MWIF Game Interface Design

[Neilster]

This shows the area still controlled by the Euroaxis as well as Commonwealth convoys...

[Neilster]

The Empire of Japan...

[Shannon V. OKeets]

While implementing a suggestion from Michael on identifying clearly which hexes can be invaded from which sea areas, I found a bug in the invasion code (from CWIF). It required a new data field to be added to the master data files, which Patrice took care of today. Here are the results of the changes.
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You will have to look closely to see the cursor on these screen shots. When playing the game, the cursor is easily seen - you just move the mouse and the human eye is especially good at detecting movement.

What you need to find is the cursor and then look at the dark blue panel in the Main form. The one in the upper left is on the 9-5 German Mech and the hex is adjacent to both the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, but it can only be invaded from one of those.

Check out the other 5 cases.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd and last in the series.
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The Philippines are especially tricky to determine which hexes can be invaded from which sea areas. I picked the third screen shot to show here even though it might be controversial.

[paulderynck]

I have the following coment about the work you and Patrice have done here.

[&o][&o][&o]

[warspite1]

This is a really useful tool - excellent [:)]. I`m sure we played the invasion rules wrong in the past as far as which hexes were eligible!

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I have the following coment about the work you and Patrice have done here.

[&o][&o][&o]

The credit should go to Michael, who got the original idea.

There were just 295 hexes to review indeed, all those where the program could not decide from which side an hex was invadable. For example for Tokyo the code can decide by itself (there are no all-sea hexside) that it is not invadable.

For the hexes in Denmark, they were part of the review because they had at least 1 all sea hexside and were adjacent to 2 sea areas, but the program could not know for sure from which sea area it could be invaded. Here extra data was added.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

This is a really useful tool - excellent [:)]. I`m sure we played the invasion rules wrong in the past as far as which hexes were eligible!

Ah, a pity, they are clear aren't they ? [;)]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

This is a really useful tool - excellent [:)]. I`m sure we played the invasion rules wrong in the past as far as which hexes were eligible!

As I commented to Patrice in an email, this presentation should be crystal clear to the newest of newbies as to which hexes can be invaded from where. Indeed, I suspect new players will not even bother reading the rules for invadable hexes. You just move the cursor around on the map and after a couple of minutes you'll have figured it out without needing any written words.

Several years ago we had worried at this problem in the forum for several weeks - but only considered graphical presentation of the information - none of which I liked for a host of reasons. But Michael's solution to use text seems so obvious in retrospect, ... duh.

[Caquineur]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: paulderynck
I have the following coment about the work you and Patrice have done here.
[&o][&o][&o]

The credit should go to Michael, who got the original idea.
...

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: warspite1
This is a really useful tool - excellent [:)]. I`m sure we played the invasion rules wrong in the past as far as which hexes were eligible!

As I commented to Patrice in an email, this presentation should be crystal clear to the newest of newbies as to which hexes can be invaded from where. Indeed, I suspect new players will not even bother reading the rules for invadable hexes. You just move the cursor around on the map and after a couple of minutes you'll have figured it out without needing any written words.

Several years ago we had worried at this problem in the forum for several weeks - but only considered graphical presentation of the information - none of which I liked for a host of reasons. But Michael's solution to use text seems so obvious in retrospect, ... duh.

As one of the "newest of newbies" (I've never played WIF), I'd like to say a big to Michael, Patrice and Steve !

And a special [&o] to Steve, for his openness to new ideas, even though he's already got a lot on his plate.

Keep up the good work, guys !

[WIF_Killzone]

Wow, those screen shots look good. Note to self; Zoom level 5, spectacular.

[JonBrave]

Might I just ask: I trust the mousewheel can be used to zoom in & out?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: JonBrave

Might I just ask: I trust the mousewheel can be used to zoom in & out?

That has been asked for. Currently the mouse wheel enables scrolling up and down and, while the shift key is pressed, scrolling left and right. Scrolling is a much more common activity than zooming, so the most I offer about this is that I 'might' make it a Player Interface Setting (the player decides which he prefers). But that is not scheduled for the initial release.
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Google has set a defacto 'standard' of the mouse wheel zooming in an out - and then they superimpose quasi-transparent arrows for scrolling. That works well for their application because they have many levels of zoom, and users are likely to use different levels of zoom a lot while wandering about the globe.

For MWIF, there are only 8 levels of zoom and most of the time the game will be played using 3 through 6. The + & - keys can be used for zooming in and out. Since you are likely to only be zooming in/out 1 or 2 levels, dedicating the mouse wheel to that function seems an inefficient use of a input device (to me).

[Skanvak]

For the invadable hex, you didn't find a graphical way? (Text is useful, I am for it)
I think we might have a tool (not permanent) that allow the player to select a sea area and have all invadable hex being highlighted. I think that could be uselful. It won't be permanent so quite satisfactory?

[Skanvak]

Currently the mouse wheel enables scrolling up and down and, while the shift key is pressed, scrolling left and right. Scrolling is a much more common activity than zooming, so the most I offer about this is that I 'might' make it a Player Interface Setting (the player decides which he prefers). But that is not scheduled for the initial release.

In this forum, when I click on the mouse wheel, I get an arrow for scrolling in all direction (speed increasing with distance from the center cross). This is very efficient. I think it would be the most efficient way to scroll a big map. Me, I especially hate the idea of using "shift + mouse wheel" for left and right scrolling (better die). So I will vote for zoom for mouse wheel. Wheel is 2 directions normally where 4 is needed, so they are better for zoom.

If you want to use wheel for scrolling, can you take into consideration wheel that have actually 4 directions (those allowing the wheel to be push to right to left).

Somme mouse have page up and page down that could be used for zoom by the way. That too whould be better that +/- (ugly).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

For the invadable hex, you didn't find a graphical way? (Text is useful, I am for it)
I think we might have a tool (not permanent) that allow the player to select a sea area and have all invadable hex being highlighted. I think that could be uselful. It won't be permanent so quite satisfactory?

Hexes can be very cluttered with graphics already. Adding more graphics is unlikely to be helpful to the players.

For example, consider adding more graphics to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Kiel, and Hamburg. Note that this screen shot doesn't show any units or weather effects which can added more clutter to each of those hexes.

[Skanvak]

You did not get my idea.

I don't speak of permanent graphic. But more that a tool.

_ Activate the tool (tool is normaly no activated, it will work like the weather tool in my mind)
_ select a sea zone
=> the invadable hexes from this sea zone become highlighted (surrounded in red, flashing, anything to make them obvious)

This is just a tool to quickly see invadable hexes from one sea zone.
As it is not permanent, like the weather tool, it shoudl be ok.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

You did not get my idea.

I don't speak of permanent graphic. But more that a tool.

_ Activate the tool (tool is normaly no activated, it will work like the weather tool in my mind)
_ select a sea zone
=> the invadable hexes from this sea zone become highlighted (surrounded in red, flashing, anything to make them obvious)

This is just a tool to quickly see invadable hexes from one sea zone.
As it is not permanent, like the weather tool, it shoudl be ok.

Flashing or blinking would be out of keeping with the overall design. MWIF is not 'aggressive' in presenting information to the player. My taste for neon lights is nil, even though my brother (who is a graphics artist) has tried for years to impress on me their 'beauty'.

The basic problem you are running up against here, in trying to convince me, is that I feel the hexes are overly cluttered already. Clearly this is a function of my age and social conditioning. I find many advertisements these days to have an overall negative impact/impression because they are trying to do too much at once. I feel like I'm on the receiving end of a bombardment of attempts to communicate that fail because they are delivered in a deluge.

When I used to buy custom made suits, I always followed the advice provided by the Custom Shoppe: "When choosing a shirt, tie, and suit, wear at least two solid colors, with the third item having a pattern." That means if I wore a pinstriped suit, both my shirt and tie were solid colors. Perhaps this helps explain my design decisions for MWIF?

Hence, in my opinion, at this point adding "one more thing" will subtract from the amount of information communicated to the player, rather than increase his understanding.
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Please note that this is not a decision made quickly or carelessly. I say this only after having tried to come up with a graphic to communicate invadable hexes, and having seen several suggested by forum members. They all struck me as garrish. To differentiate invadable hexes from non-invadable hexes requires something 'forceful', given the amount of other items on the map. The entire color pallet has already been used, as well as gradations of hue and textures, and geometric shapes and sizes (e.g., hexagons, octagons, circles, retangles, squares, arrows, various curves, angled lines, ...). Given this background, inserting something 'forceful' comes across as a bizarre addition.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I might add, that the exact same problem is my main difficulty in displaying all "legal moves" for a selected unit. I cannot figure out a graphic that wouldn't look like graffitti.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Currently the mouse wheel enables scrolling up and down and, while the shift key is pressed, scrolling left and right. Scrolling is a much more common activity than zooming, so the most I offer about this is that I 'might' make it a Player Interface Setting (the player decides which he prefers). But that is not scheduled for the initial release.

In this forum, when I click on the mouse wheel, I get an arrow for scrolling in all direction (speed increasing with distance from the center cross). This is very efficient. I think it would be the most efficient way to scroll a big map. Me, I especially hate the idea of using "shift + mouse wheel" for left and right scrolling (better die). So I will vote for zoom for mouse wheel. Wheel is 2 directions normally where 4 is needed, so they are better for zoom.

If you want to use wheel for scrolling, can you take into consideration wheel that have actually 4 directions (those allowing the wheel to be push to right to left).

Somme mouse have page up and page down that could be used for zoom by the way. That too whould be better that +/- (ugly).

I never knew that! It also works for the Delphi Interactive Design Envornment I use for programming. Thanks.

Nonetheless, the MWIF cursor often shows the "units in hand" - that is, it depcits the top unit in a stack of units that the player has selected to move. Other information superimposed on the cursor as a quasi-transparent overlay is the maximum sea box section a selected stack of naval units can enter. For these overlays MWIF has 45 different cursors defined, which are used to communicate to the player the legality of moves and related information when he moves the cursor over different hexes. Replacing (i.e., turning on/off) these cursors with a different one when the mouse wheel is clicked wouldn't be easy to do.

Perhaps someday though.