174 replies to this topic

[Xeno Phalcon]

UI 2.0 looks pretty sexy, but that 'clunk' sound effect when you click stuff in the mechlab will get old FAST.

[Foresale]

HPG Manifold looks like the surface of the Death Star. This pleases me immensely.

[CyclonerM]

I don't like too much the new UI 2.0.. I love the paper doll.. But i love the new weapons designs.
Besides, it seems too much semplified and too much similar to ALL the others F2P..

[Riptor]

pbiggz, on 22 October 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jihad

Perhaps this map will make more sense in the future.

Woah.. easy there... lets deal with the clans before we start throwing around nukes again XD

[Heffay]

Riptor, on 22 October 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Uh...huh...

The hell is joru?

And really heffay... thats it? That is your big argument that totaly invalidates mine?

What i meant with "City maps" was River city and Crimson Strait.

Have no idea what the hell joru is suposed to be.

So that does actually begs the question if we are actually playing the same game. Because there is no "joru" in the MWO i play.

But anyways... what about the cars heffay? Arent they all neatly parked in their parking lots as if everyone went to work like its a normal monday?

You don't even know the proper name of the city for the River City map? You've never noticed everything scattered around like a city evacuated on short notice?

There are so many things wrong with what you post, I just get tired thinking about generating a long reply. So keep on with the personal attacks. They do a lot to cement your position.

Edited by Heffay, 22 October 2013 - 09:34 AM.

[Chavette]

Hexenhammer, on 21 October 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

MWO Moon Map?

Star Wars Approved!

Can you imagine the luxury to get one of those surface quarters compared to the rest of the neon and corridor hell...

[Riptor]

Heffay, on 22 October 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

You don't even know the proper name of the city for the River City map? You've never noticed everything scattered around like a city evacuated on short notice?

There are so many things wrong with what you post, I just get tired thinking about generating a long reply. So keep on with the personal attacks. They do a lot to cement your position.

Oh heffay, heffay, heffay.

The map name is River city... i couldnt give less of a **** what the citys name is because it has absolutely no bearing on anything.

You know what will happen with joru when CW will come out? Joru will be a city on every single damn planet we fight for. So the name is absolutely moot.

And im sorry but the cars do not look "scattered around" and even if they do. The city still feels like that one chinese ghost town that was build but no one but the janitor lives there. But unlike rivercity it actually looks like a place where people could live in.

Also im currently in the testing grounds running around rivercity just to check if i might actually have been wrong on this one.

Nope... first thing i see is cars neatly parked in the parking lots as if their owners just went to work in the refinery that was cleverly build right next to the residential area...

[StonedDead]

Heffay, on 22 October 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

You don't even know the proper name of the city for the River City map? You've never noticed everything scattered around like a city evacuated on short notice?

There are so many things wrong with what you post, I just get tired thinking about generating a long reply. So keep on with the personal attacks. They do a lot to cement your position.

Honestly, I doubt many of us knew the name of the city. I didn't. However, I've been on it many times and I see nothing to indicate it was evacuated. Sure, there are some cars destroyed in the streets, but a lot of them are also parked orderly in parking lots.

The point stands, during this time period, no one would be messing around in a Comstar facility in the first place. And the HPG structure doesn't make sense other than to look cool. No one is arguing that it doesn't look cool, just that it would fit in as a Halo map better than an MWO map.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

The UI2.0 vid. didn't go through as many screen as I would have liked, but did show many of the previously identified images and where they would be used. Many of the information or description objects looked good and I did like how only the items that could be mounted in a specific location were displayed.

The main window which displays all of the players mech's wasn't obvious, even though there are many mech's listed as owned. And nothing of the "Market" to purchase new weapons or systems, but that may not have been ready or present at this level. The Pilot skills tree still looks the same with the same items to "upgrade" as we have now. Nothing listed as "unique" to certain Mech's chassis shown in this version.

Bryan may have not shown all the screens that would be available to pilots in this first intro video. Lets hope there's more, as some have addressed, "strip", "Max", "load profile", would be some.

Now onto the New "HPG Manifold" map, to me it looks like a cross between "Moon Base Alfa" and "Star Wars" for the structure design. But again, as has been stated, there doesn't seem to be a reason for a lots of the features to be there. No labeled names on structures, openings, ramps, doors, nothing to identify anything. And I'm assuming this is a small station located away from any habitation or populated area. (As there are no landing pads for inbound, outbound traffic. And no evidence of road travel routes. So there must be underground travel tubes or corridors not evident.)

Reference image of "Space1999" moon base:


See any similarities?

I would like to get this UI2.0 into the testing stage now, and not have to wait till Nov. to start testing.

Later,
9erRed

[KovarD]

Wow this map is a copy-paste of Hawken (with less color):

https://www.playhawk...ide/maps/origin

https://www.playhawk...maps/front-line

[Heffay]

Riptor, on 22 October 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:

Oh heffay, heffay, heffay.

The map name is River city... i couldnt give less of a **** what the citys name is because it has absolutely no bearing on anything.

You know what will happen with joru when CW will come out? Joru will be a city on every single damn planet we fight for. So the name is absolutely moot.

And im sorry but the cars do not look "scattered around" and even if they do. The city still feels like that one chinese ghost town that was build but no one but the janitor lives there. But unlike rivercity it actually looks like a place where people could live in.

Also im currently in the testing grounds running around rivercity just to check if i might actually have been wrong on this one.

Nope... first thing i see is cars neatly parked in the parking lots as if their owners just went to work in the refinery that was cleverly build right next to the residential area...

Go watch the official release video for River City (aka Joru). It will explain a lot about why the city looks the way it does.

Zekester81, on 22 October 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

However, I've been on it many times and I see nothing to indicate it was evacuated.

The signs all over the city that say "EMERGENCY EVACUATION" doesn't give you a clue??

[StonedDead]

Heffay, on 22 October 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Go watch the official release video for River City (aka Joru). It will explain a lot about why the city looks the way it does.



The signs all over the city that say "EMERGENCY EVACUATION" doesn't give you a clue??

No, I'm usually too busy fighting to read street signs. I noticed the cars because I used to get stuck on them from time to time. And mercs don't care about signs in the first place, unless they are pointing to a stack of C-Bills.

Edit: So I went and looked in Training Grounds. They say Emergency Standby in neon letters on the building edges( in upper city at least). Nothing says anything was evacuated, looks like they lit the signs when the battle started. Just saying, it's hard to tell what they were going for there. But that's not the issue, and this is getting off topic, other than the fact that the map designs could use some tweaking if PGI meat for them to mean what you think they do.

Edited by Zekester81, 22 October 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[Riptor]

Heffay, on 22 October 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Go watch the official release video for River City (aka Joru). It will explain a lot about why the city looks the way it does.



The signs all over the city that say "EMERGENCY EVACUATION" doesn't give you a clue??

OMG! THEY SAY "EMERGENCY STANDBY!" CLEARLY ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE INVALIDATED BECAUSE YOU DIDNT KNOW THIS RANDOM TIDBIT OF INFORMATION!

See what i did there?

On the other hand that would suggest you had an argument to begin with

They can say "BRATWURST HIER!" for all i care.

The city still doesnt look like it was alive. No shops, no playgrounds, a harbor with giant fueltanks right next to a residential area and a SPACE PORT right next to another one.

Can you imagine how loud a dropship launch is? Who would live in earshot range of a space port?

That like living right next to Cape Canaveral.. only that the space shuttles are launched every damn week or so.

No one in their right mind would live right next to it nor would anyone planning a city put something like a space port right next to a residential area.

Unless youre playing sim city and want to see how much you can torture people.

[Rhaythe]

KovarD, on 22 October 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

Wow this map is a copy-paste of Hawken (with less color):

https://www.playhawk...ide/maps/origin

https://www.playhawk...maps/front-line

Which is a copy-paste of every greeble-ized thing ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble

[Heffay]

Zekester81, on 22 October 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

But that's not the issue, and this is getting off topic, other than the fact that the map designs could use some tweaking if PGI meat for them to mean what you think they do.

Not what I think. What PGI said they meant.

Go look at the release video for Joru. Backstory is always nice when playing in a map.

[Riptor]

Rhaythe, on 22 October 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Which is a copy-paste of every greeble-ized thing ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble

From that wiki page:

Quote

"Something that looks cool but doesn't actually do anything."

Thats exactly what im talking about.

Oh and nice read there Rhaythe, have a like

[Acid Phase]

I'll tell you what will annoy me about this map. The drawback to over jump jetting due to low-grav not being implemented. You know, where it over shoots your mech to out of bounds.

Edited by Acid Phase, 22 October 2013 - 10:41 AM.

[Heffay]

Riptor, on 22 October 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

OMG! THEY SAY "EMERGENCY STANDBY!" CLEARLY ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE INVALIDATED BECAUSE YOU DIDNT KNOW THIS RANDOM TIDBIT OF INFORMATION!

What about the part that scrolls along the bottom that says "Mandatory evacuation"?

[StonedDead]

If that's what they meant, it doesn't appear to represent that in game. It sure doesn't look like an evacuation took place. I hope they add in more detail in the future.

[jay35]

From those screenshots, it appears the client screens are shinier and smoother and, well, bluer, but they still don't really communicate all of the important information in a better way than the existing UI. There also seems to be a lack of improved ergonomic efficiencies, such as a Strip Mech button or a Max Armor button - functions found in previous MechWarrior games and in smurfy's excellent online MechLab toolset. In a word, several changes in UI 2.0 appear to be "superficial" and maybe even one or two that are a step backward.

Smurfy's simple numbers tables, for example, communicate a much simpler comparison of mech turning radii and torso twist rates (not to mention ghost heat and weapon, ammo, and equipment specs) and do so much more quickly and intuitively across the entire line of mechs on one page, rather than using visual charts and graphs that you can only see for one mech at a time and that's even assuming you actually want to see those numbers represented visually. In reality, it may look neat but it's mostly fluff and therefore wasted space on the screen.

When it comes to customized mechs, rather than just showing the variant's default stats, the important numbers (as Sean noted) are DPS, Heat Efficiency, etc. It is unclear whether these stats are presented in a truly useful manner.

Smufy's MechLab is a model of efficiency in design. Why is UI 2.0 still forcing us to click on each body part to edit them one at a time? It's wasteful clicking and completely unnecessary. Make the whole mech accessible at once, just like Smurfy's (or MW4 for that matter). Where are the shortcuts like Strip Mech or Max Armor, as noted earlier?

Also, it appears the blue theme overpowers the three-color weapon types which are a MechWarrior series staple and highly-intuitive (green for Missiles, red Energy, yellow Ballistics). Why are weapon objects that belong to one of those three classes displayed in anything other than those three colors anywhere in this UI? (Example.Lots of blue there, a poor stylistic decision to use red to denote something that can't fit on the selected bodypart rather than just graying out items that can't fit and preserving red for Energy-based weapons, an improper emphasis on functionally-pointless sketches/diagrams of the weapons that results in only fitting one bodypart of the mech on screen at a time, rather than prioritizing the display of the full mech and relegating weapons/items to a narrow sidebar a la Smurfy's Mechlab. That last bit is a design feature probably borrowed from MW:Tactics where the weapons are cards you collect in the game and therefore have a functional reason to have a visual representation, where as in MWO they can simply be a list of items like in Smurfy's Mechlab. And in all of that deciphering of the screenshot showing Missile weapons being assigned to an arm bodypart, there is no clear use of the proper green color for Missile weapons. Everything sort of blurs together into a uniform blue/silver theme. The design needs a full rethink, but here's a quick-and-dirty attempt to at least set the color scheme back on track within that existing UI.)

Pretty isn't as important as usefulness. Smurfy's main page and his MechLab remain the best guidepost for how to improve the MechLab UI. We'd at least then have something highly functional, intuitive, and efficient for comparing and building our mechs.

Besides all the focus on shiny, it appears we may still have thumbnails that don't actually portray the camo our mechs are currently wearing, just standard and hero/founder/phoenix defaults.

And those thumbnails still don't tell us anything additional about out mechs from a distance than they do in the current UI. How about a small icon or light to note mechs that have Modules attached to them? How about a visual cue to discern between mechs with or without engines in them or even a hint at their loadouts or weapon types?

This UI 2.0 could be SO GOOD. Clearly they have design talent. But what we're being shown here demonstrates a lack of careful thought into functionality, cognitive cues/themes, and possibly a lack of awareness of the best aspects of past entries in the MechWarrior franchise that should be copied or retained.

But overall, I think the disappointing part of it is that they could have asked any one of us early on when they were prototyping this UI, for input or feedback and we could have guided them on a lot of these issues. Heck, they could have started out by getting user input on what functionality we'd want in a UI that the current one is missing. I feel like they may have done that once but it was one of those "pick from a handful of features we've predetermined" rather than a true blank slate, "give us your top needs" sort of request. The attitude of "we know best" still comes through in the work they do on components like this UI 2.0, even when they demonstrate that perhaps they know some things but they really don't know best.

Anyway, I've tried to be constructive in this feedback post, as I want to see UI 2.0 and MWO as a whole succeed. Goodness knows I've put enough money and time into MWO. But there are some underlying themes that come through in what they're showing us, and a lack of user testing and feedback appears to be one of them. Here's hoping the next look at UI 2.0 shows some improvements in key areas.

Edited by jay35, 22 October 2013 - 12:09 PM.