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I'm not actually aware that this is a "right royal pain," but the idea definitely has merit. |
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That's because you're used to it. Happens to me with my own stuff. ;-) To a new person, it really is a pain. I'm fine with lots of info, I just don't currently find it easy to access. |
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No, it's because I have 100k+ customers, several hundred of which who have helped refine it in a very direct fashion, and a bunch of reviews talking about how great the interface is. In fact, it barely resembles the interface that I designed at the start, because it's been ripped apart and reassembled so many times with the help of players, so I can't even take full credit for it. You're correct that I'm too close to it to be an effective judge, but what I'm saying is that some of your opinions here are very belated outliers. Which is fine, I understand being an outlier -- I find the GTA series impossible to play for mechanics reasons, while the rest of the world seems to love it. Anyway, hence my taking some umbrage with the general tone of the suggestions. I'm always open to suggestions, as the 3000+ player-suggested enhancements that have gone into this game show. But to approach the galaxy map as if it's fundamentally broken after three years of public refinement and general lauding from parties unaffiliated with myself... is off-putting, to say the least. Generally speaking we don't do what you're describing because the result would be absolutely a mess for most players. The problem that most players have had, historically, is being overwhelmed by too much information. So the interface has a very elegant solution to that problem: show them, largely, one thing at a time -- but make it easy to switch between things. Then let them flag systems of interest using small and unobtrusive tags, and even put notes there if they wish. This is a really sound system, because it makes it so that you can actually find information on the screen. I don't know if you're aware, but if you have five numbers surrounding every planet, and you want to look for a specific number at a given planet (say, "where are the datacenters in the galaxy"), then it becomes essentially impossible to find that information due to all the background clutter of all those other numbers. This is the premise of a "show one thing at a time, but make it easy to ask questions" form of interface. What you're describing has merit for the ultra-hardcore who want to really make a lot of complex notes, but the idea that this would make the game easier to get into is very incorrect. A good interface shows the user the least amount of information possible to help them do whatever it is they want to do -- the more they have to sort through to get to the good stuff, the worse the interface. Hence the simplicity of the google homepage versus the yahoo one, as a great example. But, still using google as an example, they allow advanced users to make their own custom homepage that has a ton of information on there at once. This is more the spirit in which I take your suggestion -- it's for someone who already knows all the subsystems well, and is tired of having to switch contexts to answer a single question. I still find I just use vanilla google, though, myself. Anyway, not to get into a debate about the merits of one design style over another, but you seem mystified by our choices and so I thought I'd explain the rationale. We didn't just slap something together and ship this yesterday. |
- Anonymous
