Proposals for new Dialog Box

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Vladamir Begemot, Jun 7, 2019.

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  1. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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  2. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    That's why the box got a lot bigger since the last patch?
     
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  3. Lars vonDrachental

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    Well I think there would be an easy possibility…removing the underlining and blue/gray change of keywords and instead let them look like the normal text. You could still do a click in the text to use the keyword but they wouldn’t stand out. I guess such a simple font change wouldn’t be that difficult and this way it would more or less look like the suggestion of @Paladin Michael.

    @Astirian
    About the ESO screenshot…just as a side note I generally don’t like a visible reward preview. Even if there is no variance in solving a problem possible I like it if the rewards are vague like “Help me and I will give you some coins” or “I may have a useful item if you solve this riddle.”. To me this is giving the subliminal perception the way I solve the quest may influence my reward even if that is not the case but if the reward is already set I get the feeling it doesn’t matter what I’m doing.

    @Topic
    Thinking about it I would like to add another more minimalistic suggestion. Why not adding just a keyword box without the above text field? The text bubbles that are normally used to display NPC dialogs would display the responses of the NPCs also in conversation but maybe not auto-fade until we say something new to let us read the responses without ruffle or excitement. As far as I recognized the bubbles even adjust to the text length and that way even long responses could be displayed. I made a simple sketch version out of @Astirian's screenshot.
    In the example at the right side you can find the keyword box that would be movable and scalable and at the bottom of the keyword box could be a pull-out menu to adjust e.g. if not gainful keywords should be visible, if the normal chat box should be visible to reread the conversation,…
    Your avatar, your conversation partner and the surrounding area would be centered on the screen without a text box hiding anything. This way emotes could be used more often as they would be more visible. This would also include the possibility to use emotes yourself and maybe even a possible reaction by the NPC.
    For the ones who do not like the bubbles they could add an option to the pull-out menu to hide the text bubbles and instead use the chat window to display the conversation…and if there is one day voice output maybe even both text options could be disabled.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2019
  4. Astirian

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    Yeah I definitely don't want to see the rewards either (in fact I should have chopped them off the ESO example), it feels very 'gamey' and would go against the DNA of Ultima I feel.

    I think size ratio and padding/margins are pretty important for making things easy (or even pleasing!) on the eye in UIs. That's what I have in this example gif here, plenty of padding with a border around the box for slight separation (I think slightly rounded rectangles could replace the border)... With a bigger font in relation to the other screen elements.

    But what struck me looking at this again is that the box in my mockup:

    A. Takes up 33% of the available vertical screen real estate.
    B. Takes up 50% of the available horizontal screen real estate.

    I feel there's a mathematical beauty to that.

    The old, smaller version took up something like 44.44% of the horizontal space and 27.50% of the vertical space or something.

    [​IMG]

    Caveat: I have not seen the new box yet.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2019
  5. Vladamir Begemot

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    From the notes:
    • Scale conversation window such that its size is constant relative to the screen (no longer dependent on resolution).
    So this may have been an attempt at a fix, with them thinking that the complaints are due to people having large monitors. If so, then I guess 75% of us have large monitors.

    But looking farther down into the poll, people clearly want some readability as well, and to not have to scroll up to see text or deal with the continue button being wonky. None of that changed since the text size and window were both enlarged together.

    Still, I will like the larger text once they turn font smoothing back on.
     
  6. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    The way its implemented, I don't see how they can do this. It is actually scaling everything in the window at once, not drawing the text at a larger size. Thus, the problem. What they did is not remotely a solution, and looks horrible to boot.
     
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  7. Mishikal

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    Yeah, I don't understand why they don't have a gear icon where you can set the font & font size, like you can on the rest of the windows.
     
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  8. Vladamir Begemot

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    Which makes no sense. The chat window has font size options... this is just the chat window moved centered in the screen with most of the channels turned off....
     
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  9. Anpu

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    This is fantastic! It removes that dialogue window and feels much more natural as a conversation.
     
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  10. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Unfortunately, it would require a lot of work to do. As mentioned, conversation has no camera control. Also, text bubbles like that don't currently stay on the screen until a response is said, they time out oddly and disappear. Even short text requires 2-3 of them.

    I agree, it would be better. But it requires programming changes, so it's not cheap/quick.
     
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  11. Astirian

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    Can @Vladamir Begemot or someone post a screenshot of the new box? I'm still on holiday secretly checking the forum when my wife's not looking. :)
     
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  12. Vladamir Begemot

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    I too am on vacay and.just looking with my phone. But it's basically what you asked for, a bit bigger. Almost exactly what you asked for.
     
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  13. jiirc

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    Chat bubbles were around when the dialog system was in its infancy. They abandoned it because the text stayed on the screen a fixed amount of time. So it either stoyed on to long and people complained. Or it didn't stay on long enough and people complained. The other option, I guess, would have been to place a button to click on, but people would have complained. So they got rid of them.
     
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  14. Lars vonDrachental

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    As far as I see it text bubbles are still in the game and most NPCs are using them…I think the bubbles just have a transparent background and now you just see the flying text above their heads.
    I just had chosen white as bubble background in my example to display who is talking. ;)
     
  15. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    I think it wouldn't be so difficult to clear the text on screen after
    1. I wrote / clicked a new keyword to ask another question
    2. clicking 'goodbye'
    3. I leave the NPC behind ...
    '... but people would have complained ..." ;)
    Well, over years alot of people complained about alot of distracting stuff - especially concerning dialogues - and nothing changed.
    I really don't think, this was the reason years before, where money and a bigger team was available ...
     
  16. jiirc

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    Lum made a lot of changes to the dialog because people didn’t like what was there. He championed text just appearing in the chat log area, no real dialog box. Then he, they, put one in. There wasn’t any clickable text. All input had to be typed. Camera focus changes. Chat bubble like text boxes, with scrolling text. Etc. Etc. Each time they did something, someone complained about something. And others didn’t care. He went through multiple dialog his before they settled on one. It’s not like they didn’t try a lot of the suggested changes talked about here.
     
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  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    Amazing that they settled on moving the 1990's era MUD chat window to the center and calling it good, then.

    2017 most of us replied that the "upgrade" was laughable. 2018 the public agreed. 2019 they stretched it a tiny bit but enlarged the text, so everything will still flow off the top.

    I wonder what year they finally get modding in so someone can make an attractive UI?
     
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  18. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    I know - but to be honest:
    the 2013 demo showed a better UI and game feeling.

    What people are complaining about is not to read text and not about the story, most about unnecessary clicks all the time and too many windows which looks like a kind of windows 2.11 ...
    Richard described very proud in the mentioned demo, that there is NOT so many tech stuff on screen and the feeling was NOT like another windows program.

    Look above - only in this thread! - there are so many good ideas which could be done with less effort.
    May I remember, for how long inside(!) the dialogue window the "Player xyz is off/online" information appeared?
    ... was unbelievable - and after many threads and postings it was gone.
    However: I am hoping Q3 schedule has UI on priority list ...
     
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  19. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Here is one that shows the normal text window and the "new" conversation window side-by-side. Yes, its bigger. No, its not an improvement.

    [​IMG]
     
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  20. Barugon

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    Unless you were one of the people that was complaining that the text was too small and hard to read. ;)
     
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