saddened by poor interface

[barbarrossa]

I'll add a second to what Mark said about Frag. The guy's an invaluble help.

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980


Did Eastern Front look like Windows?

Have any of you guys ever developed something other than a game???? Seems like you guys need an infusion of ideas from outside your collective "box".

Yes and it turned me off, believe it or not. Not to mention the nice changes your normal Windows GUI suffered from CTDs of this applications.

No I never "developed" something else then a game, actually I only develop graphics for them. But I also not tell my software application developing coder buddies how much cooler there business applications could look like. Because I never developed one of that.

But to make you happy, we currently have two projects that are based on the Windows GUI. For both of them it´s very boring to develop interface graphics for ........[>:]

Well, there's that paradigm thing again. I use some very intensly graphical applications that are all Windows UI's underneath. You wouldn't even know it if you didn't know they dumped the MFC runtimes in your System32 directory. They look more like a game than a CAD/CAM tool. The beauty of using standard WIN32 dialogs for standard tasks is re-usability. All you do is provide different cover graphics for the widgets and you have what looks like a brand new interface. But the man-hours should be spent on the game engine and AI elements, not re-inventing the UI wheel for every title. It's why most RTS and FPS game developers now settle on common third party, 3D engines, instead of rolling their own all the time (and yes, most now use standard WIN32 GUI widgets for getting common user input). We've all invented far too many wheels in our time....

[Tige]

ORIGINAL: Mogami
(I think the staffs involved in the actual war would have been delighted to find they could run ther entire war operations with so few clicks and in so little time.

Actually WitP could get a couple of pointers from those staffs. WitP has all the information necessary, and then some. It is the context in which the information is presented which makes it a bit unwieldy.

WitP would bury a staff in paperwork. Stack upon stack of Sightings, Intel, Combat Reports along with Supply/Fuel Requests and Personal Requirements. Until it is put into context by plotting all this information and seperating the types of information can one make sense of it.

When planning a sub patrol the Commander of the sub fleet looked at recent information recieved by all the intelligence gathering services and this information was placed on a chart to get a picture of the the enemies activities. An enemy that did not adhere to the same geographical command sectors as their adversary. The sub was then ordered to the location to best do it's job on the information availible.

Not to sound snide, there is a reason why all war rooms are centered around a map or chart, not lists and stacks of paperwork. WitP needs maps and charts that players can put information on to make sense of the reams of paperwork . Whether it be a combat mission or supply mission.

-Tige

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck



Can you please explain me how an actuall answer to a question by you that obviously also answers it can be "smartassed" [&:] ?

Easy. I don't expect to EVER be told, directly, by support staff, to RTFM. I would FIRE any of my support technicians here if I EVER got even a remote INKLING they were talking to a customer like that. There is a way you inform poeple about where in the manual a certain item is without slapping them in the face with a ignorant RTFM comment. It's not appreciated and I, for one, will not tolerate being talked to like the four year child.

I find it hard to believe you cannot tell that that is poor customer service and where someone can be highly offended by RTFM like comments. I KNOW how stupid I am concerning this game, I don't need thin-skinned beta-tester to slap me in the face with it.

He didn´t directly and only sayed RTFM. He even gave you an answer to your "complaint".

Frag is not customer service, he´s a member of thuis community, helping and answering peoples questions beyond duty. For years!

Well, if you can't see the general tone of most his comments I have nothing more to say on the issue to you. He may be the single most condescending poster on this forum (save me, maybe). He's a wealth of knowledge, but he needs to realize none of us have or ever will have the 1000's of hours of play time to draw on, and we are all "stupid". We don't need to be reminded.

[mogami]

Hi to post some thing as a bug or omission that is covered in the manual and then being told to RTFM is one way of saying please don't clutter up the forum with bug reports that are not bugs. The forum is more then willing to help. If you say "I can't do this and I think I should be able to" Someone will tell you how and where you could have found it your self in the manual. We understand people play the game without reading the manual. However we don't understand when the problem is projected back onto the designers when in fact there is no problem except ignorance in how to do the desired thing.

(I've never read the manual)

You may or not be aware of past forum posters who have attacked the designers/testors over problems that only occured because the poster did not know how to operate the game. In every case it had been covered in the manual (refering to UV here I have not caught up with the WITP posts of the past month)

I think Frag is thin skinned but only when dealing with people who project their problems back onto the design/test team before checking to see if there is n actual problem. No one seems to assume operator error. It's awlays the games fault. I actually think there are a slew of hotkey commands in both UV/WITP. I never use them so I don't know what they are.

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980




Easy. I don't expect to EVER be told, directly, by support staff, to RTFM. I would FIRE any of my support technicians here if I EVER got even a remote INKLING they were talking to a customer like that. There is a way you inform poeple about where in the manual a certain item is without slapping them in the face with a ignorant RTFM comment. It's not appreciated and I, for one, will not tolerate being talked to like the four year child.

I find it hard to believe you cannot tell that that is poor customer service and where someone can be highly offended by RTFM like comments. I KNOW how stupid I am concerning this game, I don't need thin-skinned beta-tester to slap me in the face with it.

He didn´t directly and only sayed RTFM. He even gave you an answer to your "complaint".

Frag is not customer service, he´s a member of thuis community, helping and answering peoples questions beyond duty. For years!

Well, if you can't see the general tone of most his comments I have nothing more to say on the issue to you. He may be the single most condescending poster on this forum (save me, maybe). He's a wealth of knowledge, but he needs to realize none of us have or ever will have the 1000's of hours of play time to draw on, and we are all "stupid". We don't need to be reminded.

I´ll ask him to put some cute daisys in his signature .[8|]

[donkuchi19]

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980


Did Eastern Front look like Windows?

Have any of you guys ever developed something other than a game???? Seems like you guys need an infusion of ideas from outside your collective "box".

Yes and it turned me off, believe it or not. Not to mention the nice changes your normal Windows GUI suffered from CTDs of this applications.

No I never "developed" something else then a game, actually I only develop graphics for them. But I also not tell my software application developing coder buddies how much cooler there business applications could look like. Because I never developed one of that.

But to make you happy, we currently have two projects that are based on the Windows GUI. For both of them it´s very boring to develop interface graphics for ........[>:]

Well, there's that paradigm thing again. I use some very intensly graphical applications that are all Windows UI's underneath. You wouldn't even know it if you didn't know they dumped the MFC runtimes in your System32 directory. They look more like a game than a CAD/CAM tool. The beauty of using standard WIN32 dialogs for standard tasks is re-usability. All you do is provide different cover graphics for the widgets and you have what looks like a brand new interface. But the man-hours should be spent on the game engine and AI elements, not re-inventing the UI wheel for every title. It's why most RTS and FPS game developers now settle on common third party, 3D engines, instead of rolling their own all the time (and yes, most now use standard WIN32 GUI widgets for getting common user input). We've all invented far too many wheels in our time....

It is also why every new mainstream wargame out there looks exactly the same. There are no fresh ideas. Every game is build a base, build troops, conquer. Just the graphics and the time period are different. I for one, enjoy the difference that games like WITP bring to the computer.

In regards to frag, any question that I have had, he has answered quickly and professionally. I often look for his posts because they answer my questions without me having to type them in the first place.

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Tige

ORIGINAL: Mogami
(I think the staffs involved in the actual war would have been delighted to find they could run ther entire war operations with so few clicks and in so little time.

Actually WitP could get a couple of pointers from those staffs. WitP has all the information necessary, and then some. It is the context in which the information is presented which makes it a bit unwieldy.

WitP would bury a staff in paperwork. Stack upon stack of Sightings, Intel, Combat Reports along with Supply/Fuel Requests and Personal Requirements. Until it is put into context by plotting all this information and seperating the types of information can one make sense of it.

When planning a sub patrol the Commander of the sub fleet looked at recent information recieved by all the intelligence gathering services and this information was placed on a chart to get a picture of the the enemies activities. An enemy that did not adhere to the same geographical command sectors as their adversary. The sub was then ordered to the location to best do it's job on the information availible.

Not to sound snide, there is a reason why all war rooms are centered around a map or chart, not lists and stacks of paperwork. WitP needs maps and charts that players can put information on to make sense of the reams of paperwork . Whether it be a combat mission or supply mission.

-Tige

Well, the generals and admirals all had staffs to handle these details and boil everything down to basic recommendations. I love the game, but my overall impression is "crushing". It may be that the UV interface simply doesn't scale well enough for a game of this magnitude. I have yet to make my mind up on that. And that begs the question, if the UV style interface doesn't scale well, what type of interface would? I think the Mediterranean game idea may be the perfect scale for the UV-interface, but a new War In Russia or European theater thing might best try something completely different. Same depth, but something different. What? I have no idea, but not this, I don't think....

[mogami]

Not to sound snide, there is a reason why all war rooms are centered around a map or chart, not lists and stacks of paperwork. WitP needs maps and charts that players can put information on to make sense of the reams of paperwork . Whether it be a combat mission or supply mission.

Hi, I don't think your comments are snide at all. I understand. You may find it hard to believe but it is something I never thought of. I guess when I helped make the map. OOB, and looked at the map for 2 years it never occured to me that other players would not instantly understand the weres and whats as they watch a turn resolve. By habit I check every unit that egages in combat and can tell what effect the previous turn had. I know where Coast Watchers are located and when the turn is running I know what they are seeing. (As the sighting occurs I decide what my reaction during my orders phase will be)

It is difficult to find a way to convince you that some day all these added features would be more clutter then use. WITP is not a casual game. There is a vast amount of input for players to absorb and utilize. However for players watching a turn resolve who are watching "Their Plan" evolve much is understood automaticlly. When one of my TF is sighted 20 hexes from nearest land by an enemy carrier type aircraft I do not need a giant red x placed on the map so I can remember it. If I first take the time to study the situation I understand where certain enemy forces are going to or coming from when I sight them. This is not an attempt to justify the ommision of your desired player aids. Only my explanation for why I never brought them up in testing. They never occured to me.

[ZOOMIE1980]

It is also why every new mainstream wargame out there looks exactly the same. There are no fresh ideas. Every game is build a base, build troops, conquer. Just the graphics and the time period are different. I for one, enjoy the difference that games like WITP bring to the computer.

See, I take just the opposite tact. To me, it is concentration on interfaces, man-hours that could be better put in to use developing the engine or the oft neglected AI, that lead to one game pretty much being like the next one. What makes a game attractive is NOT eye-candy but it's game play and for the solitaire player, the AI. We see this bemoaned in the mainstream game media as well. All game developers seem to do any more is play one-up on one another with their graphics and interface, but underneath, they all do the same basic thing.

I would MUCH prefer that all games, at least all games from a particular vendor, look very much similar from UI perspective. That basically means I don't have to spend hours and hours figuring out the basic UI and can instead concentrate on the game mechanics. And for the developer, they no longer have to spend wasted manhours creating new interfaces for every title and can instead, invest the man-hours in game design and advancing the art of the AI. Same thing even goes for a lot of the underlying game engines, themselves. That's where object oriented design comes into play. After a while, you have a large library of re-usabale, low-level, game objects, both from a UI perspective and an engine perspective. You just apply a new coat of paint (graphics and sound) and you spend your time (aka money) on the stuff that REALLY matters, the design, the play, and the AI.

Ask yourself why has Microsoft not only dominated the OS market but also the office productivity market? Why did MS Office come to dominate the world? Why has almost all successful Windows software become successful? Common, familiar, interface. We all EXPECT the File menu to look like the File menu. The Edit, View, etc... to be where it ALWAYS is. If you ever want to see a future failed Windows mainstream business app fail, watch one that alters the basic Windows UI standard.

Same with games. I would love to be able to forget about having to learn the UI. The UI should be pretty much the same as it was in the last game from the same company.

[Spooky]

OK - To sum up, the WITP GUI is probably not the best in the world ... but is efficient enough for playing WITP.

As far as I am concerned, in an ideal world, the GUI should be streamlined and Matrix/2by3 should hire 2 or 3 GUI designers... but it would imply that tens of thousand WITP units are sold so I am afraid it is a dream

However, what I would really like is :
- a big change in the plane upgrade system - the WITP hard-coded upgrade system is too rigid while the BTR system was so good ... and it was at least 6 years ago [X(] - I really do not understand why a Japanese commander could change the production of all the factories ... and not decide with which new aiplane a squadron is going to be upgraded !
- An improved production GUI ... like the one in BTR (again) - with a clickable production screen !

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Not to sound snide, there is a reason why all war rooms are centered around a map or chart, not lists and stacks of paperwork. WitP needs maps and charts that players can put information on to make sense of the reams of paperwork . Whether it be a combat mission or supply mission.

Hi, I don't think your comments are snide at all. I understand. You may find it hard to believe but it is something I never thought of. I guess when I helped make the map. OOB, and looked at the map for 2 years it never occured to me that other players would not instantly understand the weres and whats as they watch a turn resolve. By habit I check every unit that egages in combat and can tell what effect the previous turn had. I know where Coast Watchers are located and when the turn is running I know what they are seeing. (As the sighting occurs I decide what my reaction during my orders phase will be)

It is difficult to find a way to convince you that some day all these added features would be more clutter then use. WITP is not a casual game. There is a vast amount of input for players to absorb and utilize. However for players watching a turn resolve who are watching "Their Plan" evolve much is understood automaticlly. When one of my TF is sighted 20 hexes from nearest land by an enemy carrier type aircraft I do not need a giant red x placed on the map so I can remember it. If I first take the time to study the situation I understand where certain enemy forces are going to or coming from when I sight them. This is not an attempt to justify the ommision of your desired player aids. Only my explanation for why I never brought them up in testing. They never occured to me.

Great point! Couldn't have said it better if I tried for months. I see it around my own shop, myself and I see this very thing in the Matrix staff, in general. You get so used to doing something a certain way and so used to looking at the same thing for so long, you can't really see or even comprehend anything else! It gets so bad, at times, that your old-heads get highly insulted and down right indignant if you mention you'd like to make even small changes! We try and get around some of that by trying to hire a new design engineer or project manager from "outside the inner circle" every other year or so. You get fresh blood and then strive to really listen and incorporate some of the new stuff.

Three years ago we were CONVINCED that you simply could not develop high performance, server side, enterprise level transaction processing systems using Java. We hired some very experienced Java types and were quickly proven DEAD WRONG. Now we do as much as 25% of our systems in pure Java. Same thing with nonStop-Tandem-Himalaya. We used to be absolutely convinced that if you wanted extremely high perfomance, scalable, 24x7 systems 10 years ago, Tandem was it, period. No if's ands or but's about it. Problem was, 10 years ago, we had only Tandem people on staff. We hired a load of Unix and Windows and Oracle and DB2, etc. .. types and were once again, proven DEAD WRONG!

Matrix, PLEASE, don't get hide-bound. It will be the death of our genre....

[Captain Cruft]

It's me that went on about hot keys, not ZOOMIE ...

I actually rather like the non-standard look and feel (and I love the map). Coming from a UNIX background I have an innate aversion to standardised user interfaces [;)] WitP has its own style which feels very appropriate for the subject matter [:)]

My point about keyboard control is not whinging though. This program is basically a database editor + a combat resolution engine. The orders phase consists of the editing of units in the player's view of the database (editing of units = using the Base screen, the Taskforce screen, the Airgroup screen & the LCU screen). You have a vast number of these units and, in the Grand Campaign, you will potentially be editing each of them more than 1,000 times. It just seems to me that this process should be made as efficient as possible ...

[Marc von Martial]

You just apply a new coat of paint (graphics and sound) and you spend your time (aka money) on the stuff that REALLY matters, the design, the play, and the AI.

The manpower and time does not interfere here. And if you think that the graphic department staff does not REALLY matter in game design, then you obviously underestimate the potential graphics have on sales and on luring new blood into the market. Especially in wargaming.

If you do 3D shooter you MUST have killer graphics to keep the company alive and able to develop a new title. When you do wargames you add spicer graphics to get people from other genres attracted and interested.


But honestly, I´m very tired of this "graphics take away from gameplay development" discussions, since nobody ever acknowleges that these two departments simply don´t interfere .... [>:]

[Marc von Martial]

Great point! Couldn't have said it better if I tried for months. I see it around my own shop, myself and I see this very thing in the Matrix staff, in general. You get so used to doing something a certain way and so used to looking at the same thing for so long, you can't really see or even comprehend anything else! .... Matrix, PLEASE, don't get hide-bound. It will be the death of our genre....

You miss the point that non of our products are the same. WITP and UV share a base engine, true. But other projects have their own new and intuitive engines. We have a lot of different approches. We´re definelty NOT hide-bound.

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Spooky

OK - To sum up, the WITP GUI is probably not the best in the world ... but is efficient enough for playing WITP.

As far as I am concerned, in an ideal world, the GUI should be streamlined and Matrix/2by3 should hire 2 or 3 GUI designers... but it would imply that tens of thousand WITP units are sold so I am afraid it is a dream

However, what I would really like is :
- a big change in the plane upgrade system - the WITP hard-coded upgrade system is too rigid while the BTR system was so good ... and it was at least 6 years ago [X(] - I really do not understand why a Japanese commander could change the production of all the factories ... and not decide with which new aiplane a squadron is going to be upgraded !
- An improved production GUI ... like the one in BTR (again) - with a clickable production screen !

I think they could use some in-program production chart pop-ups to help us make some sense of the production and upgrade paths. A lot more charts and graphs without having to shell out to a manual. Something right out of an Excel generated chart based on a spreadsheet or something. I mean, I can't remember what a Ki-51 or Ki-48 upgrades to all. Hell, I can't even remember which Ki is a level bomber, a fighter, or a recon plane, much less what it upgrades to!!! And forget about me ever just "knowing" what engine they all use!!

Why again did Yamamoto even care???

[Marc von Martial]

Why again did Yamamoto even care???

This game is intended for people that want to play Yamamoto and care [;)]

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Chaplain

Hey ZOOMIE, give us a game that you developed. We're waiting. [:D]

I've actually written several. Unfortunately most are DOD property, written while assisting in development of war game sims for the War College. One I did write back in 1987 was title Pacific '88 for the Apple II and Amiga. A takeoff of GG's North Atlantic '86. I had some serious financial difficulties back then after leaving the Air Force in 1986, so I never could afford the expense of geting it published. Time and life and children have largely prevented me from making any real efforts since those days. That, and one man cannot ever hope to write a modern game, even a simple one, by themselves anymore. Just not possible.

[Marc von Martial]

That, and one man cannot ever hope to write a modern game, even a simple one, by themselves anymore. Just not possible.

See, and we managed it with 3 people developing and coding. Other companies have 30.

[nihilimus]

Actually, I think the defensive nature of Matrix staffers is where the point is lost. It does not serve your company well to act so defensively when a portion of your audience offers suggestions.

While I agree great graphics are critical to pulling in an audience, so is usuability and much of what is being said here crashes the core of this very complex game's workflow.

Points made about easy access to maps, addition quick keys, modular windows available to the user to popup, drop, hide while seeking the data for important decisions. All of this is to streamline workflow.

Yes... Some of our less visually-oriented friends don't need that and may be happy with either writing details on a pad or trying to remember across the vast expanses of the Pacific. I -- like military leaders past -- prefer a visual representation backed by quick access to data.