Looking back at Dom1.....

[Vodalian]

For several days now, my mind has turned back to Dom 1, just to see how to see how different it felt compered to its slightly younger sibling. I was surprised to see how different the atmosphere in these game was. Dom 1 seemed to have a much fresher touch to it and I was immediately immersed into the game world. My thoughts were filled with vivid images of military campains and life-like images of large cities bustling with citizens. When I returned to Dominions II, much of this "glow" was lost, and the nation I commanded felt somehow more distant and artificial. I haven't been able to find any sensible reason for this, especially as my logic tells me that DomII is in every way a superior game, but for some reason my intuition seems to disagree.

[ December 29, 2003, 23:20: Message edited by: Vodalian ]

[Gandalf Parker]

I agree and Im also at a loss. Dom1 feels like it lets me move around in it faster? Even after getting used to the Dom2 interface, and Im sure there is less micromanagement, somehow it doesnt seem to click along.

[ December 29, 2003, 22:08: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[NTJedi]

I never played dominions_1.... however one kool feature I was reading Online about was how the realm pixels would change based on the events and/or strengths of a dominion.
Maybe with dominions_3 they will bring this feature back but with improved graphics.

[apoger]

>Dom1 feels like it lets me move around in it faster?

It does. I know the fanboys will throw a fit for me saying this, but Dom1 had a better interface in some ways.

There a a bunch of very simple GUI issues that really make a difference.

As an example:

The "Triangle" between the characters, army button, and province commands.

These are the functions that players access most often.

In Dom1 the characters are on the left side, the army button just above, and the province commands in the center. This formed an interface triangle about half the size of the screen.

In Dom2 the characters are on the left side, the army button is on the right, and the province commands are on top/center. This interface triangle is the size of the whole screen.

This means that players must mouse-move over a vastly larger distance while issuing commands. I know that many will comment that it's a trivial distance, and they'd be right. However it becomes and issue when the motions/clicks need to be done repetitively. Since these motions are repeated hundreds if not thousands of times, as an aggragate, this is a heck of a lot of extra movement.

It's my opinion that all the commonly used buttons should have been placed as close as possible in order to make the interface sharp.

Frankly there are many other small issues with the interface. I honestly don't think I can get IllWinter to change things. I'll be happy (delighted) if I can get them to fix the replays so we can control the speed again.

However as long as I'm on my soapbox...

As long as we are displaying icons in the top/center province box that represent the types of dominion scales, why the heck do we need to "mouse over" to get the amount of scale associated? How about just putting in a number next to the icon showing the +1 +2 or +3? Or put 1-3 dots under the icon. Or make the icons come in three sizes (small/medium/large/). Or three different levels of transparancy. Why go through the effort to bring us those very useful visual icons and leave out half the info... forcing a mouse over? Argh!

Along the same lines, everything we need to know about a province is in the top/center province box on the main screen... except one thing. The only info of consequence missing is the number/type of enemy troops. For that we need to go through the extra layer of interface and either hit the "province info" button or keystroke "i". Why? As long as we have all the rest of the needed info on the main screen, how hard would it have been to squeeze in a single line of small text saying "50 Hostiles, mostly archers, lead by a Manticore"? Then we could skip the whole extra screen and save the players zillions of province checking keystrokes. It adds up!


Sorry for the rant. It just gets me heated when I see such a massively awesome product getting the short stick over some simple interface issues.

[ December 30, 2003, 00:10: Message edited by: apoger ]

[Arralen]

And while you're counting those mouse-miles .. do a "screen usability check", or however you might call it:

If you devided each screen layout in rectangles, how much %tage of each screen is (screenshot with color-overlays in painting program is helpful):

1) useful and well-placed info
2) useful, but redundant or time-consuming to come by info that should be presented elsewhere / different
3) info that isn't necessary, but doesn't distract as well
4) incomplete info, that needs more clicks/mouseovers to reveal the full info but makes accessing the starting page impossible/diffcult at the same time
4) distracting info or eye-candy, that actually takes away from the main purpose of the screen
5) nothing, really

The main screen isn't that bad in this regard (esp. compared to DOM1). The transparent menues are a really helpful feature, as they allow to keep a general overview while zooming in on the active prov. and it's neighbours at the same time. (Never missed an enemy army in the vincinity, what happend to me sometimes in DOM1 when it was "just offscreen"..)

But the "status bar" mixes up empire and province info, but does hide some necessary of the latter. (concure with apoger on this).

I would suggest e.g. moving "Treasury, Total Income, Upkeep" to an "empire status row" at the top of the screen, which is docked to the frame to avoid wasting valuable screen space (from the center). You'll have be careful with this not to break the overall appearence, though.
Thinking 'bout it, things like gem income / treasury would fit into that status row as well.

yours,
A.

[Jasper]

The biggest problems I have with the Dom 2 is that it doesn't present alot of commonly needed information easily, and that it could with a few changes easily do so. This includes:

Provincial Military Intelligence
-How about an extra gui box for this in foreign provinces?

Scale information
-Show all of the information or none of it.

Unused leadership
-Those swords look nicer than the Dom1's bars, but are less usefull.

battle replay speed/information
-Replay speed of course
-A better summary, for example clickable icons for everyone that died
-summary from castle stormings
-link to battle message from military intelligence

Layout of province info
-Put information in colums
-Put similar information together

Nation Overview
-Allow setting non-movement orders here!
-Recruiting links would be great!
-Some information is missing, e.g. Dominion


On the other hand, I'm not so put off by the "triangle" distances mentioned by Alex, as I use keyboard shortcuts for repeated tasks, and having the buttons seperated makes them better at what I consider their main task: making all functionality easy to find.

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Jasper:

Scale information
-Show all of the information or none of it.

It's better to see something than nothing, but seeing it all would be even better.

Unused leadership
-Those swords look nicer than the Dom1's bars, but are less usefull.

Maybe sheathed swords, handle up? That would still be only a vague idea, and it would take space, but would keep the same style.

battle replay speed/information
-A better summary, for example clickable icons for everyone that died
-summary from castle stormings

Battle speed is good. Someone had the idea that message is shown in the upper corner when a commander dies, but many might die at once so that might not be very useful. And I think the castle summary thing is more a bug than anything else.

Layout of province info
-Put information in colums
-Put similar information together

This is good. Nation and province information is mixed too easily, and especially for the beginners titles would help.

Nation Overview
-Allow setting non-movement orders here!
-Recruiting links would be great!
-Some information is missing, e.g. Dominion

First might already be, but I'm not sure. It should be if it already isn't. Recruiting would be nice, but seeing the type of province (Garnet amazons etc.) would be good too. And Dominion, while nice, is not that important. But scales are, and I miss them too! Also, we need some kind of a tool to put all these views on/off.

Endoperez
Still waiting for my DomII... And school starts on Friday (ironic, isn't it). Seems I won't really get into playing it for some time...

[ December 31, 2003, 20:25: Message edited by: Endoperez ]