Questions for you, yes YOU (poll)

I think you're right.

Except:

Still needs to be thrown in the trash and started from scratch. It is not a 3 year project to make a decent dialog box.

Every other game I play... I sigh, and wish that we had it's UI. There is literally no game I have played in this century that has had an uglier dialog/story/communicate with the player interface.

We put out our proposals, as LB requested, and they went with lowest possible effort. Expand it by 10%. Wow. Facepalm. Rewind to 2017 and scream louder when they floated it in the first place.

Anyway, if you're right, and all those things are important, they are not just shooting themselves and all of us in the foot repeatedly until it's totally gone, they are hacking off both legs and beating themselves to death with them, by having such an ugly dialog box. 75% of concerned SotA players agree.

/rantover for this week

 

Yeah, I tire of that battle. I proposed most minimal changes so they'd actually go ahead and make a change. In retrospect maybe that was a bad idea... The plan worked somewhat but I think now that perhaps it backfired, at this stage I doubt that they'll ever touch it again - And I had to summon LB on Twitter about it which I think was a one time shot kind of deal. Chris was a "what's the point?" on it which made me very nervous, not sure about Starr's feelings on the matter.

It's a very frustrating war to fight.

And to me it's up there with the poltergeist UI.

I had a dream a couple of months ago where they did a trailer for Episode II, it started off with a ship sailing to the Serpent Isle and then, I sh*t you not, it became a showcase of the new quest journal and medieval styled UI. It was glorious. One of those dreams where you wake up and you go "Aw. It wasn't real. /sadface"...

 

Regarding the current UI...

I agree with you @Vladamir Begemot - regarding needed UI changes - but of all that they should be doing, I'd put the UI revamp somewhere under Crafting/Harvesting/Loot/Challenging Content/etc.... which IMO are more important in terms of priorities for player retention and new player impressions............

 

I'd order the priority in terms of how soon a new player encounters it. The UI is encountered almost immediately, whereas the challenging content is more end-game. The longer the player is in the game, the more likely the player is to stick it out.

 

Vote(s) casted. By the way you have a typo:
Being a trader but/sell

 

Yea already brought up, once I submitted that I went back to change it and apparently you cannot spell correct a poll once submitted.

 

Oh sorry, I did not go through the posts as you noticed hehe.

 

In this case I'm specifically talking about the Dialog box, just making it visually appealing and functional. This is something the new player sees within about 1 minute of getting in the game (post character creation). It should not look like they just pulled it straight from Everquest and stuck it in the middle of the screen. As long as it is a chat window, new players are being smacked in the phase with a 1990's UI as their story delivery system, 1 minute into the game.

Yes, the UI in general needs an overhaul, but for a game that has 100+ hours of story (if you aren't bombing through it) which starts 1 minute into the experience, to be delivering it a la Everquest's 20 year old chat window.... big mistake. Big, big mistake. We will never know how much of the "The story is confusing and buggy" complaints are actually because peoples eyeballs were bleeding.

 

If the screenshot above is your example of a great UI, then I'd prefer our current UI.
For me, the UI above is way too distracting. I don't need to reduce my playing window with all that clutter....

 

It's not, it's to show that the Dialog window looks exactly like the chat window from Everquest 20 years ago.

It's literally the same thing. They just moved it up to the middle, and with much dragging of feet, added in line breaks.

 

I actually prefer the old UI with the gold borders.

 

Guys.

Look at any game, particularly one with a story.

Look at how the window the story is in is attractive, and not a MUD/Everquest box from 1999.

Seriously, if you want your player to read your story in a Terminal, you're going to lose a ton of potential customers. It's literally like giving them the finger when they first start to talk to an NPC.

Anyway, the only reason I brought this up is because it was mentioned that the story and quests seem to be pretty popular in this thread. I'm done harping on it. If the devs want to keep the story presentation 1990's style, fine. I just won't be redoing it, as I had hoped to do last year, or this year, or ever.

 

If major work on the game is winding down which isn't necessarily the truth but just as a thought then there are still a few things we have to get in. Having a sustaining, thriving game is important but we are missing quite a few basics that would sustain over time and need less continued development imo although I'm not an technical expert. Some things would be:

Content that is built in that progresses and is sometimes random is important.
-battle ground system with timed events and quests included, teleports to battle ground on acceptance of the the onscreen notification. Gives tokens to collect or other rewards to keep reason to continue to do, along with titles
- We need an Achievement system and task boards (could have player quests to pick up on perhaps the npc town bulletin boards) Eso has player quests picked up separately. This is a safer feeling imo
- we need a rating system for lots and dungeons. This would be great incentive to view other players work. Especially if there is an achievement for doing so.
-We must have a fully functioning raid system
- daily progressive quests for pvp, crafting and fishing are needed to be picked up from crafting merchants and maybe pvp quests picked up in pvp areas
-we also need an ability to create timed events with onscreen timer showing. Also it needs to have starting sounds and ending sounds (whistle or horn sound perhaps).

Now this is all before Episode 2 or at the start of Episode 2. Don't give up hope Vladimir. We still don't know what will be, but the fight is not over imo.

 

I don't think it's winding down. I just don't understand the prioritization.

 

It's telling that out of the things people are most interested in like finding cool loot, exploring, difficult content, quests, story/lore and crafting only crafting has had any real focus for a long time. The activities with the lowest popularity on the poll like fishing, player dungeons, rares, social events, RMT etc are what fills up the bulk of the updates.

 

RMT fills up updates?

 

Nice strawman but that was just one of the things I mentioned and what are people buying for real money if not stuff made for the game?

 

Bzzt. Please keep thread on topic!

 

I'd like to say the list above in the top reflects my top choices as well.

You may think that "Social Events" are one of my top priorities, but its not, not at all. You know why? The PLAYERS handle the social events, NOT the devs. So please remember that.

So, yeah, I wouldn't say the Devs prioritize things like Roleplay and Social Events because that's all player-run. Just making sure everyone realizes that distinction.

Also, as a side note, Avatars Radio and NBNN/WRFB are player-run and player funded. The only thing Portalarium did was make the radios we are listed in.

 

That is a very good point worth remembering.

I think the social aspects are a key piece of the UO legacy and if anything I see a lot of Steam reviews mentioning the great community.

BTW, did you see Chris' said they're looking into improving the map load times? XD