Kevall Longstride
DUST University
Ivy League
863
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Posted - 2014.01.24 10:23:00 -
[1] - Quote
A lot of good stuff there IWS o7
Personally I like the current design aesthetic of the present Neocom, how it 'feels' for the lack of a better term. But the mechanics of how you interact with it is still built on the Eve philosophy of menus and drop down boxes.
This is great for for of us that play Eve but it didn't give Dust a sense of its own identity. I can understand why this is the case. Design of the UI in Eve is a solid and efficient one, so its just easier to port over a complete design than think of a new way. This is however a sloppy way of thinking and a lack of imagination. It also demonstrates, once again, a major flaw in the design process that CCP institutionally can't seem to shake off.
It's a console game.
I'll say that again, a CONSOLE game.
Now let's play a game of what if for a moment. Imagine that instead of its present situation with a hard core of loyal players but limited in number, that the launch of Dust 514 was a spectacular success and we are looking at 15,000 players being on it over a weekend at anytime..... Now what would be the primary control input of all those players, so much so that the other options would only be measured in fractions of a percent.
It would be the input method that came in the box with the console. The pad.
The current design of the majority of the UI in Dust is based in a design philosophy where mouse is king. Untill CCP can exorcise this mentality and work in a world where pad is king, I'm afraid that the UI for Dust is never going to get much better than it is.
And UI is king in a game such as this. A complex and tactical shooter, with the most sophisticated customisation of a character possible in any other console FPS.
The UI is the first point of contact for a player, it sets the tone of the game from the moment of boot up and getting it right is 90% of the battle of keeping a new player. So why is it that in Dust, right now, it takes 15 button presses to activate voice chat? And that if you know exactly how to do it?
This is the triumph of mediocre design. It makes things more complicated that it should be and succeeds in frustrating players before they even get into battle.
Now I said that the majority of the UI is from a philosophy where mouse is king. But where CCP actually have thought outside of the box and remembered this a console game with a pad, they succeeded spectacularly. So much so, I'm not sure they even know it.
Uprising had many problems at launch. We all know that. But hidden in the multitude of bugs and balancing issues were two absolute gems of design. The potential expansion of them as a basis for the UI tragically got sidelined with the problems that needed fixing in the core mechanics of the game itself.
The Starmap and The Skill Tree.
These two new parts of the UI were clearly designed with just one input device in mind. The DS3. But they were also so good that a mouse user could use them as well.
The Starmap in particular is something that CCP should be very proud of. In Eve, using it is a nightmare even with a mouse, but the one is Dust manages to get all of its complexity and displays it in a simple manner. Using the shoulder buttons, detailed infomation is rapidly brought to the player attention. The design is so good that when it shown to us at the Dust Keynote at Fanfest, Seamus Donahue, Professor at EVE University and known as the safest man in Eve, leant over to me and said that the Starmap in Eve should look like that.
The Skill Tree design is also a corker. It could be the foundation of a really solid corporation UI, with different branches of corp mechanics hidden from those without the roles needed while those with them can see them and interact with them.
A branch could be used purely for the infomation about your Merc, with links to other branches such as the skill tree itself and the Starmap to shown your location in New Eden.
As new portals to New Eden are added, such as PvE, industry, Player Market, space elevator control etc etc, a new root branch can be added. The design of the skill tree is modular. It's futureproofed for what may come to Dust and Eve.
I really hope that as Fanfest approaches and the inevitable reveal of 2.0, that CCP have had time to go back and expand on these two gems of UI design. They give Dust a sense of its own identity while firmly keeping it in the world of New Eden.
Mercenary Clone of Dennie Fleetfoot
CEO of DUST University
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