Tag Archives: gui

GUI Wars 2 vs. World of Tooltips: The tutorials

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Although I have little time at the moment I spent a few hours this week in Guild Wars 2 and the new World of Warcraft add-on Mists of Pandaria. There were only a few hours between playing a fresh-faced Pandarian monk and a Norn necromancer and I was really surprised how different both tutorials worked for me. Before I start going into details I must admit that I played a lot of WoW in the early years but dropped it due to a lack of time, so haven’t been around Azeroth for a long time. And I never played Guild Wars 1, so I definitely have it easier to get back into WoW, than start learning a new game.

Nevertheless, when I got back into WoW a lot of things changed when it comes to the skill system, the quest help and some smaller interface functions. The WoW tutorials are very linear with a pre-defined line of quests one should follow. The interface and in-game interactions are very well described and pop-up in the moment you need them. As a veteran player it might sometimes be annoying with all the offered help you do not need, but then again, you can easily skip all tooltips and hints. I was even more impressed when I stopped running through the Pandarian starting zone and reactivated my old paladin back from the days. The new skill system was easy to pick-up due to unobstrusive but helpful tooltips how to distribute the skill points.

Entering Guild Wars 2. I rolled a Norn necromancer because I liked the style. The interface looks pretty familiar if you already played an MMORPG and some of the in-game information visualization is pretty standard as well (quest hosts, map highlights). Regarding the tutorial, Guild Wars 2 does a lot of things wrong. There are pop-up messages pointing at different GUI elements or some which introduce key shortcuts. From my first hours of play, it seems that these messages pop-up randomly or at least not necessarily at the time you need a description of the respective mechanic (or much later after plenty of time already using the mechanic). I missed also tooltips for items or equipment slots, because I did not know how to use them or what effect they would have if I use them. In addition, the quest system is designed very flexible right from the start, so you receive additional quests for events around you, but they come and go very fast, which might ask a bit too much from beginners.

In my opinion the lack of linearity in the beginning is not the biggest issue of Guild Wars 2, but it is how the tooltips do (not) adapt to the player’s actions. Of course it is easier for the tutorial designers to provide the right information at the right time when the first minutes or hours of play move along a linear path. Guild Wars 2 should focus on the basic actions and goals of the game and save some of the complexity for later on. Techniques like phasing allow different players in the same game area to see different things according to their status, which could serve a tutorial very well.

That being said, I enjoyed Guild Wars 2 more than the return to World of Warcraft, because of the more flexible way of questing and leveling and the impressive visuals of Tyria. Then again, I only had a few hours of time, which is far away from sufficient to rate an MMORPG.

Everything’s better with lasers…?! My first weeks with SWTOR

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I spent some quality time with Star Wars: The Old Republic during the past weeks and want to share some thoughts on Bioware’s fresh-faced MMORPG. Although I did not expect a revolution of MMORPG game design, I was surprised that Bioware took very little risk by sticking to many well-known and established MMORPG standards. On the other hand, Bioware did a great job of capturing the atmosphere of the Star Wars Universe. Sound, art and character design are top-notch, although the texture quality is some years behind. Another thing that bothers me is that in the vast openness of the galaxy, the space combat runs on rails (here’s my hope that Bioware will release a full-fledged space combat add-on).

Surprisingly, Bioware did not so well with the whole graphical user interface (GUI). There are only a few options to modify your GUI, but it is far away from the freedom of interface modifications within games like World of Warcraft. That wouldn’t bother so many players, if only Bioware delivered a great GUI right from the start. Here are some examples for what went wrong:

The sum of your characters’s and companion’s actions grows fast and with them the need to organize all the fancy little icons across the screen. With only three control bars on the left, right and in the middle, Bioware offers only little room for placing all those action icons or additional items like medipacks. Especially the companion’s standard interface is far away from being intuitively understandable and easy to control.

Several pop-up menus like the inventory or the skill trainer options feature tabs, which can be found at the bottom of the pop-up window and not – as most users would expect them – at the top. Futhermore, they are comparatively small, with a dark font (cause it is a deactivated tab, right?) on a darker background and for this reason quite difficult to spot. It took me 10 minutes of searching and asking other players to find the mission items in my inventory (which have their own tab).

Another flaw is the button for leaving a flashpoint (instance) – it’s so tiny, that I wouldn’t have registered it without the help of my guild mates. The beauty of an MMOG is that you can ask people if you do not find the right button or option (which people do a lot in the general chat), but especially for MMOG newbies it would have been helpful to provide a more intuitive GUI.

But there are also some interface improvements in comparison to other MMORPGs. I really like the vertical beams of light, which direct you to the NPC’s loot.

After some weeks with SWTOR I have mixed feelings about the game. On the one hand I really enjoy the whole Star Wars atmosphere, the great character and art design and the dialogues. But on the other hand the characters and dialogues cannot draw off the attention of the fact that this a standard MMORPG that has a lot in common with the last generation of MMORPGs – except the great Star Wars license. In addition, the interface is neither intuitive enough for beginners nor offers enough modification options for experienced players to adapt their interfaces to their play style. Hopefully, Bioware will fix this soon – because if there is one further common ground in MMORPGs, it’s the regular updates.

Nintendo DSi Review

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When I pre-ordered Nintendo`s new version of the enormous successful handheld (>100 million sales), I already knew that the changes on this successor wouldn`t be revolutionary (which matches perfectly the slightly changes of  the console`s name) but would give the handheld some interesting additional features.

After unboxing I first did a few tests with the camera and the audio tools which are nice to play around for a few minutes but which can – from a technical point – beaten easily by any mobile phone. It will be interesting to see how many good games with camera support will be released – the first one, Wario Ware Snapped, is nice but not does not work very well if you are on tour. Or if your face has the same color as the wall behind you. Or the poster. Or the blue sofa. IF you have good light AND contrast conditions the game works and shows some opportunities what to do with the new feature. But the game is far away from being a system seller (see the video for some impressions of the game).

The whole GUI of the DSi is pretty well done, except some minor issues. One of these issues I came across is the Wireless LAN setup. The console has 6 slots to save different wireless connections BUT only slots number 4,5 and 6 work with my WLAN security protocol. Every other gadget recognizes my WLAN protocol automatically, but the DSi does not. It took me three tries to understand how the whole dialogue works and given the fact that this should be a console for non-techies too, I am a bit disappointed by Nintendo (or of my skills).

Another dialogue problem is the shop interface. It is not easy to distinguish buttons, information boxes or signs from another and the logical structure of the whole shop is not that easy to understand as the one for the Wii. And this is not only a problem of the small screen size of the DSi, it is in some parts, poor interface design and usability. But, here is the chance for Nintendo to do better: Everything can be updated now :)

A problem I did not encounter yet is the new position of the power button. I heard some people hitting it by chance and kicking themselves out of the game. The new sound adjustment works fine for me – with two buttons instead of one bar you have a more precise control of the sound volume.

The main reason I bought the DSi (given the fact that I bought both previous designs, too) is the SD slot and the opportunity to download small games and apps. The first games and apps (like the browser) do not show the full potential of the service and I really hope Nintendo starts releasing classic games for the DSi like they do with the ‘virtual console’ service on the Wii.

My final statement: If you have no DS till now and consider buying one: Pick the DSi. If you already have a DS: Just wait a few months until interesting download content shows up.

How to clone a GUI

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Yesterday saw the release of the free-to-play MMORPG ‘Runes of Magic’ and after installing it I gave it a short test run. Anyone who played ‘World of Warcraft’ (WoW) before (and that includes me) will notice that the game looks in many ways like Blizzard`s successful MMORPG. The colourful comic graphics, the avatars and the graphical user interface (GUI) look like the developers tried to stay as close to WoW as they could. Take a look at the screenshot I made during the first minutes of play:

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Character portrait, health and mana bars, target info, minimap, chat window, experience bar and the character`s abilities are easy to recognize if you are familiar with WoW. Even most of the pre-defined hotkeys work in the same way.

My first impression: This game is fairly easy to pick up – especially when you are not new to the genre of MMORPGs. I made 4 levels in about 10 minutes of play by killing some creepy fungus monsters and talking to lot of NPCs. As this is a game which shall entertain for days and months, I have to play further to get a better idea of the gameplay and the more interesting features like the hybrid character classes. Till now it seems like ‘Runes of Magic’ is not a revolution in terms of gameplay but for a free-to-play game it looks quite good.

Although, the first minutes of play showed already some downsides of the free-to-play business model: Not enough slots in your inventory? Buy some more. Hey, you have a mount for one day. If you wanna keep it longer, buy one. So micropayment is there from the first minute and it will be interesting to see if you can get around without buying stuff and how the game experience will differ between players who pay for bonuses and the ones who don`t.

Review: Warhammer Online – Age of Reckoning (PC)

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Ziemlich genau einen Monat lang spiele ich nun “WAR” – es wird also Zeit für ein erstes Fazit. Hinter WAR verbirgt sich nicht nur das Akronym des vollständigen Spieltitels, sondern der Krieg ist auch das dominierende Spielthema des Fantasy-MMORPGs von EA Mythic (u.a. Entwickler von Dark Age of Camelot). An jeder Ecke kämpfen die Fraktionen der Ordnung und der Zerstörung um die Vorherrschaft in einer Welt, die zumindest auf den ersten Blick sehr an den Genre-König “World of Warcraft” (WoW) erinnert. In diesen Tagen kursieren auch die ersten ausführlichen Tests der Spieleportale im Netz (z.B. bei Gamespot oder IGN) – ich möchte Redundanz vermeiden und mich deshalb in den folgenden Zeilen vorrangig dem Interface widmen.

Es brauchte nur wenige Sekundenbruchteile nach Spielstart um festzustellen, dass mir vieles bekannt vorkommt. Bekannt aus WoW – wen wundert es. Mittig an der Bildunterkante findet sich die Aktionsleiste, die sich Level für Level mit neuen Fähigkeiten füllt. Minimap, Chat und Spielerporträts, Gruppendarstellung und viele andere Elemente in WAR ähneln ihren Entsprechungen in WoW sehr stark; selbst die Position der Elemente innerhalb des GUI (Graphical User Interface) stimmt in den meisten Fällen überein. Hat EA Mythic also gut geklaut?

WAR-Interface: Squigtreiba

Jein. Denn neben vielen gut kopierten Elementen, gibt es auch einige Interface-Bereiche, bei denen man sich WoW erneut als Vorbild gewünscht hätte. Es gibt aber auch ein paar sehr gelungene Features, die ich ab sofort in keinem Spiel mehr missen möchte. Repräsentativ werde ich ein paar ausgewählte Pros und Cons auflisten, die meinen Ersteindruck des Spiels geprägt haben.

Wenig gelungen ist in WAR das Handels-Interface für die Auktionshäuser. Dieses wirkt unnötig kompliziert und unübersichtlich – möglicherweise einer der Gründe, warum die Auktionshäuser (auf meinen beiden Servern) bis dato kaum genutzt werden.

Was mich zudem nervt sind die grafisch kaum unterscheidbaren Gegenstände im Inventar, wie beispielsweise Tränke. Ich habe zeitweise in dem Inventar meines Squig-Treibas mehr als ein Dutzend verschiedener Tränke gehabt, die sich – wenn überhaupt – nur durch geringe gelb-grün Nuancen unterschieden, aber alle unterschiedliche Effekte hatten, die sich jedoch nur durch Mouse-Over erkennen liessen. In diesen Momenten habe ich die farblich deutlich voneinander getrennten Tränke in WoW schmerzlich vermisst…

Es gibt kein unmittelbares Feedback nachdem man das Spiel startet, was zu Verwirrungen führen kann.

Ein weiterer Schwachpunkt des WAR-Interfaces ist der Login- und Logout-Prozess. Hier fehlt ein unmittelbares Feedback – nicht selten klicke ich mehrmals auf “Start”, um ins Spiel zu gelangen, da das Spiel z.T. ein paar Sekunden Reaktionszeit benötigt, um ein visuelles Feedback zu geben. Der Logout-Prozess wird nur im Chat angezeigt, so dass ich diese Information am Anfang komplett übersehen habe und mich deshalb keinerlei Feedback erreichte. Klickt man ein zweites Mal auf den “Ausloggen”-Button, so wird der Logout-Vorgang abgebrochen. Sehr lustig, wenn man ein paar Klicks braucht, um die Anzeige im Chat zu finden… :-P

Dennoch gibt es auch einige Highlights im Interface-Design von WAR, die man ab sofort in WoW vermissen wird: Hervorgehobene Bereiche auf der Karte, die den Standort von Questgebern, Questzielen, Händlern etc. zeigen. Was in WoW nur teilweise über Addons abgedeckt wird, ist hier sinnvoll in das Interface integriert. Ich kann zudem von jedem Punkt der Spielwelt über 2 Buttons den Szenarien (PvP-Schlachtfelder außerhalb der Spielwelt) beitreten. Der Umfang des Inventars steigt in Abhängigkeit mit der Spielerstufe – ein Kaufen von zusätzlichen Taschen fällt weg. Der exzellente “Wälzer des Wissens” (aka “Tome of Knowledge”) bündelt alle Achievements des Spielers (man weiss als Goblin genau, wann man den 1.000ten Zwerg vermöbelt hat), Hintergrundinfos zu Quests und der Spielwelt und so coole Features, wie freigeschaltete Titel (z.B. “Der Pirat” = 100 gelootete Gegner; “Autsch,mein Auge!” = 100x selbst angeklickt).

Der Wälzer des Wissens hat sich seinen Namen redlich verdient.

Derzeit spiele ich – entgegen meiner ursprünglichen Planung – fast nur noch meine menschliche Hexenjägerin auf Seiten der Ordnung und vernachlässige meinen zu Release begonnenen Goblin-Squigtreiba. Die Ursache ist ein Interface-unabhängiges Problem: Auf fast allen Servern ist die Seite der Zerstörung deutlich in der Überzahl. Daraus folgt eine unendliche Beschäftigung für Ordnungs-Charaktere auf den Schlachtfeldern (Wartezeit teilweise unter 1 Minute), während die Zerstörungsseite in langen Warteschlangen hängt (2-3 Stunden). Da man durch die Schlachtfelder schneller levelt (und mir diese deutlich mehr Spaß machen), findet man mich bevorzugt mit Hut, Degen und Pistole im Kampf gegen das Chaos, während der Goblin-Treiba und seine Squigs eher selten zum Zuge kommen…

Fazit: WAR ist einer der wenigen Titel, der das Potential besitzt WoW dauerhaft Spieler abspenstig zu machen. Wer auf PvP-Action steht, wird hier wesentlich besser unterhalten als in WoW und die Welt wirkt deutlich düsterer und erwachsener als die bunte Comic-Welt des großen Konkurrenten. Bisher wurde ich gut unterhalten, aber ich habe nur die Gebiete bis Level 20 erkundet und vieles wartet noch darauf von mir entdeckt zu werden. Wenn dann auch noch die Tränke ordentlich eingefärbt werden, werde ich noch ein wenig mehr Zeit mit WAR verbringen…