Matrix Games Forums

Oh, and now I noticed that I actually do get a warning when not having moved all activated units. Also nice.

but I still think the designer(s) should listen to these comments from newbies, especially about the user interface

Oh I do.  I certainly read all opinions, whether positive or negative.  And thank you to everyone who has voiced an opinion on the game or the UI, whether negative or positive.  I appreciate it very much.  And since I didn't say so before, thank you to Out Of Eight, the Wargamer and Jim Cobb for taking the time to review the game.  I appreciated all 3 reviews.

As for Linux, I have been running a Linux box for almost 10 years and have tried about 30 distributions on it.  I did work on a Linux version of Guns of August that is PBEM-compatible with the Windows version and I still hope to get it finished. 

SMK -
You are right that many of his points are merely misunderstandings or questions. And I think your responses were very helpful and I applaud you for taking the time to share your experience. But I also believe he had some constructive points regarding UI. Though I would not expect you to know this, I have actually been focusing on UI items across many of the matrix forums recently - my interest in this topic is not focused exclusively (or even primarily) on GOA. And I think there are some constructive items presented by pellen that might prove constructive (either for a patch or merely as a lesson learned for the future).

And I think that someone posting "after two attempts" is actually the perfect time. Such a player will always suffer from some misconceptions, but you get a much more clear picture of how intuitive your interface is from such a player than you do from someone who is more experienced and has already accepted and adjusted to the game's flow. From a more practical standpoint, I can tell you that many reviewers will have essentially this same level of experience when they make pronouncements on the game's value. For a lot of reasons, this is the type of feedback that I would want as a developer.

The point about there not being a consistent manner for exiting a dialog is an excellent observation. Over time, players do adjust and get accustomed to a game's quirks, but this is one of those things that doesn't add anything to the game while making it more difficult for newbies. And it is also one of those things that a more experienced player just adjusts to and will often not think to mention.

The point about not having visual cues as to what action impact a single nation or an entire alliance is also useful in my mind. Again, this is one of those things that players will grow accustomed to, but that a little more forethought in UI design (such as subtle application of color or capitalization) could make clearer without having any negative consequences.

The request for additional context information such as highlighting selected units and better indicating barrage orders again are valid in my mind and apply to both new and experienced users. Again, not a deal breaker but a useful comment.

Finally, as has been discussed in other threads, the screen real estate of "the large grey box" likely could have been put to better use. It doesn't make the game bad that it wasn't - rather it might have been better had this element of the interface been further considered.

I don't mean for my or pellen's comments to be taken as overly negative for this game. With many independent developers who have no budget for UI design and testing, it would be surprising if Matrix consistently released games with great UIs. But Frank is a power house in the industry and I think he might benefit from some constructive feedback and it might help make his future titles even better. Or perhaps some of this will help other developers who just happen to be reading the news regarding other titles. Perhaps some of the items might even be easy to address and might be improved in a patch for this game. For any of those cases though, it is useful to have a candid discussion of what might have been done better. And that is the unemotional conversation I am hoping to have here. Not because I am disappointed that this game isn't perfect - that's too high of an expectation for anyone to meet. But rather, because we all continue to improve by looking for opportunities to do so.

Yes I know the UI isn't perfect.......even I can see areas where improvements could be made...although I've no idea how easily.....
 
But it really does irk me that people will charge straight on in after only minimal experience of the game when the UI is generally adequate....pellen isn't the first....so my apologies if it seems I gave you the sharp end of the stick a bit....
 
The UI DOES give you info - you click on a unit and it tells you what you can do.  Sure having "esc" as a standard escape from dialogue windows would be more conventient.....but that doesnt' make it uniintuitive or inadequate.
 
 

Ignorant users are going to give you your *best* UI feedback though. It's why professionals will go to ridiculous lengths to put new users in front of a UI to see how they react.

The idea behind a good UI isn't that a reasonably smart user with access to the manual can figure it out. The idea is that he shouldn't have to.

no one here is ignorant - pellen was able to work the system and get results.

IMO if you're not going to RTFM then that's all you're goign to get out of any game...some results that seem confusing because you don't know what they represent or how you got them.

Almost all wargames are complex and require you to RTFM - I've been gaming for longer than I care to recall, and I've never seen a game of any kind (board, computer, miniatures) that you can pick up and play competantly without either having someone there to hold your hand or RTFM.

Thank you, Frank! [:)] Somehow the total number of small things just reached a level where I felt happier spending time on writing very long posts here than playing the game. I must however admit that I couldn't resist playing the game again after writing my last comment here...

This is very trivial -- but also very easy to fix.

I was just looking at the screenshots -- probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway.  However, it didn't help that 'dreadnought' is misspelled in those screenshots.  It's pretty pathetic when the ads for a commercial product contain misspellings.

IMO if you're not going to RTFM then that's all you're goign to get out of any game...some results that seem confusing because you don't know what they represent or how you got them.

QFT exactly. Too many IGMO's expect to be able to play the game an understand the UI from just opening up the box and loading it on their machine. Lava calls it the "Big Mac" syndrome. I call it "Consoleitus" syndrome. The lazy boys game box, plug it in and play, no thought required. lol

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

I started the game in 1997, worked on it for about 18 months and then switched to working on my 1806 game instead.  Then I worked on it for a few more months before switching to work on 1809.  Then for another year, maybe a little more, after 1809 was done.  It was then that I made some changes to the design and rewrote the AI and did some playtesting.  Then I was tied up with another game for a long time and finally came back to finishing GoA over the last 18 months.  So all in all it took me about 4 years.

I think the fact that the game was begun in 1997 says a lot; probably the interface was conceptualized in the early phases, and the developer preferred to stick with it, rather than restart from scratch? This sounds like a great game but I don't think I would like using the interface. Maybe at some point the interface could be modernized in order to make it a real winner.

I wish I could say that was the case but really its just that I'm not great at writing interfaces.

ORIGINAL: offbase
I think the fact that the game was begun in 1997 says a lot; probably the interface was conceptualized in the early phases, and the developer preferred to stick with it, rather than restart from scratch? This sounds like a great game but I don't think I would like using the interface. Maybe at some point the interface could be modernized in order to make it a real winner.

Again, the UI is fine...it's modern...there are just a few things which would make it nicer..the only thing I would like is edge scrolling. It IS a great game. The interface is simple after you play for a bit......don't let that deter you.

ORIGINAL: therockyfroggy

ORIGINAL: offbase
I think the fact that the game was begun in 1997 says a lot; probably the interface was conceptualized in the early phases, and the developer preferred to stick with it, rather than restart from scratch? This sounds like a great game but I don't think I would like using the interface. Maybe at some point the interface could be modernized in order to make it a real winner.

Again, the UI is fine...it's modern...there are just a few things which would make it nicer..the only thing I would like is edge scrolling. It IS a great game. The interface is simple after you play for a bit......don't let that deter you.

It's not a bad UI you just need to play the game for a few turns and you get the hang of it.
Like you I find the scrolling a bit odd but it's not like the map is huge. You can scroll arcoss the whole thing in about a second or two.

ORIGINAL: James Ward

ORIGINAL: therockyfroggy

. . .

Again, the UI is fine...it's modern...there are just a few things which would make it nicer..the only thing I would like is edge scrolling. It IS a great game. The interface is simple after you play for a bit......don't let that deter you.

It's not a bad UI you just need to play the game for a few turns and you get the hang of it.
Like you I find the scrolling a bit odd but it's not like the map is huge. You can scroll arcoss the whole thing in about a second or two.

I find myself using the jump map for the most part.

Keyboard scrolling is no big issue to me, or none at all actually.

Regarding my long list of ui whining above I have figured out how to shuffle stacks and move the unit I intend to move while deploying now. It just wasn't obvious to me, but I do it correctly now most of the time. It is probably in the manual somewhere as well.

... and even thought I wrote I could not play it without some ui patches, I have not been able to resist playing the game anyway. [8D]