A new UI for freeform bag inventory

When I played Release 1 the thing I hated the most was the difficult-to-use inventory bags; so when Release 2 came out I switched to list view inventory. The list view is certainly easier to use, but I wasn’t happy with it either. After playing with both, I feel that what we need is a better bag implementation: A list view seems to be just sidestepping the shortcomings of the freeform bag inventory, a better solution would be to improve bags so that we don’t need a list view!

I think that the key problem is that bags would be easier to use in real life than they are in a video game. To get bags right we need to acknowledge that some things don’t work as well on a screen as they would if we actually lived in New Britannia:

• Size: in real life I can get closer to an item if it’s too small to see; in SotA the items are tiny and I can’t zoom in on them
• Whose bag is this? In real life I know what’s on my body and what’s in the bag in front of me; in SotA both bags look the same and I don’t know which one is mine
• Three dimensions: in real life I have perspective vision so I can tell items apart when they’re jumbled in a bag; in SotA they’re just a bunch of two-dimensional pixels which can be hard to distinguish
• Fitt’s Law: in real life I have fingers that can pick up the most slender of candlesticks; in SotA that candlestick is two pixels wide and it takes me five attempts to grab it
• Distinctiveness: in real life no two things look exactly the same; in SotA similar objects use the same icons (eg smelting moulds) so I can’t tell them apart

So I’ve drawn up this mockup of a new user interface for freeform bags which — I think! — goes some way to solving these problems:



In this UI, all containers are shown down the bottom of the screen as smaller icons. Clicking on one of them brings up the large view in the middle of the screen. Only two containers are shown at once; if you click on another container below it replaces the one above it.

Why does this help?

• Size: the bags are much larger, allowing the icons to be larger and — probably more importantly — allowing more space between items so that they don’t overlap so much
• Whose bag is this? My bags are clearly identified on the right-hand side, on the left is the chest that I’m raiding. There’s no doubt about where each item is.
• Three dimensions: we can’t make our screen 3D, but we can highlight items on hover to distinguish them and illustrate which item is on top
• Fitt’s Law: the larger bags with wider spacing allows the ‘grab zone’ around items to be larger (bigger than the object itself) so that I can pick them up more easily. This also helps those of you who like bags because you can hide valuable items behind lesser items... the larger grab zone means the highlight won’t easily appear for items hidden behind other ones
• Faster: allowing only two bags to be open at once means that we can use a simple double-click to transfer items, instead of being forced to manually drag items from one bag to another. A simple double-click isn’t possible in the current multiple-bag implementation because SotA can’t know which bag you want to transfer to; limiting to two ‘open’ bags at once solves this problem.
• Sorting and filtering: nothing about the bag implementation prevents SotA having sort and filter options on the bags, just like a list would; adding sorting and filtering means biggest advantages of a list would be available in bags too. Those who want their bags sorted by value, weight, etc could just right-click a bag to choose a sort option. And those who want to group their inventory by type could right-click a bag to set it to accept only one item type, say only equipment or only crafting gear.

However the above UI doesn’t deal with one problem, though, which is distinctiveness. All those smelting moulds still look exactly the same to me. For that reason, I propose one more thing: single-clicking an item should bring up details about that item, including its name and all your knowledge about it:



I know lots of backers don’t want this game to be ‘easy’ and hold your hand all the way, so I’m not suggesting some kind of magical guide that instantly tells you everything there is to know about an item. Instead I suggest that clicking an item should tell you what you already know — just like the recipe logs reminds you of how you’ve crafted something, this ‘item log’ would tell you what you’ve discovered about this item.

If you consumed it or fought with it, it tells you the stats. If you’ve crafted it then it tells you how to make it; if you’ve used it to craft something else it tells you what you’ve made with it. Over time the item log should expand as you learn more about the items of New Brittania. Maybe it will even show you some lore that you’ve heard from an NPC somewhere...

Let's face it, if we don't put this information in the game, then players are going to alt-tab to a wiki to look it up. What's more immersion-breaking: an in-game guide, or switching back to Windows to read a website?

 

actually I was thinking I would have to buy another monitor so I wouldn't have to alt tab to have information available.


I like the idea of scaling the items down in the smaller containers
Click/hover item for description, awesome
Double click transfer could just move to first bag with room, since you can rearrange their order on paperdoll

 

Well thought out post Gtch! You practically read my mind on this top (and saved me starting a thread ).

Portalarium: HIRE this man!

 

Thanks so very much for using that graphical representation to illustrate your points. That's pretty dead on for an acceptable improvement to the free form bags. I want to requote myself to give an idea where I could see improvements for list as well, since it goes hand in hand with what you mentioned about alt tabbing to find the needed information on the web regardless.

Great post, and I really like the detailed info on items as you unlock that knowledge of an item. Start out with only knowing the basic description of an item and its weight, and as you use/interact with that item you learn other properties of it such as taste, smell, texture, use, value, ect.

"I like free form all the way. List gives good details at a glance, but completely ruins immersion for me. Makes it feel like the icon for inventory should change from a bag to a scroll...​

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My main concern with list is that it would ruin the development of a thief build. Free form bags make it harder for thieves to steal certain items based on how you have your bags laid out. If a thief has the option to look at a list format, there would be no form of risk for the thief to have to spend more time looking through your bag and moving objects, that will potentially give them away, before finding something valuable to take. If given the option between list and free form, someone who plays with list might not ever arrange their bag in free form mode, so valuables might get pushed on top of your bag, and make it easier for a thief to grab the mother load, if playing a thief means you can only look through a bag in free form mode and not list mode.​

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A good compromise, that I would be happy with, would be to have both formats in the game, but make list format only viewable to your characters inventory and houses that you own or are allowed joint ownership too, and have it so that you can't move or take things out of it in list view. This way the list is only a quick reference to what you have/own, and doesn't break immersion, or limit the developers from creating other game elements that would have an unfair advantage from gaining access to a list view of what a player has.​

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You could also add to the list format an option that list what items are in what sub bags/inventories, for players that might loose track of where a certain item is if they have 50+ bags, pouches, chest on them.​

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I'm hoping in the future they limit what items can go in certain containers based on size, even though we all know you shouldn't be able to carry a whole crafting station or 10+ chest in a single backpack. That's what they had deeds for back in UO, and hopefully that will be tweaked to be more realistic as the game comes closer to public release. Obviously adding those levels of details and restrictions at this point in pre alpha would gimp the whole testing process."​

 

I think that UI would get in the way of the combat interface. So it would have to be moved to the top. Or players would need to be able to move it.

I'd be okay with that as an alternative. I also would not be happy with the limit of 2 bags open at a time. I frequently like having multiple bags open at once, especially while crafting I had 3-6 bags open at a time.

 

I would keep the OP innovations, while adding the ability to scale the sizes of the bags for zoom effects on the items in the bags, with the ability to have more then 2 bags open at a time, and placement where ever you want the bags in the UI. This way the bags won't get in the way of your field of view, and you aren't limited to 2 bags open at a time. Even though if your looking in a bag you would technically be distracted from things going on around you in the world to varying degrees.

 

I am nobody - but I strongly endorse this freeform inventory! This is MUCH improved over the minuscule inventory system that is in place at the moment.

 

I too thought the size of bags was too intrusive. When I go to a crafting station and the crafting table plus ALL my bags ... the screen was filled .. ugly and intrusive.

 

I'm still for grids. Make the grid invisible, but still there working in the background. You can move things around and they'll snap into the nearest slot, without looking like it's on a grid. Grid without the grid. Looks free-form, works like a grid. That's my suggestion.

 

Gtch: Great Work here! I was also hating the bag system so far and switched to list (which I do not prefer)...but couldn't really find anything in either system.

I loved UO bags...items were smaller and we could easily sort things...

 

The icons would work just as well at the top as they do at the bottom, so I'd be quite happy with them moved to the top.

For me, I really like the 2 bag limit because I think it would be faster: double-clicking to transfer, and items are larger so easier to find and grab. You could still transfer to close backs simply by dragging from an open bag onto the closed bag icon. However if you're really keen to have all your bags open at once, I presume it wouldn't be too hard for the developers to add an option allowing that. Given the wide range of screen resolutions SotA would have to be able to scale the bags anyway, so an 'all bags open' would be the same user interface just with smaller bags and no double-click.

 

I'd love to see that too, at least as an option. I'd be keen for the grid size to be fairly small so that you can partially overlap items... that way you might keep similar items or multiple stacks touching, and quite different items separate.

 

That could work quite well with this UI too: add a special 'all' bag on the right-hand side that shows all your items. It could have the same look and feel as normal bags so that it doesn't feel so out of place as the spreadsheet-like list does, but would need some restrictions to make it work right: items would be automatically sorted and put on a grid, couldn't be moved and some kind of scrolling would be needed.

 

The inventory items also need to be adjusted in the right proportion to each other size-wise I think. It doesn't sort well if a breastplate is smaller than cheese wheel... sizes need to be intuitive.

 

I'd like to suggest that as the mouse hovers over each item's enlarged click-box area,
the item's icon slightly grows in size, so as you run your mouse across your inventory,
it looks like you're rustling through your bag, briefly feeling each item as you pick out the one you want.

This visual feedback would make inventory feel more interactive and user-friendly.

 

I like all of your ideas...

Having it take you longer to do something does not make it difficult it only takes you longer (called a "time sink"); the best games have fewer of these...

 

I'm all for crafting taking some serious time, but time should always be productive, giving some sense of accomplishment or satisfaction - even if the end result isn't quite what you expected. It should not be a bunch of time with nothing to show for it accept puzzlement and confusion, leading quickly to frustration and aggravation.

I think the approach they're taking here can even work, as long as there are more 'interactive' elements implemented, making the user feel like they're doing more than just shuffling items back and forth until a stroke of luck and the perfect combination blesses them with a result.

I feel confident that this is just the first step of crafting, showing us that 'hey, we can make stuff from other stuff! yay!' that's great. On to step two: making the experience fun!

 

Is this why many of the "best games" have lifespan of months instead of years?

 

I would not call a game that has a lifespan of a few months "a best game"

and no that is not why...
most games that have a life span of only a few months do so because of a reduction in players either from a lack of community and/or poor end game content... (many reasons for one of those 2 to be true)
also a very common thing that causes a short life span of a game is crafting(end game content) being worthless
in general if a game has poor community developing tools and only one thing worth doing at max skill/level then that game will have a short lifespan...

a game can have challenging aspects, and a long life span without the feel of what you are doing is just something to waste your time.. best way I have seen this done is to have all items be usable and consumable, all items be crafted, and all resources be hunted/gathered... no item drops

having the interface and mechanics not be part of the time sinks built into a game is very important to the feel of the game being fluid... allowing you more time for performing actions for rewards rather than click-drag-sort for hours on end...

 

I agree entirely — a user interface should let you issue instructions as quickly and accurately as possible. The challenge in the game should be in other things like skill, knowledge, logic, intuition, etc; it shouldn't be challenging to use an inventory or issue commands.