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What is with the lack of detail/polish?
Total_Havok
Member UncommonPosts: 21
Something that has really been on my mind lately has been the User Interfaces of some of the newer/unreleased Indie MMORPG's coming out. Below are some examples that you can check out, but my main question is: Why do developers not seem to be interested in creating good/clean/relevant User Interfaces for their games? To be fair, I understand that these games are in development, and these examples are not likely to be representative of the final product, but I seriously would like to see some serious increases in detail and relevance to the gaming world with some of these UI's.
PathFinder Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JUdZlu9cvc
Project Gorgon: (does anyone else hate the futuristic targeting reticle on targeted mobs)
http://i.imgur.com/m4ruaUw.png
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen:
http://i.imgur.com/hdnslwY.jpg
Also, I don't mean to ride the complain train here, but I'm also vastly surprised at how bad the combat systems are working as of late in the newer, Indie MMO's...spells looking clunky, swords not coming near the enemy or swinging in directions that don't remotely look like they're hitting they're target, no collision between weapon and enemy (vice versa), clipping with equipped weapon and hand of character/enemies that are holding weapons; everything just seems so sloppy.
I do graphic design for a living, and I know that some of the more basic elements of a UI are easier to make (chat log, action bars, inventories, character pages, etc), and I truly believe that they would really bring some of the gameplay videos to life and help sell more and more people on their projects.
Sorry for the discussion dump here guys, just want to know what my fellow MMORPG'ers think!
Comments
I am gonna be honest here, these games are to:
- Get crowdfunded
- Enrich the pockets of those "devs"
- Launch a poor product, already knowing it will fail
- Say sorry to everyone
- The "devs" will still carry on as they got paid and will now take some holidays to enjoy those "games"
This is what indie MMO's are now. Minecraft, albeit not an MMO, was an exception and not the rule.
The industry is creatively stagnant now, over satured and we will only see more and more games like those to fail over and over...
And just looking at the Pathfinder and Pantheon games, makes me want to poke my eyes while puking.
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Indie developers get a bit of a pass from me:
They don't have multi-million dollar budgets to invest into a lot of polish. Usually it's a few guys in a garage scraping by on peanut butter and ramen and 14 hour a day crash code sessions. If your trying to pay 5 guys on extremely limited capital, aren't looking at any revenue for months, and are deciding between paying yourself, paying your team, or outsourcing some artwork for a killer-looking UI... those are tough decisions to make no matter how you look at it.
There are exceptions (Star Citizen comes to mind), and then they don't get the same free pass.
But I'd rather a game be fun that necessarily look pretty. It needs to be functional, for sure, but pretty? It helps, but it's hardly a high priority for me.
I am presently playing PG at the moment and I agree, some of the animations are truly horrific in that game. In particular NPCS, that if you are at a certain draw distance, appear to be gliding across the surface of the world.
However I grew up in the Atari generation. So while I love photo realistic graphics, and smooth animation, it has never been anywhere close to the top of my list when looking at choosing a game.
So despite all the flaws that you mention graphically, I just accept it as part of the gameplay and as part of being an underfunded game. Probably a lot of players who spend big money on their gaming rigs would just scoff at playing such games. But after a while it takes more than just pretty pictures to make a game entertaining.
As for the UI, it seems pretty similar to most other games of this type. I don't really have too much problem with it in Project Gorgon. In an underfunded game choices have to be made. I think for Gorgon in particular, they made the right choices because, at this moment they at least have a working, functional game with many features, where as a lot of bigger funded games such as Repop and Star Citizen still sit in limbo and have yet to see the light of day.
In short, I am playing the game, I am not playing the graphics.
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Good Graphics
Good Mechanics
Good Development Pace
Pick one, maybe two of those. "Indie" usually means "not enough money" so something has to be sacrificed.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Bit doubtful indie development has a future, as long as hardware isn't complex, indie developers thrive. You saw this in mobile, once you get better hardware, small budget developers have a really hard time keeping up.
Indie developers do much worse on PC than they do on mobile. But because mobile hardware is getting more powerful and more complex, it will marginalise the developers.
You saw this with OUYA, the hardware became slightly more powerful, and many indie developers were still making extremely simplistic games, people weren't interested.
Many of those developers were also upset at OUYA for things that weren't OUYA's fault. The indie bubble is starting to pop because development costs are going up and the mobile platform is maturing.
This has consequences for PC developers too, because it is thanks to mobile that many indie PC developers have affordable engines to work with, most big developers don't give engines away or let others use them, and the few that do, ask a massive amount of money for it.
I think indie development is going away, I also don't see much interest in indie PS4 games personally.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I think that on average Money = Quality. If you took all the high budget games and compared them to small budget indie games, the high budget games would be / on average / be the much better games.
It's not always true, but on average, higher budgets result in better programmers / developers you can afford, and a better game as a result.
The argument that indie developers are able to take more risk, is something I have found not to be true in my experience, in fact many indie developers rely heavily on high budget games and often get into legal trouble for copying certain high budget games.
Unity.
I find that Unity games are lacking polish, as is the whole of the Unity engine, they tend to buy pieces and parts, then paste them together, and the results are klugy and amateurish. Unreal Engine 4 is both lower in cost, and vastly higher in quality, and is used by a quarter of the devs who use Unity. Unity remains popular, as the 'peoples engine', even as the CEO from EA takes the helm of the company.
However, I also find the interface of many other games from AAA publishers to also be clumsy, from games that are gone like Vanguard, to just released games like AA and Black Gold, and even games in development like Landmark/EQN. I am not sure why interface design is being ignored, but it may be that the developers and publishers think that customizable interfaces cure all, or enough, defects, that they just do not care.
Pathfinder Online is a really good eg of "lack of detail/polish".
It's budget is somewhere around 4-7m$. That's an order of magnitude below the "market expectation setting" of the likes of AAA Themepark publisher mmorpgs such as ESO, Wildstar and AA all of which are near enough 100m$ +/- or more.
PFO's UI I'm not too keen on I must say, this damn floaty thing in the middle of the screen feels really grating to my immersion. But here's the explanation for the quality (or lack of it and it's design intent) and where the devs see the scope for improvement or even change:-
Quoting Ryan Dancey, CEO, Goblinworks on the UI, 2014:
So it goes well beyond the simple design, implementation and beyond and that's an area Indies really seem to "bleed" on.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
All of the games mentioned in the first post are still in alpha or pre-alpha stages. For a large part of their content they actually use ready-made props, which goes to say that they haven't had any graphical work done on them yet for the most part. In the case of PG their crowdfunding campaign even explicitly stated they were looking to improve upon animations and models especially - the game mechanics themselves are already quite good. Pathfinder Online on the other hand is at such an early stage without even a proper team behind it you cannot really expect much but precisely what you're getting: pre-alpha quality, a complete placeholder UI and whatnot.
As for the combat, that's a different thing. In the case of PFO and PG, they both take a very tabletop-ish approach to combat, or one that could be described as "classic" tab targeting. As far as I am concerned, in those two games its on purpose: they are not to be actiony games where player skill determines the outcome of every match - instead, they are to embrace the roleplaying part of MMORPG, meaning character skill should come before player skill. That's my understanding, anyway.
The Weekly Wizardry blog
Not to pick on you or start a stupid fight, as so often happens on these, or any, forums, so please take this kindly.
If a game is to emphasize playing a role, it needs to gamify the role, motivations, and goals of the character, not the powerlevel. Most tabletop games, in particular those with levels, focus on power level in the game system; role, personality, motivation, and goals are left up the players, who sit around a table to discuss such things.
Turn based games, that detail how the toons power level increases, are more like strategy games, and not at all like pnp role playing as it is sometimes practiced. In other words, is the game to be about a strategy to level up, or is it to be about how the characters interact?
I have played in tabletop games that went either way, or even both ways at once.
This is quite a digression from the OP about UI, however, a strategy power level game wants for a different UI than a game about how the player interacts with other players.
I am not sure what relevant is supposed to mean when talking about UI design. And I am certain polish is a buzzword (in fact I recall a time before the use of the term was borrowed from development end and applied to user end. Then watered down so much that it can be now applied to virtually any thing...I even did a blog post on it some time back: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Helleri/112012/24241_How-I-define-Polish)
All the unclear terminology aside...I think the biggest recurring issue I have seen with MMORPG UI is a lack of internal consistency between different parts of the interface. Sometimes they have definitely over engineered it. Made so many updates to given small sections over time, that little of it looks like it belongs together. sometimes there is even interface skinning differences within the same UI. Little left overs that were not caught up in an overhaul. But I don't think any of this happening is a problem (as it is to some degree expected). So, much as it becomes a real issue when it is never addressed.
I guess what I was trying to say as far as relevance is concerned, is that the UI should not break immersion or feel clunky. If you're playing an MMO, futuristic and shiny greys and blacks, as well as lots of metallic textures are going to seem out of place and won't advance the feeling that you are involved in the world at all. Bags, sashes for inventories, icons that match the game world, a targeting system that makes sense (unlike project Gorgon's weird sci-fi reticle that encompasses targeted enemies, herbs, npc's, etc...) would really help to immerse the player in their role in the game world.
Also, polish isn't necessarily as ambiguous as you let on. According to Merriam-Webster, Polish: to improve (something) : to make (something) better than it was before.
That is literally all that I am talking about.
I guess what I tried to say initially is that I find it to be a problem when a lot of indie games tend to have this for some reason.
Op your not being at all fair when talking UI ,pointing at developers with little money or small teams when the biggest money maker of all Blizzard+Wow see their players downloading user Interfaces from OUTSIDE sources.
Of course that is not an excuse,we should expect a good UI from all developers but that is NEVER going to satisfy everyone.Perfect example,i heard tons and tons of complaints about FFXI's UI,yet it was the best UI i ever used in a game,so you'll never make a UI to please all.
BTW i play Gorgon right now and have ZERO problems with UI,i think in factual speaking the majority want UI's that play the game for them,i know that is why MOST UI's are used in Wow and other games.
If we are looking for realism or some form of plausible realism,you would NOT see hit point meters,seriously how would you know the hit points of an enemy?You might see damage but you would never know how close to death an enemy is.
We also have arguments over auto aim and manual aim.Sorry but if i were aiming something in real life,i would NOT need a mouse to do it nor would i need a keyboard for that matter.That is why i prefer auto aim with statistical formula to simulate hit n miss or semi hits.Gaming should NEVER be about the keyboard and mouse,it should be about your thought that goes into the game and how best you can enjoy the game whilst having fun and for many keep it challenging.
Gamer's want ui that tells them weather they can win the fight,when their timers are up,how far into the hate meter they are,seriously do they want to play the game or think at all?Is that a two arrows up or a three arrows up mob,oh noes i can't fight him.
I have not even mentioned games with automatic crafting,what kind of Ui do you need to enter items into a box then auto craft?
All i need is a UI that allows me to get the job done without doing it for me.
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In this context, all I was referring to was who the combat is to appeal to - roleplayers. The point was that what matters is rather the character's skill level, and the effects of twitch-type skill are reduced. I see this as a common trait in both, old tab targeting combat systems and tabletop RPGs.
Another question is whether this approach is working or not. Personally I think it could be done better, no question about that. But on the other hand, I can see where the developers are coming from - they are not looking to make fast paced, action-y games.
The Weekly Wizardry blog
All those gaems are either pre alpha with no playable version or very early alpha... UI gets developed over time and not the main focus early on in development. .
Just look at how the repopulations UI started out to where it is now and yes it still needs more work but it looks a hell of a lot better than it did when it started.
Yeah you're right concerning PFO (Pathfinder Online) 's emphasis for combat:-
1. Skill abstraction at the tab-target (commonly tagged) level eg WOW etc. or +75% Level using a sliding spectrum where -100% = 100% Player-Skill and +100% (abstraction) = Turn-based (choose skills... skills are determined in rounds and the player watches the fight).
2. One of the major reasons for this is technical to increase the time for calculations across a network where PFO intends to run several hundred players and objects interacting in one given area of the game eg a mass combat. Tending towards player skill would put a cap on the time required.
3. The market for mmorpgs where character skill and progression are tied is aimed for. PFO is a sandbox design where the combat is not the major system being developed for focus of gameplay and hence gratification here is not the core appeal.
Something like that. That said, Tab-target for avatars kinda worries me. The idea that the UI in the center of the screen with a round phase of 6 seconds is attempting to make the combat more tactical sounds promsing but is that the kind of thing players really want still? I don't know.
Edit: Oops! Went off on one. To tie it altogether:-
WIth Higher Skill Abstraction (ie Character Skill) = Higher RPG audience appeal = Higher amount of information displayed via UI.
With Higher Player Skill (ie less skill abstraction) = Higher Action audience appeal = Less necessity for UI information display as physics etc does the job (or should do).
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I don't mean to be rude at all, but with your initial argument, there's no point to playing games at all if you can do those things in real life. I would also argue that you are in the minority when it comes to "Just needing a UI to get the job done". Without pulling in anything else, all that I'm saying is that emphasis should really be put on UI development, because honestly, when people see the UI of a game, that can be a make or break moment for a player. A lot of MMORPG players (myself included) need a functional UI that MAKES SENSE to the game. It doesn't necessarily have to be the focus nor the breathtaking, awe-inspiring piece you seem to think that I'm talking about but (using PathFinder Online and Pantheon as an example) these UI's are just unacceptable. I play Project Gorgon too and while I love it, it needs some help: UI, combat clipping, ridiculous reticle.
I'm going to level with you here. The graphical portion of the User Interface (what I have been talking about this whole time), can honestly be made very quickly...that's why it's so confusing to me as to why developers seem to take so long with it.
What I am saying has almost nothing to do with what you said in your post; crafting falls more into game mechanics, and I am not talking about tab-targeting versus aiming...
I also wouldn't generalize gamers into "just wanting a ui that tells them weather they can win the fight,when their timers are up,how far into the hate meter they are,seriously do they want to play the game or think at all?Is that a two arrows up or a three arrows up mob,oh noes i can't fight him." This statement doesn't have any context within the argument, and your opinion here is one that I would argue as the minority.
Gamers want to feel immersed. This conversation isn't necessarily about mechanics; it's about what we have to stare at on the screen; no matter where we are in the gaming world, or what we're doing, the UI is always there.
you didnt like the Pathfinder example in the video you posted?
show us some examples of UI that you like.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
This.
A lot of it has to do with the absolute idiocy of the MMORPG community. A lot of people here have no clue. They will throw their money at every MMORPG that hits the market. It could be a stick figure MMORPG with a blank canvas and people would probably throw $150 dollars just to get into the alpha with false promises. It is probably why most 'gamer's' are broke. A fool and their money is soon parted.
The point? People can make games and get money from these suckers. Why spend extra for polish when people will fork over money for the dirt.
Including yourself in that statement, are you?
Puhleasee!! People are allowed to play whatever they want and that does not make them idiots.
People who call them such, well that is another matter.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Um, yes it does. Just like everyone can have an opinion, but it doesn't mean their opinion (and by extension themselves) isn't moronic.
As to the topic at hand, I don't know why UI gets overlooked, sure you can add something cool in your game that your players might spend a couple hours interacting with. UI, however, is something that your players interact with the entire time they play your game. May as well polish the hell out of it.