User Interface - I hope it's not finished?

I am one of the kickstarters, played in the UO beta back long ago.. and so far love the direction of the game and it's looking good, the combat is becoming interesting, the places are becoming larger and the way I interact is growing. Guess I am saying most of the systems in the game are looking quite nice and getting a lot of love and development.

What I am hoping and wanted to voice on the forums, the UI looks like it's from Ultima Online and it's very clunky looking (icons crushed, one color, very flat and non engaging / usable, etc.). I am hoping as the game goes on we get a much slicker UI. The one we currently have feels like it's been hacked together, which due to this still being in the development phase it's in it's understandable, just want to be sure this is something that's addressed at some point and polished.

Something more polished, examples I linked below:

http://www.webdesignfanatic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/combination-ui-pack.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5c/8b/02/5c8b028396e08a050354f603737b5e2c.jpg

http://cds.g3s5t9f4.hwcdn.net/gamer...14542_SF2_screenshot_UI_Preview_01_medium.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/66/ef/e1/66efe1abaeed17ea09290e1d95859e90.jpg

 

Yes I agree. I do think what we see is first rendition functioning of most things. Once things are working top notch then before release the polish ideas can come. I just think if each time a system is put in every single thing on it is polished there would be no time to get systems in. Perhaps in some cases polish would happen as just part of making it function. Anyway yes I'm sure we all want many things more polished and we will get there. I cannot even imagine how it will all look and feel, but I guess that is just part of our journey. **cheers**

 

Agree. It would be nice if icons looked a bit more rustic and less cartoony in order to match the feel of the game. Right now they don't even look like they belong in this game, but as majoria said, they are most likely place holders to test functionality.

 

It is very not finished. We still have 5 more months, at least, of testing and polish. Realistically, 7 or 8 if you ask me....

 

Welcome Amerisun!

 

Thanks for the welcome Mata, and great to hear the feedback from everyone!

I know it has a long way to go, but I wanted to be sure there was a post about the UI and some visibility by the Dev's that this is important to us as well as other systems. In fact might be one of the more important features when you're talking new people coming to the game later because this is the face of your game and how people use it and interact with it. The key really is that other systems will be worked on throughout the entire development of the game. There will be new combat mechanics, new spells, new dungeons and lots more. One thing that will stick with the game through all those changes is the UI and if it's not given some attention before it goes live, it will just be a back of the mind kind of thing that gets neglected for other systems that might draw new customers in. I have been in a lot of beta's of games that have come and go, and UI is always the last to get attention if it does at all, and then it stays until the end of the game's life cycle.

I look forward to seeing what is in store, and also looking forward to finding a guild to join so I can really get into some heavy gaming as the game nears a more finished state!

 

I have noticed not much love has been given to the UI and it's actually just growing in the same style (adding more UI in the same style). I just saw Shards Online for the first time today and that UI is beautiful and legible in every video I have watched of it so far and I hope the developers here can take a little bit of that clean aesthetic and apply it here. Either that or make sure the UI is completely mod-able so that someone can put out a mod that would make the UI look really slick!

 

Nothing will ever be finished. We will get monthly updates until the game shuts down decades from now. Some of those updates will change the UI. On a more immediate note, expect the current UI to be the foundation of what's to come. Icons will be added, skill trees optimized, responsiveness and clarity improved, but it will look a lot like what we already have, I suspect.

 

Having just followed/backed Trove from its extremely early alpha stage through to launch. I can tell you the UI was one of the very very very last things to get touched. It was like extremely basic for the vast majority of development.

I imagine this is common practice, but not normally something we are exposed to.

 

It would be nice to have the UI polished a bit currently though, it's rather bad a present and seems like a "low hanging fruit" that would really help sell the game to more people during development (the demographic of people that put importance on graphics in a game) more backers equals more money to make the game, so polishing the UI would be a great investment in my mind.