half-done already?

Well, as I've said before we're "professionals." We proceed in a highly-complex collaboration/iteration loop of blending design wants and dos, programming cans, think-they-cans and dos and artist wants, cans, can-but-don't-know-how-longs and dos. As you can see - and please don't get angry - this is all very technical. Know that: work is progressing.

Yeeeargh! Enough with your silly stupid words, Rob!! What the hell does that mean??

Uhh... not sure, but I'll tell you what I think it means:

You've read about Prototype 1 and then Prototype 2. Those were efforts to implement features that represent the functional and playable standard of our goal: an Infinity Engine style of game. Those efforts were focused collaborations of designing, programming and art-ing things, trying them out, addressing problems as they came up (visual, functional or otherwise failing to live up to our standard) and repeating. The art goals were held to an 80-90% complete (aka: unpolished). The remaining 10-20% of work will be left toward the end of the "next phase," as always there will be edits and modifications after initial implementation of art. The basic truth of this interactive artistic endeavor that we are involved in is that you can't know it's a worthwhile experience, until you make it, people play it, and then provide feedback. We adjust our work to that feedback - a feedback loop. Boom! Consider yourself educated.

The "next phase" is a Vertical Slice. This is a goal in which we focus on one part of the game within a shell of what is essentially the fully-featured game - relying on the things developed in the prototypes, as well as implementing a fully-functional UI, attempting to finalize all art and gameplay to a more polished standard, and accommodate design changes that are required to make the player experience more complete - as if this part were a finalized, short game in itself.

Environment Artists 
Hector - Wilderness Areas
Our Lead Environment Artist has been developing a couple of our larger external landscapes. He's doing this on the basis of a designer's block-out: a crude-but-playable space. This includes the sculpting of terrain geometry in ZBrush, application of grass and dirt via mesh painting and masking in Maya, placement of objects such as structures, trees, and rocks, etc., lighting and rendering the scene, which generates our super-cool depth info. He imports all those results into the game, and then Design says: "Hey, something has come up and we need a temple in the village." So, Hector moves and massages the scene around to accommodate the change and steps through the process again. In the prototype, iteration of the village, a temple wasn't required. For the Vertical Slice, having a place where one can get quests and learn some spiritual-magicky stuff, is an important feature to include. So, we find a way to happily put it in.

 

Sean - Dungeon/Crypt and village interiors
Our other Environment Artist has been working on interiors of village structures and dungeons! He uses ZBrush less for his environments as a whole, and more as a means of creating smaller natural-looking rocky things and dungeon walls. Beyond that the techniques for implementing his work are the same. The feedback and iteration with design usually yields similar tweaks and modifications. Changes like: "Uhh...we can't have a door here, anymore. Can we make it a pile of collapsed rocks, instead?" Of course the answer is "Yes!"

The answer has to be "yes," because the game is worthless if the gameplay isn't worthwhile. It could be that an important critical path encounter needs to occur, maybe because the story evolved or it’s just too good an experience to allow an alternate route to exist. Ultimately, we trust our designers to wrestle with these issues and come to us with changes that matter. So if they come to us with a change, and the adjustment is reasonable and the time exists to make it, we will do it.

Animators
Mark - Principle Animation of All Things with Arms and Legs
Our Lead Animator has been handling much of the animation requirements for the playable races. This process is also an iterative one. Design has ideas about how they want playable characters to interact with the world and enemies, and Mark then creates a set of individual animations that then blend into each other as needed, in Unity. In addition, he has created essential animations for the Skuldr and the Ogre. Essential animations are typically basic locomotion (including: walk, run and at least one idle) attacks (melee and ranged, if applicable) getting hit and dying. There are others. He blocks them in (a term for making things functional fast), puts them in the game, then he refines them. As team members playtest the game, they provide feedback. Mark continues refining until everybody is happy or the game ships - whichever comes first. No, no, no, just kidding! Mark will work tirelessly through endless nights to make certain everybody is happy with the animation.

 

Antonio - Technical Problem Solving of Physical Things and Process Improvement
I told you all you needed to know about Antonio in my last update. I showed you the rigs and rigs in rigs. These things take a while to refine, as he makes them and then people (Dimitri and Mark) have to use them. As they use the tools, they discover issues and then Antonio has to fix the issues and the process repeats itself until there are fewer and fewer issues to fix. Lately he has been working on a means of batch processing all the animations that Mark creates and efficiently exports them into the game. Mark says it's "awesome." (This is making Dimitri mad. I'll tell you why in a bit.) In addition, he has been developing some cool experiments with cloth and hair. Hopefully, in some near-future update we can show you how great it looks.

Character Artists
Dimitri - Skaen and Visual Differences Between Playable Characters (Races, Males and Females)
Dimitri has been modeling and texturing the dirty, bloody and villainous Skaen Cultists. In-between that he has been re-exporting our characters, as new attachments, bones, weapon attachments, etc. are added to the skeletons. This is a manual process hell that eats at his soul and to see Mark enjoying the fruits of batch process heaven that Antonio has provided him, makes him think of terrible things. One of two things will happen: Dimitri will get over it, or Antonio will help him out soon. He has also been working with our graphics programmer in developing the masking system for how we can increase variety in our characters via color changes on various elements of each. We intend this ability to be passed on to the player, so that they can customize their party's colors.
 
James - Creatures And Colors
James has been focusing on modeling and texturing a ton of critters, including wurms! - not: worms, nor wyrms, or wirms, but WURMs! That is what we call our baby dragons! He's also been tasked with making certain, that via the tinting and masking that Dimitri worked on, we can generate an infinite variety of People and Monsters, and nobody will know better. Shhhhhh...Wink Wink!
 
Concept Artists

Polina's concept of lizard-creature-to-be-named-later.
 
Polina - Drawerings And More Drawerings
Polina has been all over the place since the presentation of the God-like Concept. She's done a bunch of interior concepts, some really cool malevolent spirit-like concepts, the lizard-like creature (below) and more! Polina takes concept development and collaboration very seriously. If I'm not paying attention, or give her a specific number, she will draw variants upon variants of thumbnails and roughs until...I think...forever. So we've restricted her to a certain number of thumbnails before a review. Otherwise we'll have to buy her a new tablet, and that is NOT in the budget!
 
Kaz - Drawerings And User Experience
As you've seen in recent updates Kaz has been tasked with coming up with cultural differences in in terms of skin color and style of clothing for the various cultural groups that we find in Project Eternity. With this and other concept-y things, he also has been tasked with developing and implementing the look of the UI and the presentation for "scripted events."

Note: Regarding the image with the menubar at the start of the update, as well as the image below. You will notice that they state: "Work In Progress." In fact, the images are screen caps of the source art file for the UI that is being developed for P.E. It represents stylistic choices meant to feel very Infinity Engine-ish. We're a little curious what you might think about it. Let us know.
 

Scripted event image by Kaz.

Me??? - What have I been doing?
I don't know. I just run around and say some stuff, point to something and say "eww," or "nice," or grab a bunch of people to say stuff like "Yay!" or "boo" at something, draw some stuff, and try to direct stuff, repeat. I am hopeful that these efforts keep people motivated, aware and engaged.

That's it. Update Over. Now talk amongst yourselves...or use ALL CAPS, if you are feeling particularly passionate.

- Rob Nesler, Art Director, Obsidian Entertainment.

PS - Let’s Play Arcanum with Mr. Avellone is coming back soon to an update near you!
 

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Kickin' It Forward: HEX MMO Trading Card Game
Article by Darren Monahan, operations guy 

 
In this update's Kickin' it Forward segment, we're featuring the HEX MMO Trading Card Game from friends and neighbors over at Cryptozoic Entertainment. If you're a fan of trading card games and MMO's, HEX looks like a great game to bring these two types of games together in a unique and original fantasy world. They've got nine days left, and plenty of really cool rewards. Check it out!

[Syraxis]

For a 2014 game I'm not a fan of the PST/IWD style UI.

 

I'd like the UI to be more minimalist in that its broken up into separate components that can be activated/deactivated at any given time.

 

Edit: yes, I do realize its a mock up.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Syraxis

[Gorth]

I'm probably the opposite. I like the PS:T style layout, as long as it takes up as little space as possible

 

As long as the hotkey configuration is good (i.e. not wasting ui space on 'clickable' buttons) I'm fine with the bare minimums being shown (portraits and text feedback box).

 

Edit: Of course, configurable is better, that way I can put the parts on the right side, top side or a bit here and there. Some things just needs to be visible most of the time.

[Elerond]

Excelent update, Iike tone what Rob uses in his updates.

 

UI concept look very IWD 2, which is good as it (and PST) in my opinion has probably best HUD in IE games, as it dont waste so as much space as other IE games. UI also looks like it fits very well in atmosphere what I execpt from this game. I can't even describe how pleased I am with event screen's look, because in my opinion it fits much better this kind game than cinematic events.

 

Unnamed lizard looks cool.

[Nonek]

Are the death in life and life in death couple important enough to be used on the UI, rather than the rather nondescript statue in the alcove? Don't know whether the button layout will feel "right" until played unfortunately.

 

You forgot the add bacon and make breakfast option.

[Syraxis]

I'm probably the opposite. I like the PS:T style layout, as long as it takes up as little space as possible

Space is actually my main gripe with the old-school style ui designs.

 

Though as a counterpoint to my original post i'd like to point out that configurable multi-component UI designs can be done horribly as well, see Everquest.

 

Edit: I'm with you on the hotkey options.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Syraxis

[Lephys]

I chose to use SELECTIVE CAPS, for effect, u_u...

 

My feedback consists mainly of "WOOOOOOH!," with bits of "I genuinely admire all the work everyone's putting into this" and "Where exactly will we see these scripted events (world-map travel, like random encounters?)? Because I ADORE THEM!" thrown in.

 

Also, I like the way you deliver updates. Just... for what it's worth. So, keep that up, too.

[curryinahurry]

I'm not a fan of portraits at the bottom of the screen(right side is much better).  Also, I liked how the NWN games had floating tool-bars for spells, etc.  I think being too slavish to the IE games runs the risk of being detrimental to the game; both aesthetically and in terms of practicality.

 

I do like the text screen concept.

[Sensuki]

]http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0054/pe-hud-wip.580.jpg]

Ahh I was not expecting to see some UI art yet, that was a pleasant surprise.

 

Nice to hear that you will be re-using creatures and tinting them to make a different creature - the IE games made very good use of this, able to get a few creatures out of the same model (Ghoul, Ghast, Lacedon and NPCs of that type etc).

 

One thing I haven't heard brought back up again was the new method for generating interior areas, at first you were trying out Tiles, but then later stated that you were going to try a different approach to get more of an organic feel to the areas.

 

I really like the art style of the mockup UI - it is very reminiscent of Icewind Dale 2 and it also looks easily scalable. The coloring is a good choice, obviously the final version will be different but I definitely like the light bar across the top and the darker masonry work in the middle with buttons being lighter again.

 

The texturing of the combat/dialogue log is great, keep that window exactly as it is.

 

I'd like to know more about what the colors in the Combat log is supposed to represent - obviously the light blue one is a PC and the red is probably an enemy - what colors are the yellow and green being reserved for ? Are party members going to be assigned different colors in the combat log/UI or are they reserved for NPCs and Followers or Summons ?

 

I also like how the Ranger's animal companion is represented - that's a cool idea.

 

Scripted event screen looks great as well.

 

Issues/Potential Issues / Questions

 

Are you planning on doing a different fullscreen UI for dialogue sequences? like this.

 

I really like the menu buttoning and it's position in the middle of the UI. The buttons look great (obv the icons will be different). The statue work at the side also looks cool. These two elements combined seem to be sacrificing a bit of space that could be used by functional parts of the UI such as room for a couple more hotkey buttons to the left or some extra space for the combat log - something to think about anyway. I am fine with the current use of space as I really liked the IE games UI. Please move the select all button to the bottom right where the options button is for legacy purposes - cheers

 

I assume the meter is the clock, but something could also be done with that to represent game speed or something.

 

My other concern is the display of the buff icons under the player portraits - great that you got them in there, that was something that was missing from IWD2, however is that enough room? I can easily see status effects overflowing in the limited space underneath a portrait of that size, so if that's the space you want to keep you might have to limit the types of buffs displayed there. Another option would be to thin the bar across the top of the UI to just a few pixels and then bring the UI up a bit so you can have another line of buffs underneath each portrait.

 

The UI design there (while obviously mockup) looks like it will rely on submenus for things like selecting spells from the Grimoire to cast/hotkey and whatnot - how are you looking at handling those in relation to that UI design ? Are you going to use the current UI space like the IE games or a popup menu or something?

 

The light blue border around selected party members is currently a bit hard to see. Maybe one pixel wider?

 

Keep up the good work guys

 

(ps - crossing fingers for optional legacy selection coloring )

Edited May 29, 2013 by Sensuki

[Zed]

That UI isn't very good.

 

Here's why:

 

The portraits are very important: you click them to switch characters, right-click to open inventory or what have you. In-between the portraits and game-screen you put functions and abilities. Missclicks ahoy.

 

Portraits also need to be bigger. Why not use portrait dimensions (as used in BG2?) If you're gonna have good-looking portraits, show em off. Also, this gives room to show character statuses on the portrait.

 

The dialogue part doesn't look resizable like in the BG games. It really should be. Preferably it should also be on the left, with a scrollbar on right.

 

I'll draw a mock-up of what I think would be a better solution.

[Sensuki]

You can avoid most UI misclicks by unticking "Enhanced Pointer Precision" in the Mouse settings if you're using Windows ... I think disabling Mouse accel is a bit more problematic on Mac though.

[Gumbercules]

Thanks for the update!

 

The UI looks pretty good. It'll probably look great aesthetically once you add original, unified assets rather than the cobbled-together assortment of assets from IE games and other sources currently in place. There are most likely still improvements to be made in terms of usability and space efficiency, but I'm not good at identifying that type of thing so I'll leave it to others to do.

 

That lizard-man illustration is really well done, but I'll admit I sighed when I saw that it was a lizard-man, and a tribal lizard-man at that. There's a stale fantasy cliche if ever there was one. That said, I don't mind their inclusion in the game, and I understand that it's probably a good idea to get a handle on all the fantasy mainstays early on before moving on to weirder, more original creatures. Still, all of the creatures shown so far have been pretty conventional: zombie-like creatures and a tentacle beast, bat-monster, ogre, banshee-like undead, lizard-man, and this update also mentioned dragons. If possible, in a future update please show some concept art of one of the weirdest creatures you've come up with so far. If spoilers are a problem, maybe leave out the name of the creature and any background info, and use a discarded design that still shows the general gist of the creature.

[Lephys]

I will say that the icons within the interface might benefit from a little extra contrast (be it hue, "depth," value, etc.). Especially the ones in the center. As far as intuitive readability goes, they're a little "Wait, what is that? Oh, oh okay. That's options."-y.

 

I do like the overall style, though. The detail and texturing feels very nostalgic, and doesn't distract from the rest of the game screen. I just fear that the icons and buttons might not be as clear as they could be when you've got your cursor rapidly scurrying about the UI during some real-time tense game moments. 8P

 

I realize it's not the finished product. Just trying to provide some constructive feedback.

 

Also, this is a bit more of an explorative suggestion than a constructive feedback, but I wonder if there isn't a more intuitive read for things like Health and Mana/Stamina for each character than small bars on the portraits. Maybe something that goes all the way around the portrait? There could still be individual bars beside them, for more precise reads, but it might be nice to be able to peripherally glance and see who's dying and who isn't.

 

Maybe (of the two bars shown for each in the mockup) one bar could frame the portrait on one side, and the other could frame it on the other side, so that they sort of meet up in the middle at the top and bottom? I think they'd be a lot more immediately readable if they weren't so thin, and so close together.  Also, perhaps the tops and bottoms could taper to a larger width, with the 50% point being the thinnest on the "bar." That way, it would be easier to see when people were at quite-safe levels of health/resource and when they were at quite-unsafe levels. OR, just have the bar be decently readable, and maybe have a frame around that change color and/or otherwise visually indicate overall status (full health, less than 2 thirds, less than 1 third, etc.).

 

I know that's pretty specific. But, just for whatever it's worth, 8P

[Zed]

alright here's my mock-up for a much more baldur's gate-ian UI

(never liked iwd's ui)

• chat is on left - chat navigation is closer to "click-centric area" of party management etc.
• bigger 4:3 (or whatever) portraits. not ugly square ones.
• uses the horizontal space given by widescreen reso + incorporating BG ui elements everybody loves. doesn't look as "wide" and awkward.
• still scalable.
• allows for resizable chat for all those walls of text and combat txt overview

 

Edited May 29, 2013 by Zed

[nikolokolus]

It's difficult to critique a UI until you actually start using it, but as Zed points out above I can see a few "issues" cropping up with the way the portraits and hotbars are grouped together, but hey, it's a work in progress, so there's not much more to say until the game gets into beta and get my grubby fingers on it.

 

Otherwise, great update Rob and nice peek behind the curtain.

[Failedlegend]

My only real compaint about the UI is the Blue/Red Bars and the Blue Circle surrounding what I'm assuming is that character summon or animal companion (Sidenote: I'd love to see these companions grow in strength with the character as opposed to having having multiple versions ie. I, II, III, IV,etc.) it's really bright and doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the aesthetic. Maybe darken the colors a bit and give a bit of a border...a tiny vial or something? Altenatively having the portraits show visual damage indicators with the option of displaying #/# (ie. 10/22) would be cool to

 

Oh and their also seems to be a weird green white aura around a few of the characters looks kinda weird to but that might just be my eyes.

 

Other Than that I love it...I like that everything is contained in the southren quadrant allowing for maximum viewing area and quick access to all the menus.

[Osvir]

* User Interface

 

Got surprised. First impression was "The game screen feels squeezed" added with "That's IE game icons", most likely because I was used to the full picture without a UI. Now that I've looked at it with a looking glass and I've gotten used to it, it looks great. Albeit I admit, I would love to see some unique icons for the Options, Inventory, Spells, Attack, Guard, etc.etc. you know what I'm talking about.

 

The main problem I have with it, or issue, is with the character portrait space. It looks great, but the shading seems to be a little bit off in tidbits of places. I tried using the "Burn Tool" (used to make things darker in photoshop) next to he Mana/Health bars on the portrait space.

 

Portraits

 

 

 

 

 

And personally I feel it makes the portrait feel like they are in place behind the pillars as it seems they should be. The issue I have with the original one is that it's weird on the eyes. It feels like the portrait space is jutting outwards yet it looks as if they are supposed to be behind the pillars on the sides (I focus my eyes on the pillars and it looks like the portraits are behind, but when I focus my eyes on the portraits it looks like they are in front of the pillars, ye, my eyes are weird). It might be so simply explained that Aloth and the Orlan on the right-hand side in the tabbed version of the UI weren't cut-pasted correctly as well, as they seem to overlap the borders between each portrait space.

 

http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0054/pe-hud-wip.1280.jpg

Compare (Aloth & Orlan)

 

Health/Mana:

I really like the coloring and shading up close, there's depth up close, but when I zoom out it looks rather flat and non-dimensional (2D). I would like to see it more "glass"-like or "crystal"-like if possible. Mostly because I think it would look cool, then as health and mana taps perhaps some sort of "transparent" glass effect, Diablo 2 esque but without the animation.

 

Dialogue/Combat:

ggwp. Furthermore: When I'm in the Combat tab and someone is saying something, could the Dialogue tab "flash" or "highlight" somehow? (Note: Not blink. Blinking is annoying and alerting, unless done very slowly with maybe 3-4 second intervals).

 

Options Space:

I like it, but as I said above, it's the IE icons and I'd like to see something new that relates. Artistically, it looks like a form of wooden carvings could work very well. Option icons could look like they have been carved into the UI.

 

It also looks like a Left button and a Right button (the empty spaces in the middle of the Options section). In essence: The space in-between the Journal and the Options buttons looks like it could be a "Right Button". I am wondering if something could be used with that, could you cycle through another "hidden" section of the UI by clicking it?

 

Example:

First Section:

- Character

- Journal

- Skills

- Inventory

- etc.etc.

 

Right-Click (Causes a slide animation or something)

 

Slides into Installation/Second Section:

- Video

- Sound

- Gameplay

 

Third section?

Fourth section?

Edited May 29, 2013 by Osvir

[ryukenden]

Alright guys, Now that i'm done with all my classes. I got time to work on some art. Well I'm gonna do a better mockup of the ui. So stand by. Also I like the feel of the journal. 

[Majek]

I love the mockup UI.  

 

Zed, your idea is utter crap though.

[shinohirai]

The UI does not look appealing. I understand the idea to make it feel infinity engine-ish, but that looks really outdated, Im not saying to make it like super modern or sth, but right now, it just looks like it was taken out of Baldurs, icewind etc ui and then without any design or work on it.

 

Im not sure if its the icon art, or the textures that is on them, but it makes it feel dated...

[Falkon Swiftblade]

Hooray for an ART update!! Thanks for the info.

 

OK so the UI I have feedback on since usability is something I'm passionate about. First off good job emulating the IE UI. The color pallet is kinda neutral and not an eyesore. I actually prefer the characters on the bottom of the screen like ya have vs the side because it's awkward to keep clicking the sides of the monitor when encounters are almost always at the bottom of the screen or in the center and you still have to waste time clicking the side portrait then the bottom to select skills. (Pro Tip: Design your encounters to compliment the ui to limit user fatigue of scrolling all over like you're trying to whack a pinata.) Especially for users having to work on a laptop and it takes several swipes or gestures sometimes to get from one side of the screen to the other.

Also I'd add a little breathing room for your hero's, so status changing fx have enough contrast the user knows what's going on. Might include tool tips as well. Its too close together and too close to the bottom of the screen now. I'm also a fan of how Apple does their dock so as you hover over an app it magnify's and raises above the bar and then conforms to the dock bar as ya move away. Having a feature like that as I am selecting my hero would help picking my characters in a pinch. In addition, can ya guys add a frame around the hero's portrait or lose the box around them? The boxiness of the frame is kinda ugly. Finally, maybe you guys could add an opacity filter to the ui, so as it's not being actively used the alpha might be a little transparent, and grow opaque as you hover over it. This could be in the options for users to adjust to their preference. Overall I think its pretty solid. My only nit-picky things I'd like to see is stronger contrast between whats selectable and what's for aesthetics. Like that middle section by the clock could be a little more emphasized.

The other thing regarding the other window with the egg. I love the style and the texture. I do not like your border. If your artists are using Adobe Illustrator and Indesign, they made it really easy to make intricate patterns in just a few minutes. I don't feel like that arc border fits with the other themes you have shown us up until this point and because of the broken flow it seems icky. Maybe this tutorial will give ya some inspiration. http://www.webdesign.org/vector-graphics/adobe-illustrator/intricate-patterns-in-illustrator.17047.html Also this link has some really nice pencil brushes your artists might like to use to add some value to the images for these types of screens. http://frenden.myshopify.com/products/real-photoshop-pencil-brushes You didn't mention your new tool you guys were experimenting with from like a month ago, is it still going well? Would it work on the UI as well?

 

Polina is a champ, love her work I saw a technique being used in another game recently that made the characters pop a lot more in the isometric game that you guys may want to try out. They use a gradient mesh on the character so the feet area is darker, and the more to the top they are the more vibrant and colorful they are. Here's an excerpt from the team and an example. I think that used with the other software I eluded to would really make your characters more lively. Not that they need to be cartoony, but at least this will make them stand out in the environments.

 

 Graduated Value Scheme - We design our characters to be darker towards the bottom, and brighter towards the top. This helps exaggerate their depth in the scene, and draws the eye up towards focal points on the upper half of the character. 

 Contrast & saturation - We try to save the highest contrast and greatest saturation in the game for characters. In fact, a couple weeks ago, Kohnert setup a custom shader for the characters so that they receive a bit more fill from lights in the game world. 

 Highlight states - Like most games, we employ basic edge highlighting around characters to indicate things like which character is active and which characters are targetable enemies. This also ensures that characters remain visible even when partially occluded by the environment.

 

 

Animated hair and capes sound like a winner!

[Stiler]

Personally, I am hoping for at least a non-old school UI.

 

While I enjoy older games the UI's from them I can gladly do without. There has been leaps and bounds in newer game UI's, mmo's are a prime example of how much UI's have changed from those days.

 

I am a fan of a minimalist UI approach, the LESS of the UI I have to see the better for me. While I understand some people will like the throwback UI design I really hope there's a more up to date UI design or at least some kind of option for it.

 

Allowing us the ability to re-size windows, show/hide things we don't want to see, the ability to make it opaque (IE I don't really need to see the little statue and other artistic designs on the UI, that is valuable screen space that can be showing the background).

 

In many newer games they have did this wonderfully by having thei UI "hide" and only show you information when you need it. Then after that it fades and goes away until you need it again.

 

Such as the chat window for example, when you are out exploring and no one has commented or said any dialogue after so long, it can simply fade and go away, as that information is no longer needed. Same goes for combat information on the UI when you aren't actually in combat.

 

Basically all I am saying is please offer for those of us that want it a minimalist/least intrusive UI so we can see more of the game world while playing .

[DCParry]

Loved the update. Not a fan of the UI. It feels cramped and while I know it is supposed to be somewhat nostalgic, seeing the IE icons makes me cringe thinking about all the issues of the clunky interface and misclicks and what not.

 

I am more of a minimalist UI kind of person myself. Some suggestions:

 

1) Have an option to take out the background palettes (or whatever the technical term is for the brown stuff behind the UI. (I mean, you did all this great work on the environment. I WANT TO SEE MORE OF IT).

 

2) Would it be possible to make the UI modular, making it moveable, and have the ability to turn things on and off? (I mean, I can't think why someone would want to turn something off, but maybe they should have the option?). Scaling would be included in this as well. While I am sure you guys are working on it, thought I would mention it anyways.

 

Say what you will about MMO's, they have changed the way that UI and UI configuration in games is viewed, and I think taking some cues could make the UI more agile for the end user.

 

While this may not be entirely relevant, I would love for the option for health/resource bars hovering characters and such. Anything that keeps my eyes on the pretty is always a bonus in my book.

Edited May 29, 2013 by DCParry

[Sacred_Path]

"event image" makes me happy.

 

 

but...wurms... srsly? Gize? SRSLY?

[curryinahurry]

+1 for opacity slider on the UI...actually having a fully dockable set of palettes and a toggle to turn off the border would be great.

 

And I agree with whoever made the comment about the border and UI not matching.  As a matter of fact, if you plan to use an "old parchment" feel to these cutscenes, then you folks may want to re-think the UI color scheme.

Edited May 29, 2013 by curryinahurry