Bold idea: No UI at all

[Lord_Darkmmon76]

I read the latest update of Project Eternity and after playing a bit of Ultima VII a thought occured to me. How about no UI for Project Eternity?

 

In Ultima VII you generally just see the landscape and what is going on. Of course you can open the inventory and your status screen/paperdoll for you and you companions as well as a map. But there is no UI on the screen. This makes for a very immersive game experience and it works very well. It pulls you much more into the world. Here is a screenshot: http://sergorn.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/u7codex.png

 

I image that it could work in Project Eternity, too. There would have to be some audio-visual feedback for some things like you or some of your party members being hurt etc.

 

Also I propose that there should not be names or health bars above the heads of monsters, NPCs etc. And there should not be any numbers floating around showing you how much damage you do to the enemies. Instead there could also be audio-visual feedback like blood and visual wounds on monsters, limping or fleeing monsters so that you know how much damage you dealt to them.

 

Image how much more immersive the game would be if you just see the landscape, the creatures, NPCs, the party etc. Nothing to detract you from the immersion of the world...

Edited May 30, 2013 by Lord_Darkmmon76

[Prometheus]

I read the latest update of Project Eternity and after playing a bit of Ultima VII a thought occured to me. How about no UI for Project Eternity?

 

In Ultima VII you generally just see the landscape and what is going on. Of course you can open the inventory and your status screen/paperdoll for you and you companions as well as a map. But there is no UI on the screen. This makes for a very immersive game experience and it works very well. It pulls you much more into the world. Here is a screenshot: http://sergorn.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/u7codex.png

 

I image that it could work in Project Eternity, too. There would have to be some audio-visual feedback for some things like you or some of your party members being hurt etc.

 

Also I propose that there should not be names or health bars above the heads of monsters, NPCs etc. And there should not be any numbers floating around showing you how much damage you do to the enemies. Instead there could also be audio-visual feedback like blood and visual wounds on monsters, limping or fleeing monsters so that you know how much damage you dealt to them.

 

Image how much more immersive the game would be if you just see the landscape, the creatures, NPCs, the party etc. Nothing to detract you from the immersion of the world...

How would you use abilities/spells?How would yous see how much HP/Stamina you have left?

There shouldn't be any floating numbers, but a console, where you can see damage and similar things.

[Lord_Darkmmon76]

Instead of having your skills visible in a bar at the bottom of the screen you could allocate abilites and skills to keys. And you could have a special key that could bring up a skill-bar if you need to re-allocate skills or enter new ones.

 

As for HP and stamina loss, there could be audiovisual feedback. You loose health, the rim of the screen gets a bit red and you hear the beating of your heart. The more damage you take, the more red the screens goes and the faster the heart beats.

Something similar could be used for stamina loss, too.

[Elerond]

If there is no UI then there no way to control game, as there is not interface which user can use to play the game and then it is not game any more.

 

I understand that you mean that there should not be HUD componets in game and in my opinion that is very bad idea, because information that those component have are very important for game like PE.

[Fearabbit]

Instead of having your skills visible in a bar at the bottom of the screen you could allocate abilites and skills to keys. And you could have a special key that could bring up a skill-bar if you need to re-allocate skills or enter new ones.

 

Good idea, but no, definitely not. I want to play my RPGs with a mouse in one hand and a beer in the other, thank you very much.

 

Yesterday I wrote a lengthy post that went in a similar direction as your original post here, but I ended up deleting it, thinking "what the heck do I know about UIs?". But in general, I agree that a very simplistic UI would be nice.

My idea however was more in the direction of having pop-up menus for commands and activities and all that, while the UI in general only showed the portraits, the health etc. bars and the message box - all of which could be turned off if desired.

 

But yeah, like I said, what do I know? I don't usually build dozens of UIs and find out which work best. I just think that selecting my character on the screen, having a ring menu appear next to him and selecting my commands there has several advantages, especially when it comes to arguments about the amount of mouse movement.

[Prometheus]

As for HP and stamina loss, there could be audiovisual feedback. You loose health, the rim of the screen gets a bit red and you hear the beating of your heart. The more damage you take, the more red the screens goes and the faster the heart beats.

Something similar could be used for stamina loss, too.

for one character that would maybe ok. But in this game you control six characters, if the screen gets red you don't know which chracter got hit. but you want to know which chracter you have to withdraw because he is in a critical conditon. I think it isn't fun to guess how much hp your chracter has left.

[centurionofprix]

As for HP and stamina loss, there could be audiovisual feedback. You loose health, the rim of the screen gets a bit red and you hear the beating of your heart. The more damage you take, the more red the screens goes and the faster the heart beats.

Something similar could be used for stamina loss, too.

nonononono. no. Aside from ruining the tactical gameplay, these solutions tend to hurt "immersion" as well by blending obviously 'game' elements with the setting/in-character aspect.

 

But perhaps health/stamina could be visible as floating numbers above the characters and in a corner of the screen at the stroke of a button (TAB for example) if one chose to play with the UI disabled.

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Sensuki]

If you don't want a UI, there was a button to play without it in BG2, and there probably will be in this too.

[Rostere]

Back in the days of BG2, the UI was togglable. Most likely there will be such an option in this game as well.

[Aldereth]

I like a clean interface. I suspect there is an option like above posters describe. In fact when I see the BG style interface on the latest PE update, I was actually a bit "disappointed" in the sense that I was it was a IWD screenshot at first glance. I know that PE was built "in the spirit" of BG. I was surprised that i was bothered by this similarity. i guess it is so.close to the inspiration that it gives me the impression of a BG/IWD clone. I guess I want to see innovation while still give me the feel of those older games. So my expectations extend to interface design

Edited May 30, 2013 by Aldereth

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I don't think this is a very good idea. A UI is essential for me to play a Party-based RTwP RPG effectively.

 

Good idea, but no, definitely not. I want to play my RPGs with a mouse in one hand and a beer in the other, thank you very much.

I agree. If I can't effectively play a RPG using only the mouse and spacebar, I get a bit frustrated.

[Malekith]

 

 

Bad idea: No UI at all

Fixed

[Lephys]

So you are bold... but are you also... daring?

 

NEGATIVE UI! I want the UI to not only refrain from existing, but also for holographic projections to actually extend the non-UI gamescreen off the edges of one's monitor. u_u

[Lord_Darkmmon76]

I believe that an evolution in terms of UI and HUD would be really interesting. Being stuck to the same features and terms in RPGs is stagnation. I don't propose to create whole new mechanics. Of course there should be all of the elements in the game that an RPG, especially one in the tradition of Baldur's Gate, needs but I think for immersion it would be great if those mechanics could be mostly hidden. Think more of a virtual world and less of a game.

Floating numbers, names above heads, hit point bars etc. I think all of those are mechanics we could do away with in modern games without sacrificing a really deep RPG-experience. Cluttering the screen with windows, bars, icons etc. drives away the focus from the actual experience of being in another world. If I look onto a screen and just see the landscape etc. it is simply much more immersive than staring on a HUD or UI as this rips me out of the feeling of being in this world.

 

Maybe this comes from playing MMORPGs in which the focus seems to be much more on too many windows, numbers, texts on the screen instead of the world and what is going on around you. The game experience should always be the focus and not some numbers or bars or windows. Therefore I think a system like in Ultima VII would be great.

[teknoman2]

im not a fan of floating numbers and such, so i agree that these should not be in the game, but no UI at all would make it really hard to play. if i want to use a spell or skill, i would have to remember in what slot of an invisible hotkey bar i put it and do that for 6 characters.

[Stun]

I read the latest update of Project Eternity and after playing a bit of Ultima VII a thought occured to me. How about no UI for Project Eternity?

 

In Ultima VII you generally just see the landscape and what is going on. Of course you can open the inventory and your status screen/paperdoll for you and you companions as well as a map. But there is no UI on the screen. This makes for a very immersive game experience and it works very well. It pulls you much more into the world. Here is a screenshot: http://sergorn.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/u7codex.png

 

I image that it could work in Project Eternity, too. There would have to be some audio-visual feedback for some things like you or some of your party members being hurt etc.

 

Also I propose that there should not be names or health bars above the heads of monsters, NPCs etc. And there should not be any numbers floating around showing you how much damage you do to the enemies. Instead there could also be audio-visual feedback like blood and visual wounds on monsters, limping or fleeing monsters so that you know how much damage you dealt to them.

 

Image how much more immersive the game would be if you just see the landscape, the creatures, NPCs, the party etc. Nothing to detract you from the immersion of the world...

This is not some novel idea. This is the often-repeated minimalist suggestion. I'm vehemently opposed to it. There are at least a hundred things that are wrong with it, not the least of which is that it simply wouldn't work well for a party based, iso-view, RTwP game that is going to have several different distinct classes with dozens upon dozens of spells, skills and abilities for each. I can't even begin to imagine the headaches it would pose for those of us who wish to engage in a truly tactical party vs. party battle (for example). And it wouldn't *at all* capture the feel of the old infinity engine games that we were *promised* PE would be reminiscent of.

 

Skyrim has what you are describing though, doesn't it. Take that and be happy.

 

Instead of having your skills visible in a bar at the bottom of the screen you could allocate abilites and skills to keys. And you could have a special key that could bring up a skill-bar if you need to re-allocate skills or enter new ones.

A *good* RPG will have more spell choices for your mage than your keyboard has keys. And if your solution is to assign 1 button to bring up a giant spell menu list, then what was the point of having the empty, UI free game world screen in the first place? Edited May 31, 2013 by Stun

[SunBroSolaire]

 

Sorry, but I really really don't like this idea.

[Fearabbit]

And it wouldn't *at all* capture the feel of the old infinity engine games that we were *promised* PE would be reminiscent of.

Skyrim has what you are describing though, doesn't it. Take that and be happy.

 

You sound pretty angry. There's no need for that. He made a suggestion that he thinks would benefit the game, and pretty much everyone else had a different opinion. He didn't say "it has to be like this" or "the UI in IE games sucked!!".

And concerning the Skyrim remark: Everyone before you managed to state their opinion without being condescending. Try it sometime.

[rjshae]

Even in exploration mode, I think you still want to at least see the status of the party members. Any lingering effects should be clearly visible. You would also need to know the time of day and possibly the sky conditions if weather changes are important. Finally, the dialogue window may also be needed if the game is particularly chatty about what you see. Hence I don't think you can completely do away with the interface elements.

[Lord_Darkmmon76]

Even in exploration mode, I think you still want to at least see the status of the party members. Any lingering effects should be clearly visible. You would also need to know the time of day and possibly the sky conditions if weather changes are important. Finally, the dialogue window may also be needed if the game is particularly chatty about what you see. Hence I don't think you can completely do away with the interface elements.

For all of those things audiovisual elements could be included. Your partymembers could be limping or they could sneeze and cough if they are sick...So you know that something is not right.

If you want to know what time of day it is, open the inventory and take a look a the watch.

Of course, dialoges would still be in place, maybe similar to how Ultima 8 did them (which by the way did not have a UI/HUD, too):

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090825111253/u5lazarus/images/2/2f/Bane.jpg

 

Another idea would be to have health and mana/stamina displayed as bars if you mouseover the partymember. If you do not hover with the mouse over the partymember, the bars are not displayed. They could also be permanently displayed during combat.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Lord_Darkmmon76

[rjshae]

 

Even in exploration mode, I think you still want to at least see the status of the party members. Any lingering effects should be clearly visible. You would also need to know the time of day and possibly the sky conditions if weather changes are important. Finally, the dialogue window may also be needed if the game is particularly chatty about what you see. Hence I don't think you can completely do away with the interface elements.

For all of those things audiovisual elements could be included. Your partymembers could be limping or they could sneeze and cough if they are sick...So you know that something is not right.

If you want to know what time of day it is, open the inventory and take a look a the watch.

Of course, dialoges would still be in place, maybe similar to how Ultima 8 did them (which by the way did not have a UI/HUD, too):

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090825111253/u5lazarus/images/2/2f/Bane.jpg

 

Another idea would be to have health and mana/stamina displayed as bars if you mouseover the partymember. If you do not hover with the mouse over the partymember, the bars are not displayed. They could also be permanently displayed during combat.

 

Audio elements can be less clear and even annoying when repeated enough times. I prefer visual queues. But to each their own.

[eimatshya]

Honestly, I have enough trouble monitoring the health of all six of my party members at once in the IE games. Doing away with HP bars would not be an improvement in this area.

 

As other posters have said, I can see how this could work in a game where you only control one character (there are lots of FPS games with such a system), but I can't see how this wouldn't be confusing in an IE style game.

[Bartimaeus]

I often take this route in singleplayer first person shooters, (S.T.A.L.K.E.R., for example)...but I feel like it is probably not that great of an idea for an isometric tactical CRPG.

[Karkarov]

Actually to any long term user of keybinds this is normally how you like to play.  All I will actually "need" for eternity is party hp/stamina bars, buff/debuff tracking, and maybe a single 10 block action bar.  The statues, gears, escape menu, and other crap are just for people who haven't learned how to use a keyboard.

[Dream]

 after playing a bit of Ultima VII a thought occured to me. 

 

Therefore I think a system like in Ultima VII would be great.

 

 maybe similar to how Ultima 8 did them 

 

If you want to play an Ultima game Richard Garriott recently did a kickstarter. 

 

Go there.