165 replies to this topic

[Tesunie]

Roland, on 18 May 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

Literally no one is complaining about the "backend" of UI 2.0.
Everyone is complaining about the user interface itself.

This is why you're so ridiculous... You admit it needs work, but then you try to shout down people who dare to point out that (obvious) fact.

We aren't trying to "shut down people who point out it need work", we point out the flaws in the arguments that says UI is "game breaking", "unusable" and other such comments. it is usable and functional. That doesn't mean optimized and the best it can be...

(And PGI needed to fix the backend of the UI. In the process, they tried to do something different to the front end they probably thought would be good. it wasn't as good as they thought, or the might have even range out of time to work on it. If I recall right, didn't they "rush UI2.0" out so they could be "on time", which was something that the community was in an uproar about over them never "meeting any deadlines". I hate to say it, but, I think we "asked" for this.)

Lindonius, on 18 May 2014 - 06:58 PM, said:

Fixed that for you.

Um.... no you didn't. Please, don't change a quote, as I was not referring to any cash grabs but to the back end of the UI that we do not see, which has already helped in correcting and finding some of the bugs.

Roland, on 18 May 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

But "what you mind" isn't really a useful metric. That's purely subjective.



Does your degree actually involve user interface design? The reason I ask is because usually, graphic design doesn't actually focus on that particular aspect.

Not to say that user interface design doesn't involve elements of graphic design. But in many cases, a graphic design degree is focused more on the art side of things. For instance, people who design advertisement layouts, or billboards, etc. are graphic designers.

In many cases, there are similar cognitive aspects of the consumer which must be considered, but it's often quite different when you move from non-interactive to interactive presentations.



I didn't ignore it. Those sections just didn't require a response.

On some level, I think that things have moved beyond the point where many of us bother offering up specific changes for PGI to implement... because PGI doesn't listen to us when we do. Check that second link in my sig. I've made numerous posts akin to that, offering up fairly detailed suggestions. Many others have done the same. Mostly, they seem to fall on deaf ears.

The reason why folks are bitter, is because we've been repeatedly lied to.

You've been around since 2012... The forums weren't like this back then, were they? Things used to be pretty positive in these forums, with an incredibly supportive community. But PGI destroyed that good will.

Now, to his credit, Niko is working on improving PGI's relationship with its community. But honestly, at this point? I suspect it may be beyond hope of repair. A lot of folks are just waiting for the DFM to come out in Star Citizen.


The thing is, when it went into test, people told PGI about the problems... and most of that feedback was plainly ignored, and when it was eventually released the interface looked prety much identical to what it looked like in the original concept mock-ups.

Honestly, there are a ton of things in the interface right now which were seemingly considered, and then just left unfinished... For instance, in the mechlab interface, when you see the (totally useless) interface with a million pictures of engines in it... up in the top left of the window is what appears to be a mechanism for switching to a list view. But it doesn't work. Not sure WHY it doesn't work, but it doesn't.


You should realize that saying "It's flawed but it works" is a totally pointless and empty statement. Yes, of course the interface functions. People are in fact able to play the game.

But that's not the measurement of a good user interface. Simply because it's not so broken that it prevents playing the game is not actually a defense. I could make a hammer that was just a cylindrical lead rod... It'd be able to drive nails, but it'd do a poor job at it. The fact that it could technically function as a hammer would not mean that it was a well designed hammer.

"I don't mind it" is my opinion on the subject. As no one has really been presenting any piece for me to present ideas and concepts about, I can't say anything more about the totality of the UI. My experience about is, which is how I form an opinion, is that it is functional and "I don't mind it".

I... think you need to start reading my posts please. You seem to fixate on pieces of it, and normally the least consequential piece of what I say. The sections you ignored where the most important sections of what I had to say, as it would produce productivity, instead of constructiveness that I've been seeing so far.

PGI can't listen to everyone's suggestions (have you seen Sandpits "Why your "Remove this" is wrong?" thead?) and they can't implement everything everyone wishes. However, we can provide ideas and suggestions that PGI can possibly use, even in piece. Also, not all suggestions are possible or would be as functional as the suggestor envisions it to be.

You want to make the claim "we've been lied to"? Prove it. Yes, some design decisions got changed, and some elements got added in that (at least one) the developers said never would be... but that's called an expanding and adapting plan. It's called business and design. (And what you were "promised" was a design draft. Drafts change over time till the final design is finished.)

Actually... (insert Bishops post, almost as my own.)

Bishop Steiner, on 18 May 2014 - 07:20 PM, said:

actually, these forums have been pretty toxic almost the entire 2 years I've been here.

The toxic levels seemed to have risen (and fallen, and then risen again) since I first was on, but I've seen it here in force from the moment I stepped into the forums. (I just wasn't in the toxin till recently as I "was too new" back then to bother debating. I was busy learning the game still.)

Personally, I see a lot of misdirected anger about "perceived" promises. People seem to forget how long it takes to do things, and always seem to claim that "they could do it better". Shall I remind people that PGI is "still hiring"? That banner I know has been there on the bottom of the forums since I joined in. I'd over my services, but I don't like in Canada, and I don't know how well they could use a simple graphic designer who has no knowledge of coding (though I'd be willing to learn) who also isn't willing to move away from his family...

How long did they have from test of UI to implementing the UI? How many changes do you think they could do to the UI in that small about of time!?! They spent that time chasing and squishing bugs that were found, instead of completely redesigning the interface. What you are asking is like me taking a piece of design I worked weeks on for a class, and then scrap the whole project and try to create a "better design" in a single night of work before the project is due... and that's paper design which goes faster than game interface design... I'm certain. (Or like web design, which I've dabbled in a little bit, and it probably would be closer to the example of redesigning a final web site the night before it was due...) People have very high and unreasonable expectations from PGI. Then, when those expectations don't get fulfilled, they get angry (and toxic) most times...

List options would be nice. I bet you that button was left there for a future expansion. Recall that UI2.0 was pressed out early due to our own demands for PGI to uphold on their announced release dates... They kept that release date though! And instead of getting any kind of comment about making a deadline, instead got more toxin thrown at them for "an incomplete design". They told people it wasn't finished and was being pushed out for the deadline. We demanded them make the deadline. Well, we got what we asked for, didn't we?

You realize that saying that it is broken and horrible and barely functional is also a pointless and empty statement? Just saying it is bad is also a pointless and empty statement as well. These statements, which some are as true as my own statement, are pointless and empty without mentioning why it is bad, and mentioning ways to fix and solve the issue. Otherwise, it's just moaning and complaining and empty and "not functional" forum posts, threads and responses. (It's like someone in a voting arena voting on my artwork with the lowest score possible, but not telling me why they see it as being that bad. It does not help me as it provides me no information unto which to understand what I could improve or do better.)


We are going in circles, as I already mentioned. Our two camps needs to stop fighting each other. It is not productive and provides nothing. It is empty. This conversation is becoming empty.

Why not focus all this drive and energy into possibly helping to solve the problem, instead of complaining? Or would that be too productive for you? (And you still ignore the overall important parts of my earlier posts... You have answered some of the "what is it you don't like and think is bad", but you fail to provide "suggestions on how to possibly solve the problem(s)". You also are continuing to try and head off the whole UI "problem" instead of taking it in smaller, easier to debate and provide suggestions to "pieces".)



My opinion on the matter remains steadily unchanged: The UI could use work and refinement. However it is very functional and workable and does not hinder my personal enjoyment of the game at large. (This is my opinion, not my systematic analysis on the UI.)

[Roland]

Tesunie, on 18 May 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

We aren't trying to "shut down people who point out it need work", we point out the flaws in the arguments that says UI is "game breaking", "unusable" and other such comments. it is usable and functional. That doesn't mean optimized and the best it can be...

To be clear, Tesunie, I'm not grouping you with Dymlos.

I don't think that people have actually said that the new user interface is "game breaking". They've described it as terrible... which it is. A user interface can be functional, while also being terrible.

Quote

(And PGI needed to fix the backend of the UI. In the process, they tried to do something different to the front end they probably thought would be good. it wasn't as good as they thought, or the might have even range out of time to work on it. If I recall right, didn't they "rush UI2.0" out so they could be "on time", which was something that the community was in an uproar about over them never "meeting any deadlines". I hate to say it, but, I think we "asked" for this.)

This is just Stockholm syndrome at play.
No man, expecting a production team to meet deadlines is not an excuse for them to released unfinished garbage.

UI 2.0 was not rushed, by any stretch of the imagination. It took them at least NINE MONTHS for them to develop. They devoted a huge amount of resources to it... For months, everything else that players wanted had to be pushed off, because everything was waiting on clearing of this great bottleneck created by the UI architecture.

And after nine months of development by a large portion of their engineering team, UI 2.0 is what we got.

I'm sorry, but that's a poor showing.

Quote

You want to make the claim "we've been lied to"? Prove it.

This has actually been presented a few times now, within the context of CW. It's clear that PGI, not just once, but numerous times, made promises regarding the release of CW that they must have KNOWN they could not possibly meet. They were making claims that it would be released at various times, and then it later came to light that they had not even BEGUN work on it.

If you like, and have not seen the prior presentations of that information, I can dig it up again for you.

Quote

Yes, some design decisions got changed, and some elements got added in that (at least one) the developers said never would be... but that's called an expanding and adapting plan. It's called business and design. (And what you were "promised" was a design draft. Drafts change over time till the final design is finished.)

You seem to be trying to play a semantics argument, but it's kind of pointless.
Such an argument would, potentially, protect PGI from actually being sued for defrauding customers.. but very few people would actually try to make such a case anyway.

What matters is that a large portion of the playerbase feels betrayed and lied to. You can make a legalistic argument about how they weren't "technically" lied to, but such an argument carries no weight in such a case. If people feel that PGI misled them, then those people leave.. because they aren't obligated to play this game. And frankly, I think you're seeing that in the game's population, which seems quite stagnant at this point. But, without actual numbers, that's purely speculation.

Quote

Personally, I see a lot of misdirected anger about "perceived" promises. People seem to forget how long it takes to do things, and always seem to claim that "they could do it better". Shall I remind people that PGI is "still hiring"? That banner I know has been there on the bottom of the forums since I joined in. I'd over my services, but I don't like in Canada, and I don't know how well they could use a simple graphic designer who has no knowledge of coding (though I'd be willing to learn) who also isn't willing to move away from his family...

HR is another aspect to competent management. If you can't hire the people you need, it's not just because you're "unlucky" or something. It means you need to change your HR processes.

Quote

People have very high and unreasonable expectations from PGI. Then, when those expectations don't get fulfilled, they get angry (and toxic) most times...

The expectations really aren't that high or unreasonable. You seem to be using the fact that PGI fails to meet expectations as an indication that those expectations must be unreasonable.. but that's not the case.

Quote

List options would be nice. I bet you that button was left there for a future expansion. Recall that UI2.0 was pressed out early due to our own demands for PGI to uphold on their announced release dates... They kept that release date though! And instead of getting any kind of comment about making a deadline, instead got more toxin thrown at them for "an incomplete design". They told people it wasn't finished and was being pushed out for the deadline. We demanded them make the deadline. Well, we got what we asked for, didn't we?

Again dude, they took nine months of development to make UI 2.0. That's not rushed. That's three quarters of a year.

You act as though making a good, useful interface in 9 months would be some kind of impossible herculean task.. but it's not.

Quote

You realize that saying that it is broken and horrible and barely functional is also a pointless and empty statement?

But saying that it's terrible, due to specific failures to follow fundamental design principles is not an empty statement. It's an identification of specific faults with the user interface that should be addressed. It's an indication that such principles should be considered in a redesign of the interface.

Quote

Why not focus all this drive and energy into possibly helping to solve the problem, instead of complaining? Or would that be too productive for you? (And you still ignore the overall important parts of my earlier posts... You have answered some of the "what is it you don't like and think is bad", but you fail to provide "suggestions on how to possibly solve the problem(s)". You also are continuing to try and head off the whole UI "problem" instead of taking it in smaller, easier to debate and provide suggestions to "pieces".)

I'm not really sure what you expect. For me to totally redesign the interface for them? I mean, I could... but why would I? They would just ignore it. The folks who have designed what we have today haven't even admitted to any of the obvious flaws with it.

At this stage, PGI needs to admit that UI 2.0 is very, very bad. That it fails to embrace fundamental principles of good user interface design.

Until that admission takes place, it's not really going to get fixed. Offering suggestions isn't going to help them... because frankly, the changes that need to be made are fairly holistic. Large portions of the interface need to be scrapped and redesigned with the user's task flow in mind, rather than just trying to make it look pretty.

[Tripzter]

I love the people that say oh the UI is fine because it works.. sure while we're at it why not just edit some code with C++ and use that as a UI? It will work but that doesnt make it acceptable.

[Tesunie]

Roland, on 18 May 2014 - 08:58 PM, said:

To be clear, Tesunie, I'm not grouping you with Dymlos.

I don't think that people have actually said that the new user interface is "game breaking". They've described it as terrible... which it is. A user interface can be functional, while also being terrible.



This is just Stockholm syndrome at play.
No man, expecting a production team to meet deadlines is not an excuse for them to released unfinished garbage.

UI 2.0 was not rushed, by any stretch of the imagination. It took them at least NINE MONTHS for them to develop. They devoted a huge amount of resources to it... For months, everything else that players wanted had to be pushed off, because everything was waiting on clearing of this great bottleneck created by the UI architecture.

And after nine months of development by a large portion of their engineering team, UI 2.0 is what we got.

I'm sorry, but that's a poor showing.



This has actually been presented a few times now, within the context of CW. It's clear that PGI, not just once, but numerous times, made promises regarding the release of CW that they must have KNOWN they could not possibly meet. They were making claims that it would be released at various times, and then it later came to light that they had not even BEGUN work on it.

If you like, and have not seen the prior presentations of that information, I can dig it up again for you.



You seem to be trying to play a semantics argument, but it's kind of pointless.
Such an argument would, potentially, protect PGI from actually being sued for defrauding customers.. but very few people would actually try to make such a case anyway.

What matters is that a large portion of the playerbase feels betrayed and lied to. You can make a legalistic argument about how they weren't "technically" lied to, but such an argument carries no weight in such a case. If people feel that PGI misled them, then those people leave.. because they aren't obligated to play this game. And frankly, I think you're seeing that in the game's population, which seems quite stagnant at this point. But, without actual numbers, that's purely speculation.




HR is another aspect to competent management. If you can't hire the people you need, it's not just because you're "unlucky" or something. It means you need to change your HR processes.


The expectations really aren't that high or unreasonable. You seem to be using the fact that PGI fails to meet expectations as an indication that those expectations must be unreasonable.. but that's not the case.



Again dude, they took nine months of development to make UI 2.0. That's not rushed. That's three quarters of a year.

You act as though making a good, useful interface in 9 months would be some kind of impossible herculean task.. but it's not.



But saying that it's terrible, due to specific failures to follow fundamental design principles is not an empty statement. It's an identification of specific faults with the user interface that should be addressed. It's an indication that such principles should be considered in a redesign of the interface.



I'm not really sure what you expect. For me to totally redesign the interface for them? I mean, I could... but why would I? They would just ignore it. The folks who have designed what we have today haven't even admitted to any of the obvious flaws with it.

At this stage, PGI needs to admit that UI 2.0 is very, very bad. That it fails to embrace fundamental principles of good user interface design.

Until that admission takes place, it's not really going to get fixed. Offering suggestions isn't going to help them... because frankly, the changes that need to be made are fairly holistic. Large portions of the interface need to be scrapped and redesigned with the user's task flow in mind, rather than just trying to make it look pretty.

I was actually in a thread about a week ago where the UI was being described as "game breaking" and was "unusable". So it is being said out there that the new UI is completely unusable... I did not mean to infer that you were saying it (or anyone specific), just that it has and is being said at the moment.

Well, PGI failed to meet a lot of deadlines, some of it was because of the original UI. The forums was up in rage when PGI hinted that UI might be delayed. Thus, PGI rushed it out instead of delaying it farther to better polish and fine tune it.
My point with the feedback from the test server is that, how long did they have to implement all those suggestions and feed back into the UI before it's intended release? Or should they have delayed the release (again)? If they had delayed, the forums would have been on fire again... if they didn't people might be content with it. Nope. Now they get burnt because "its not polished" and "they ignored our feedback".
I'm not implying that the whole UI was unable to be designed better, but I don't feel that they could implement the expected changes from "feedback" all that much once it hit the test servers. By then, it was too late to change the interface too drastically, and instead they sought and squished bugs. They pursed a design plan, and by the time they may have figured a problem might be in the base design concept, it was too late to probably change it. (Just presenting an alternative perspective. I do not know if this is, or is not, what happened.)

I was not here for many of those release dates. I joined about the time the Stalker made it into the game. (Just a little before that actually.) Even then, I'm willing to give PGI the benefit of the doubt that they didn't intentionally mislead people, at least until it could be proved otherwise. I think that delays happened and that problems cropped up. I'm also willing to bet that, seen as PGI was originally wanting to create a single player game (which would have been easier) and the fact that it was changed to a multiplayer online game, might have made the game an overall larger project than they were expecting. I'm also willing to guess from what I've been seeing from PGI since I joined, that PGI was not as experienced as they thought for this kind of a task, and I saw them (and heard them admit) that a lot of early mistakes were made. These early mistakes cost them a lot of development time to correct, in bugs, concepts, and even with the UI. This is one of the reasons that the UI needed to be updated.
Am I saying that PGI couldn't have done better? I feel they could have. However, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt still, and chalk some of their mishaps into inexperience and taking on a task that was larger than they expected.

A lot of the people who felt lied to placed money into a digital content game, got the digital content they paid for, and then thought that the money they placed in would give them something even more special than just some in game content. Why, in the "UI in breaking the game" thread I was referring to above, one of the posters ended up mentioning "I payed $200+ into this game! My opinion should be heard as I paid for this game!" I tried to tell them that, the money they placed into the game didn't make their opinion worth more than someone playing for free. Then again, he was nothing but demands and overly high expectations.

I think one of the problems with their hiring mechanics is that you have to live nearby their company to be able to get in, and be able to legally work within Canada. That right there limits a lot of their potential employee base. I think some of it is their location basically working against them.

I think some people's expectations and "demands" have been rather high, some out right ridiculous. I'm not saying that everything was.
I am not a UI or computer coding/gaming coding specialist. I know, depending upon the design being called upon and stuff, it might have taken them that long. They also, as I said higher up in this post, that they may have been stuck pursuing a "poor design" from the start, and by the time they started to realize it wasn't the best design it was too late to change it at that time and still meet the deadline.
I know I've designed myself into a poor design before because I pursued the concept thinking it was going to be great, and then found the flaws with it. However, by the time I noticed the flaws in the design, it was too late to change it to anything else, as I had already worked several weeks on the project. (And then I realized I'm a designer who is best at working off and improving other people's designs inside a team... and not such a great designer for creating a design from the ground up. I don't have the vision for a big picture, unless I already have some picture to see. It's a strange skill set... just like my MW skill set...)
I think for them to implement the changes people asked for during the testing period of UI2.0 would have been that impossible task to preform. Before hand? For 9 months as you say? It probably could have been better. I do not refute that point.

Instead of just saying it's bad, we can say why it is bad. We don't have to redesign the interface, but we can describe what we don't like, why we feel it isn't great, and offer ways to correct the mistake. My example (already provided once): Launch button. Brings up launch screen. The button is on the far upper right. The launch popup is in the center of the screen, away from the button that activates the popup.This causes more mouse movement. My suggested fix would be to either have the launch button bring down a menu tab with the launch options or have the pop up window with the options we currently see "spawn" closer/underneath the launch button.
I can say this, and another user, if it was in a more focused thread about the specific placement of the launch button (and etc related to it) could instead ask/suggest/pointout, that the launch button itself could possible be moved towards the center of the top bar, making the singular button adjustment instead of two additional "popup" windows. Other suggestions might be presented. If I really felt ambitious, I could even post some pictures quickly tossed together in photoshop as a representation of what I am referring to.

By the way... PGI has already admitted that there are faults within UI2.0. They have already stated that they intend to change the mechlab (at least) into a more smurfy styled layout, and that they intend to add in an auto-refill feature for consumable modules. There are pieces and parts of UI2.0 that could use to be addressed and improved. Just like there are pieces and parts that work perfectly fine and don't need to be touched at all.
From your currently stated feedback I've read in this thread alone, to be honest, I don't know what it is you expect from UI2.0. You haven't stated any suggested changes. I've been reading a lot of "this is poorly designed" and "this is bad", but not suggestions on what is bad about it and what could be altered to have it changed. (Besides maybe adding in the list option... I'm getting tired and what everyone has stated in this thread are starting to merge together...)



I'm just plainly saying that, we could be approaching this issue in a far better and more manageable and productive way than we have been. So far people's approach to this problem has been basically to take a verbal club to it and bash it, while other people try to block the club. (Two camps fighting each other.) This approach is not working. All it is doing is making very long threads of chat, and nothing to show for it. We all seem to already agree that UI2.0 could use more work and could use to be refined and altered in places. What we seem to be disagreeing on is the manner of how people are referring to UI2.0 and how badly it is at the moment. This ends up being each of us throwing our opinions onto each other and trying to see who agrees with who more. This, is still not being overly productive. For us, or for PGI.
(And honestly, the threads are starting to get old and are losing entertainment value.) (<-small joke here.)


I am tired... so if some of this rambled on or stuff... I had a long work day and it's way too late in the evening where I live. (I tend to ramble more when I'm tired.) Forgive any possible poorly worded pieces...

[PanzerMagier]

Agreed, I want the old UI back, my new player friends agree with me from watching the vids, the UI 1.0 was a lot better.

[sokitumi]

Dymlos2003, on 18 May 2014 - 06:48 PM, said:

Lot's of backend stuff was worked on. Front end just needs some work.

This is the funniest quote of the thread. Hands down. Just because pgi coded a terrible non-scalar back end in 1.0 and 1.5 and then basically needed to redo the entire code under the hood for 2.0 has absolutely NO bearing on the quality of the UI or UX. (short of weird server authenticated everything in the old interface degrading that USER I/X with seconds of lag between certain clicks. Which the new one suffers from as well, but to a lesser degree)

Roland, on 18 May 2014 - 08:58 PM, said:

... Large portions of the interface need to be scrapped and redesigned with the user's task flow in mind, rather than just trying to make it look pretty.

Except it really isn't that pretty either. It's laid out in the most underachieving way imaginable - all top left menu and built off the screen edges, and little respect for proportions of screen space for the content area containers. Not exactly modern interface design here.

Edited by sokitumi, 19 May 2014 - 09:14 PM.

[Captain Stiffy]

Tesunie, on 18 May 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

I was actually in a thread about a week ago where the UI was being described as "game breaking" and was "unusable". So it is being said out there that the new UI is completely unusable... I did not mean to infer that you were saying it (or anyone specific), just that it has and is being said at the moment.

Well, PGI failed to meet a lot of deadlines, some of it was because of the original UI. The forums was up in rage when PGI hinted that UI might be delayed. Thus, PGI rushed it out instead of delaying it farther to better polish and fine tune it.
My point with the feedback from the test server is that, how long did they have to implement all those suggestions and feed back into the UI before it's intended release? Or should they have delayed the release (again)? If they had delayed, the forums would have been on fire again... if they didn't people might be content with it. Nope. Now they get burnt because "its not polished" and "they ignored our feedback".
I'm not implying that the whole UI was unable to be designed better, but I don't feel that they could implement the expected changes from "feedback" all that much once it hit the test servers. By then, it was too late to change the interface too drastically, and instead they sought and squished bugs. They pursed a design plan, and by the time they may have figured a problem might be in the base design concept, it was too late to probably change it. (Just presenting an alternative perspective. I do not know if this is, or is not, what happened.)

I was not here for many of those release dates. I joined about the time the Stalker made it into the game. (Just a little before that actually.) Even then, I'm willing to give PGI the benefit of the doubt that they didn't intentionally mislead people, at least until it could be proved otherwise. I think that delays happened and that problems cropped up. I'm also willing to bet that, seen as PGI was originally wanting to create a single player game (which would have been easier) and the fact that it was changed to a multiplayer online game, might have made the game an overall larger project than they were expecting. I'm also willing to guess from what I've been seeing from PGI since I joined, that PGI was not as experienced as they thought for this kind of a task, and I saw them (and heard them admit) that a lot of early mistakes were made. These early mistakes cost them a lot of development time to correct, in bugs, concepts, and even with the UI. This is one of the reasons that the UI needed to be updated.
Am I saying that PGI couldn't have done better? I feel they could have. However, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt still, and chalk some of their mishaps into inexperience and taking on a task that was larger than they expected.

A lot of the people who felt lied to placed money into a digital content game, got the digital content they paid for, and then thought that the money they placed in would give them something even more special than just some in game content. Why, in the "UI in breaking the game" thread I was referring to above, one of the posters ended up mentioning "I payed $200+ into this game! My opinion should be heard as I paid for this game!" I tried to tell them that, the money they placed into the game didn't make their opinion worth more than someone playing for free. Then again, he was nothing but demands and overly high expectations.

I think one of the problems with their hiring mechanics is that you have to live nearby their company to be able to get in, and be able to legally work within Canada. That right there limits a lot of their potential employee base. I think some of it is their location basically working against them.

I think some people's expectations and "demands" have been rather high, some out right ridiculous. I'm not saying that everything was.
I am not a UI or computer coding/gaming coding specialist. I know, depending upon the design being called upon and stuff, it might have taken them that long. They also, as I said higher up in this post, that they may have been stuck pursuing a "poor design" from the start, and by the time they started to realize it wasn't the best design it was too late to change it at that time and still meet the deadline.
I know I've designed myself into a poor design before because I pursued the concept thinking it was going to be great, and then found the flaws with it. However, by the time I noticed the flaws in the design, it was too late to change it to anything else, as I had already worked several weeks on the project. (And then I realized I'm a designer who is best at working off and improving other people's designs inside a team... and not such a great designer for creating a design from the ground up. I don't have the vision for a big picture, unless I already have some picture to see. It's a strange skill set... just like my MW skill set...)
I think for them to implement the changes people asked for during the testing period of UI2.0 would have been that impossible task to preform. Before hand? For 9 months as you say? It probably could have been better. I do not refute that point.

Instead of just saying it's bad, we can say why it is bad. We don't have to redesign the interface, but we can describe what we don't like, why we feel it isn't great, and offer ways to correct the mistake. My example (already provided once): Launch button. Brings up launch screen. The button is on the far upper right. The launch popup is in the center of the screen, away from the button that activates the popup.This causes more mouse movement. My suggested fix would be to either have the launch button bring down a menu tab with the launch options or have the pop up window with the options we currently see "spawn" closer/underneath the launch button.
I can say this, and another user, if it was in a more focused thread about the specific placement of the launch button (and etc related to it) could instead ask/suggest/pointout, that the launch button itself could possible be moved towards the center of the top bar, making the singular button adjustment instead of two additional "popup" windows. Other suggestions might be presented. If I really felt ambitious, I could even post some pictures quickly tossed together in photoshop as a representation of what I am referring to.

By the way... PGI has already admitted that there are faults within UI2.0. They have already stated that they intend to change the mechlab (at least) into a more smurfy styled layout, and that they intend to add in an auto-refill feature for consumable modules. There are pieces and parts of UI2.0 that could use to be addressed and improved. Just like there are pieces and parts that work perfectly fine and don't need to be touched at all.
From your currently stated feedback I've read in this thread alone, to be honest, I don't know what it is you expect from UI2.0. You haven't stated any suggested changes. I've been reading a lot of "this is poorly designed" and "this is bad", but not suggestions on what is bad about it and what could be altered to have it changed. (Besides maybe adding in the list option... I'm getting tired and what everyone has stated in this thread are starting to merge together...)



I'm just plainly saying that, we could be approaching this issue in a far better and more manageable and productive way than we have been. So far people's approach to this problem has been basically to take a verbal club to it and bash it, while other people try to block the club. (Two camps fighting each other.) This approach is not working. All it is doing is making very long threads of chat, and nothing to show for it. We all seem to already agree that UI2.0 could use more work and could use to be refined and altered in places. What we seem to be disagreeing on is the manner of how people are referring to UI2.0 and how badly it is at the moment. This ends up being each of us throwing our opinions onto each other and trying to see who agrees with who more. This, is still not being overly productive. For us, or for PGI.
(And honestly, the threads are starting to get old and are losing entertainment value.) (<-small joke here.)


I am tired... so if some of this rambled on or stuff... I had a long work day and it's way too late in the evening where I live. (I tend to ramble more when I'm tired.) Forgive any possible poorly worded pieces...

holy crap

there is an attitude that "they know what we want but they make crap anyway" which is not entirely untrue but we also don't really have a channel to tell them

through the whole history of this there's always been major changes the game needs coming "in the future" and eventually they do come but often it's not what we'd hoped or is a change that seems frivolous given how badly other things are broken that have fixes "coming soon"

When it comes to issues the turnaround on notice/understand/fix is just REALLY long on things outside of critical fixes.

Edited by Captain Stiffy, 18 May 2014 - 10:59 PM.

[ZenTeapot]

Roland, on 18 May 2014 - 04:56 PM, said:

@Ronald, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said in this thread. I myself posted about the UI last week http://mwomercs.com/...ee-this-thread/
As you may realize when you read it, Tesunie and Dymlos2003 are exactly the same folks who have defended UI 2.0 in my thread. It's just amazing the amount of effort they put into this. I just want to remind you that there is no point arguing with them, since there is no way to change their mind or even show them the undeniable obvious. They say it's the same people who rage about UI 2.0. But in reality, it's the same few people who repeated defended the UI... I now even wonder whether PGI pay them to do this, or they are just delusional or something.
Btw, the admin replied near 2/3 of thread. I now concluded that PGI is simply incompetent. They are not ready as a game studio. Too bad MWO is in their hands.

Edited by ZenTeapot, 19 May 2014 - 01:56 AM.

[Reitrix]

ZenTeapot, on 19 May 2014 - 01:50 AM, said:

@Ronald, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said in this thread. I myself posted about the UI last week http://mwomercs.com/...ee-this-thread/
As you may realize when you read it, Tesunie and Dymlos2003 are exactly the same folks who have defended UI 2.0 in my thread. It's just amazing the amount of effort they put into this. I just want to remind you that there is no point arguing with them, since there is no way to change their mind or even show them the undeniable obvious. They say it's the same people who rage about UI 2.0. But in reality, it's the same few people who repeated defended the UI... I now even wonder whether PGI pay them to do this, or they are just delusional or something.

Ahh, the old "They don't agree with me therefor they are delusional/paid" line.

Did it ever occur to you that there are people who legitimately do not have a problem with this UI? Even those who defend it say theres much work to be done to make it better, none of us disagree with that, but calling it unusable, among other things, is downright wrong.

It's still faster to click through the various submenus than it ever was to simply wait for my bloody 'mech list to show up in the original UI!

Add to that the far superior 'Mech list in UI2.0. Being able to find all my variants without the need to remember the order i purchased my 100 'mechs is a damned godsend!

Also, for those crying out for a Smurfy interface, go to hell. Personally i HATE that layout, and i refuse to use site as a direct result of it.
Oh look, a personal opinion! Yeah, thats what this entire thread is being argued upon, personal opinions.

And finally, to have Ui1.0 back would be to return to a time when they couldn't change ANYTHING about the game without a full patch and downtime. So no, lets NOT have UI1.0 back thanks.

[ZenTeapot]

Reitrix, on 19 May 2014 - 02:03 AM, said:

Ahh, the old "They don't agree with me therefor they are delusional/paid" line.

Did it ever occur to you that there are people who legitimately do not have a problem with this UI? Even those who defend it say theres much work to be done to make it better, none of us disagree with that, but calling it unusable, among other things, is downright wrong.

It's still faster to click through the various submenus than it ever was to simply wait for my bloody 'mech list to show up in the original UI!

Add to that the far superior 'Mech list in UI2.0. Being able to find all my variants without the need to remember the order i purchased my 100 'mechs is a damned godsend!

Also, for those crying out for a Smurfy interface, go to hell. Personally i HATE that layout, and i refuse to use site as a direct result of it.
Oh look, a personal opinion! Yeah, thats what this entire thread is being argued upon, personal opinions.

And finally, to have Ui1.0 back would be to return to a time when they couldn't change ANYTHING about the game without a full patch and downtime. So no, lets NOT have UI1.0 back thanks.

I would really try to bring you to reason if it were last week. But whatever, I'm out of this already. Have fun with the UI. Please keep pouring money in to their incompetency so Microsoft knows Mechwarrior is still a profitable franchise and I get to see the next title in the franchise. Hopefully by then this franchise does not fall in the wrong hands.

[Karl Streiger]

ZenTeapot, on 19 May 2014 - 02:08 AM, said:

I would really try to bring you to reason if it were last week. But whatever, I'm out of this already. Have fun with the UI. Please keep pouring money in to their incompetency so Microsoft knows Mechwarrior is still a profitable franchise and I get to see the next title in the franchise. Hopefully by then this franchise does not fall in the wrong hands.

OK
ByeBye

[Dymlos2003]

ZenTeapot, on 19 May 2014 - 02:08 AM, said:

I would really try to bring you to reason if it were last week. But whatever, I'm out of this already. Have fun with the UI. Please keep pouring money in to their incompetency so Microsoft knows Mechwarrior is still a profitable franchise and I get to see the next title in the franchise. Hopefully by then this franchise does not fall in the wrong hands.

Bring who to reason? Some one can actually use the UI and not be a baby about it? Look we are able to use the UI just fine and not whine about it. At the same time knowing that it needs some things tweaked and fixed. It really isn't that hard a concept to comprehend.

Edited by Dymlos2003, 19 May 2014 - 02:14 AM.

[Chemie]

Ecrof, on 18 May 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

Click click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click clickClick click click click click

beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

[627]

*mute on* is your friend

[fandre]

My personal experience with UI2.0 is:

-It is slower and takes more time to load or change.
-It takes to many clicks to do anything
-it does not scale well with higher resolution, e.g. on my 2560x1440 screen every thing is small and has a lot of unneccesary space.

I would like to see at least a compact window version even without the blink blink graphics but which is fast and easier to use.

Edited by fandre, 19 May 2014 - 06:34 AM.

[Amsro]

Tesunie, on 18 May 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

I have a degree in Graphic Design. I believe my above post should have helped to clarify that point, as I explained things from a design standpoint. I also am not saying UI2.0 is perfect, because it is not. However, it is functional and it is workable. It isn't game breaking and it isn't preventing me from playing the game.

It could use a lot of work still.

Yes I agree, the game still works, there are less overall bugs in the new UI.

On the flip side this has taken them over a year to finish and when released is far from complete. Needs lots of work still. I pity new players trying to build mechs in the current UI, I'm glad I've done all that previously.

Need a toggle for (but not limited to);

-UI Sounds (these truly suck)
-Confirmation Dialogue Boxes (Yes I really do want to turn those off.)
-Social Tab (let me switch to a from the social tab with a key press, F3 perhaps)

The mechlab has too many layers, Smurpy style building can't come fast enough.

Have a popup (that fades away) on the screen telling you what friend(s) have logged on.

As well as a LogOut button have a Exit button right next to it.

Ahh whats the point, there was an ENTIRE page of feedback on the new UI with more points then I can remember in one post session. PGI ignored it then, they will ignore it now.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Reitrix, on 19 May 2014 - 02:03 AM, said:

Smurpys - Personally i HATE that layout, and i refuse to use site as a direct result of it.

Ahh I get it, it is too simple and everything you need is RIGHT THERE!

[Prezimonto]

Dymlos2003, on 18 May 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Uh they were able to focus on the launch module and CW. Soooo yes that bottleneck is gone. UI 2.0 is what caused all those delays of you guys most wanted features.

the UI itself (the part we see) wasn't the real block. It was the underling backend of the UI code that was the issue.

The problem is the new UI was rewritten to get that backend code going, and not enough thought to the actual functionality of the GUI portion of the of the UI.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

What the hell is this obsession with "make it like smurfy's"

Smurfy's sucks.

Learn to use the tools given, the fact that you complain so much about it here, shows you haven't taken the time to learn the UI and would rather complain about what you want.

You're not getting UI 1.0 back, and you're not going to get anything like smurfy's, get over it.

[Karl Streiger]

Amsro, on 19 May 2014 - 05:32 AM, said:

Ahh I get it, it is too simple and everything you need is RIGHT THERE!

No
its personal opinion
My opinion is that Smurfy did it wrong and MWO did it wrong -
i want to have the Heavy Metal loadout with tabs for

• engine and structure and number of heatsinks
  
• armor (type and distribution)
  
• weapon lists and to choose them
  
• distribute the equipment and "structure" slots on my own

So and you that don't like UI2.0 and say smurfy is better - don't have any idea how a mech lab has to look like.

Its obvious that its my and only my personal opinion. All you do in this and other topics is to tell us your personal opinion.
But please tell me why is your personal opinion is better as mine?

[Bigbacon]

am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with the UI? yea it is sort of clunky at first but once you learn it, it really isn't a big deal. Same with the mechlab, only thing I wouldn't mind is being able to see the whole mech at one time but so what a few extra seconds of clicking to look at what I need.