Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: The Gnome

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

The interface is not changing in AE, there will just be even more buttons

I rated the ui as barely acceptable a few years ago and all I had was a 17" monitor running 1024x768, now I have a 24" in 1920x1200. Would be nice to use the real estate.

Also, my eyes aren't getting any better and those buttons sure are small.

All in all I welcome the upgrade and I'll probably be getting it, just hope a little customer feedback steers the devs some.

Well not being a techno wiz I can only relate to my own experience. I have a 20.1" LCD with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. Now we all know that if you run an LCD at anything other than its native resolution you hav to run the thing in one of 4 modes with the 2 that give you full screen are Monitor or video timing which uses the timing from the monitor or the video card to run the non native resolution.
Well that is so much mumbo jumbo to my poor brain so I set my resolution on the native resolution and boot the game. The game changes the resolution to its own and the LCD is using video timing for non native resolutions.
Now to me it looks good the way it is and to my way of thinking a higher resolution would result in smaller icons and font size...right?
I don't care what resolution the game is in I just want it to look good which it does. Now a Larger monitor screen would (all things equal) produce larger Icons and font print but increase in resolution to me is not that big of a thing to me. It would be nice if the icon size and font did not get smaller for those who have not the large screen monitors needed to use higher resolutions. All those little buttons might even be smaller on smaller monitors A piece of software like a game has to run on as many systems as possible in order to make a profit which is the important point.

The ideal solution is to have a game in several resolutions but to do this it would increase the cost I would think. This is after all not a new version so many of the things we may want will have to wait till a new version. As to the question of creating a new version rather than the AE update is not something for an old gamer to comment on here as there have been many posts on the subject already.

Madgamer

I want bigger buttons, and the higher resolution monitor is NOT the answer, for me..(Already have that)..
Call me "Magoo" I guess..

From what I gathered there is a problem with UI changes, and that is the game logic is coupled with the visual elements. That makes it a time consuming mess to make what would otherwise be simple display changes (very unfortunately).

It's an easy trap to fall into, and I've done it before myself. If the gang ever decides to do a WiTP 2, I would highly recommend a de-coupling of display and logic.

I think it sounds like they have missed the boat on all sorts of interface stuff that could rotate around such things as shortcuts. Like:
 
right mouse clicks - these are way under-utilised. Use them for such things as setting destinations for TFs and LCUs (using a right mouse click to select so that you don't have to go to the information screen and then another to set destination.
Using the map for waypoint selection and then being given a list of TFs to aim there. And again information about what TFs have the selected hex as their target.
Shortcuts to the production screen for Jap air units, from within the unit screen, using pop up help when you mouse over the prod button showing the factories producing the planes in question.
Learning menus, or user changeable (this may be more pipe dreamish and require the whole interface to be updated), such that the most regulary used buttons are put in the closest proximity to each other. Have the game relocate them, or again allow the user to change them, such that you don't have all the scrolling required to go backwards and forwards between each button.
Information on the army screen, about which location each LCU has as its preparatory target.
 
I could go on for ages but I don't know if this is pointless considering the responses about having to rebuild the game from the ground up to facilitate such things.

ORIGINAL: aprezto

I could go on for ages but I don't know if this is pointless considering the responses about having to rebuild the game from the ground up to facilitate such things.

Since it has been stated repeatedly that many things such as some of your ideas are not possible until a "start-from-scratch" WITP-2 (one can hope for it) it does seem to be pointless to re-hash the UI at this point. It is what it is. and it isn't changing.

For now, I'm just looking for the positives that are coming in WITP-AE (and there are many) and hoping for the best.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

Since it has been stated repeatedly that many things such as some of your ideas are not possible until a "start-from-scratch" WITP-2 (one can hope for it) it does seem to be pointless to re-hash the UI at this point. It is what it is. and it isn't changing.

Well stated Flipper. I get fed up of people requesting changes and bitching when they are rebuffed. AE is nearly there thanks to the development team. Threads like this are just a distraction.

The interface may not be state of the art today - but the ultimate questions to answer are "1. Does it work? 2. What would be gained/lost were it to be changed?". Answers 1. yes, 2. better playability/enormous delay. Conclusion - forget about it. I'd rather have it out with functionality changes than have waited this long just to get GUI changes.

I want bigger buttons, and the higher resolution monitor is NOT the answer, for me..

The higher resolution you have the tinier the buttons you will get for same size monitors. The solution is to degrade the monitor resolution since no one will change the game engine, this is Witp-AE not Witp-2.

While some improvements have been made in screen/data organization and usability, this is functionally the same interface as in WITP. As mentioned before, changing that in any radical way was really not an option with this release and will not be an option until WITP 2, whenever that comes. I recognize that WITP is not a model of interface design, though IMHO given the amount of data and complexity being dealt with, it could be much, much worse. It works and if you can tolerate the WITP interface, you'll be fine with the WITP-AE interface.

Regards,

- Erik

Personally, I think it gets the job done just fine. I have never really had issues, and as Erik pointed out, I have seen much, much worse presentations of 1/100th the amount of information that you have to deal with in WitP.

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

Personally, I think it gets the job done just fine. I have never really had issues, and as Erik pointed out, I have seen much, much worse presentations of 1/100th the amount of information that you have to deal with in WitP.

I agree with you, up to the point of managing the Japanese economy. That is a total dog's breakfast. The UI of that portion of the game has prevented me from playing 50% of the game I bought. I would prefer root canal.

Fixing/exposing the AI fixes 50% of my main wish list (with waypoints and improved sub ops as dessert.) If they could make the economy running not depend on drilling down FROM THE MAP (!!!) that would be the other 50% of my list for WITP-2. I'd buy it tomorrow.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I agree with you, up to the point of managing the Japanese economy. That is a total dog's breakfast.

Just do what I do: Dont play Japan [:D]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I agree with you, up to the point of managing the Japanese economy. That is a total dog's breakfast.

Just do what I do: Dont play Japan [:D]

Well, I don't, but I'd like to. In particular, I'd like to get full value from my purchase.

5) Skinnable/User Modifiable as much as possible

You cannot modify GUI engine, that’s true, but it’s skinnable, it’s absolutely skinnable! There are few other wargames out there where you can so easily change the whole graphic set. I’ve been working on the GUI skin for Witp a couple of years ago, when AE is out, I will blow the dust off that project and give it some good polish. Of course it won't change the way UI works in this game, but it can breathe a bit of a fresh air. GUI allows to use 14x14pxl square-shaped buttons, they are large enough, bigger buttons would look bizarre I guess cause there are so many of them.

Here are some screenshots. Keep in mind that it’s not a finished product yet…
GUI SKIN

And that, my friends, is why Subchaser is da man![&o]

Subchaser, those are very nice!

ORIGINAL: Subchaser

5) Skinnable/User Modifiable as much as possible

You cannot modify GUI engine, that’s true, but it’s skinnable, it’s absolutely skinnable! There are few other wargames out there where you can so easily change the whole graphic set. I’ve been working on the GUI skin for Witp a couple of years ago, when AE is out, I will blow the dust off that project and give it some good polish. Of course it won't change the way UI works in this game, but it can breathe a bit of a fresh air. GUI allows to use 14x14pxl square-shaped buttons, they are large enough, bigger buttons would look bizarre I guess cause there are so many of them.

Here are some screenshots. Keep in mind that it’s not a finished product yet…
GUI SKIN

Folks need to remember that AE is not WitP2. It is the "life extension program" for WitP1, and from what we've seen so far it's going to be a remarkable achievement. In some ways AE is kind of like the B-52. It flat out doesn't seem to belong in this era when you park one next to it's modern brethren, but under the hood she's a whole new bird. Still, no matter what they do, it all has to hang on that ancient airframe. She'll never do Mach-anything, but she's a quantum leap from her Rev-0 origin.

ORIGINAL: Subchaser
5) Skinnable/User Modifiable as much as possible

You cannot modify GUI engine, that’s true, but it’s skinnable, it’s absolutely skinnable! There are few other wargames out there where you can so easily change the whole graphic set. I’ve been working on the GUI skin for Witp a couple of years ago, when AE is out, I will blow the dust off that project and give it some good polish. Of course it won't change the way UI works in this game, but it can breathe a bit of a fresh air. GUI allows to use 14x14pxl square-shaped buttons, they are large enough, bigger buttons would look bizarre I guess cause there are so many of them.

Here are some screenshots. Keep in mind that it’s not a finished product yet…
GUI SKIN

Very nice indeed!

I agree with you, up to the point of managing the Japanese economy. That is a total dog's breakfast. The UI of that portion of the game has prevented me from playing 50% of the game I bought. I would prefer root canal.

I would have agreed with you more last year about this time or slightly earlier. However, there is a nice utility availalble called Tracker that makes running the Japanese economy a lot easier. [&o] I'm now in my third game as Japan. I just took over the third one from a friend, so some of the stuff is new, but I'm learnimg and having fun. [:D]

If even Matrix people are recognizing that Subchasers skin is better than the default skin, why not just make Subchasers skin the default skin [:D]

i have hand and arm pain as it is....(dam human body flawed like witp was )the less clicks the better.