Whats so bad about the UI????

[eddieballgame]

Why am I always in the minority on these "major issues". Now that I have a good feel of the UI, I have NO complaints. Hell, I liked MOO3's UI (patched, of course).

[Possum]

Hugh Manatee said:
Meh, people need to get their left thumbs out of whatever oriface it's crammed into and start using it. Seriously, unless you are gimped from the neck down somehow there's no good reason not to use a PC with both hands unless you're beating off or a lazy fatass who's to busy cramming cheese powder coated salty fried nummies into your gullet. I've noticed this too among people who dislike RTS type games, calling them confusing clickfests, when in most RTS games there are hotkeys that can greatly ease the load off the mouse.

Ok, this is what we mean when we talk about hostility toward anyone who complains. We were having a calm, rational, objective discussion of issues, and then Hugh chimes in with personal attacks.

How is this justified? Why is this violation of forum rules tolerated?

[Atrocities]

eddieballgame said:
Why am I always in the minority on these "major issues". Now that I have a good feel of the UI, I have NO complaints. Hell, I liked MOO3's UI (patched, of course).

As the minority here you hereby appointed Minority Leader.

[Raapys]

Uhuh, I thought MoO3's UI, at least the major parts of it, was ingenius. I still don't like SE V's UI very much though. SE IV's was just about perfect.

[Atrocities]

OT: Moo3 had a lot of unutilized protential. It was a game that should have been a hell of a lot better than it turned out to be. To "me" the UI had fuzzy fonts, was combersome to use, and lacked intuitiviness. It was more frustrating than useful and that seriously hurt the game IMHO.

I really didn't play much of Moo3 after about a week. While many have grown to love the game and some have even improved it, I haven't played it in years. I really wish I could have gotten to play this game, but honestly I just could not get into it.

I look back on Moo3 with sincere regret. Here was a game that I wanted, that I waited for, and that I shelled out $60.00 buck for. I was really angry at the time both at the developers, and at the publishers. (But more so at the developers.)

I think many game developers learned a very valuable lesson from the whole moo3 incident. (Well not VUG, Tribes Vengence was a solid single player game but had astonishingly cheat riddled multiplayer coupled with insanely bad game play design, two things which were key elements to the games failure.)

Aaron, I am sure, took notice of what happened with MOO3 and has done everything he can do to develope a solid game. SE V, even with its current flaws, is a surprisingly damn good game right out of the box and patched to current version.

As a one man development team, he himself, and Otus, his games have consitantly been addictive time consuming life destroyers.

While I would have gladdly paid another $40.00 or more for a FIXED version of MOO3, or waited another year for it to be released as the game it should have been, I can understand the need to get money coming in after so many years of development.

BOT:

With some work the UI in SE V can be made very functional and intuative. I am sure that as time passes many things will happen with the UI. I look forward to the time that I can start a game of SE V and instinctively use the UI without becoming frustrated and angry. I want to look back at these days and feel good about how the game has improved over time.

I figure that after most of the bugs have been delt with, Aaron will begin to work on the UI. So having a good idea of the improvements that are needed wouldn't hurt their chances of becoming part of the game.

So the more we talk about it, the better the chance that we will come up with some good ideas.

[Raapys]

Continued OT: Latest patch, lots of 'data patches'( i.e. edited game executable to fix alot of bugs) and a mod or two, then MoO3 really shines. Not only that, but it's a *completely unique* game, so different that it can't even be compared to MoO2 nor Space Empires. Which I like more is difficult to say; just like SE5, MoO3 has alot of issues still, but it was completely worth the 50$'ish I paid for it, eventually. I usually find myself doing about one game a year; my games usually stretch out to like turn 800++. In short, though, it's the only real epic and 'realistic' 4X.

[Artaud]

Hugh Manatee said:
Meh, people need to get their left thumbs out of whatever oriface it's crammed into and start using it. Seriously, unless you are gimped from the neck down somehow there's no good reason not to use a PC with both hands unless you're beating off or a lazy fatass who's to busy cramming cheese powder coated salty fried nummies into your gullet. I've noticed this too among people who dislike RTS type games, calling them confusing clickfests, when in most RTS games there are hotkeys that can greatly ease the load off the mouse.

Most routine ship operations only take eihter 2 clicks, a hotkey and a click, or for cargo a short series of double clicks. Only the research and build lists need a whole lot of clicks, and the design screen needs upper, mid and lower hotkeys with an add item button.

^^^
Reason #1 why I very rarely post in this forum anymore.

This, friends, is what I meant when I said before that I sense a growing hostility here toward those of us who politely voice complaints.

[Demorve]

One of the improvements to the UI that I would like to see is moveable windows that are also resizable. I currently have a dual monitor setup and would love to be able to move some of the windows to my secondary screen. Imagine being able to take quadrant map, enlarging it and then moving it off the system window to your other monitor and then clicking on the systems' icons and being able to see what's in that system. Another advantage would be being able to open up a window that you use alot, resize it to what you want and then leave it open all the time. The game would also remember the size and position in case you closed and then reopened the window. This UI would favor those of us that have dual or widescreen monitors, but if every time you opened a window it created a tab on the task bar then you could open up as many window as you want, leave them open and then just single click on a windows tab to make it the active window and bring it to the front.

[Hugh Manatee]

ok first some OT BS:

Ok, this is what we mean when we talk about hostility toward anyone who complains. We were having a calm, rational, objective discussion of issues, and then Hugh chimes in with personal attacks.
How is this justified? Why is this violation of forum rules tolerated?

Reason #1 why I very rarely post in this forum anymore.
This, friends, is what I meant when I said before that I sense a growing hostility here toward those of us who politely voice complaints.

Who did I personally attack? What forum rule did I violate? Lastly I don't have to justify anything because it was meant as a crude joke to make a very valid point.... Seriously get a sense of humor people - Removed by Moderator - just because some forum trolls go blasting off on certain people or topics doesn't mean you have to lose all sense of humor, even if I was a bit crude, and maintain some sort of "Masterpiece Forum" stuck up ettiquet. For someone who "rampantly uses asterisks" I thought at least someone would get it and chuckle....


Now on topic, I say again, there is no reason short of being handicapped or having your "off" hand occupied by some other task such as self gratification or gorging onself while sedentary(some apparently on tea, scones or biscits instead of cheese powder coated, fried nummies), that you shouldn't play or work with both hands on a PC. Take Blender, people who first see it tend to call it one of the most bizar or "cumbersome" UIs ever, unabe to find menus or buttons for stuff unlike milkshape, anim8or, or others, till they get to know that you actually have to use both hands to use it well. Every manual and tutorial starts with "have one hand on the mouse the other on the keyboard", and it works. Stuff gets done faster in blender because of it's keyboard oriented interface. you can get to the stuff with the mouse if you have to, but the keyboard is faster. Once I learned this I started memorizing hotkeys for Civ2, Alpha Centauri, Guild Wars, SEIV, SE3, sim city, and now SEV, even FPS and flight sims. I'm telling you, stuff gets done faster with less movement of the wrists, less wear on the mouse, I don't have to hunt for icons buried in menus, info is imidiate and I can dismiss it imediately it's great. All because I'm willing to lift my left arm and reach about 2 feet in front of me. A printed list of the keys is not hard to come by and if you lack that, open the game windowed and put the list in the background. If you are capable, and don't want to lift your off arm out, then there's no excuse, you're whatever I described above. Stuborn, lazy, a "wanker" or some combo of both. I'm sorry if that's true, but it is, and if you took the good natured, if a little crude, jibe a little rough so be it, no apologies given. Play with both hands, always.

Also, atrocities I'm not sure what info the SEIV interface gave at a glance that wasn't already in a menu that the SEV doesn't, can you elaborate(IIRC they still show what facilities exist on the planets in the main system display right)? I recall the map SEIV being a bit bigger, clearer, sometimes I can't see if there are warps on an unexplored system in SEV's if I don't expand it, and I'm not sure how boarders or colors get marked but otherwise it's still functional.

[Atrocities]

MODERATOR MODE

Please avoid posting any rude and derogatory comments. This forum is a place for people to discuss topics, not be insulted or otherwise offended by dilibrate action.

Please note that any future derogatory or inflamatory comments will be removed by moderator action.

Thank you.