ui posts

Better a little late than never, when you get down to it. PoxNora's large-scale update was originally scheduled for last Wednesday, February 24th, but it wound up being a few days late. But it's all good, because the update has gone live today, not even a week behind schedule. Even if you can't help but be miffed at the delay in the update, you can probably be happy with the scope of the update, not to mention the Heirs to Legend midterm expansion going live at the same time.

So what's changed? Major interface changes have been made, including large-scale improvements to the UI as well as a greatly improved Rune Manager. With improved sorting functionality in the manager and a new rune dock in the UI, it should be much easier to enjoy playing on the game's twenty new or revised maps, as well as working your way through a streamlined and improved leveling process. The game has also made attack and defense values more straightforward, while improving the tutorial to help guide players into the game. As a free-to-play game, if the scope of the updates in PoxNora sounds interesting, head on over and take a look at this unique offering.

Recently, Turbine collected a batch of questions from the community for the Lord of the Rings Online developers to answer. Due to the amount of quality questions taken in, the devs decided to respond to more of them than they initially anticipated, and the answers will be given out over a number of weeks. We're now able to view the first installment, and we'll sum up a handful of the quicker questions and answers right here:

• On whether there are plans to open up the UI to customization and plug-ins: no, but there are more built-in customization options coming with the Siege of Mirkwood expansion.
• On the possibility of a shared bank slot for trading between one's own characters: yes! More details coming soon. (note: Turbine announced today that it is part of the LotRO Adventure Pack that can be purchased for $20 and will arrive at the same time as the Siege of Mirkwood expansion.)
  
• On future mail system enhancements, like multiple attachments: no to multiple attachments, but there will soon be an auto-complete for the "to:" field, for characters you have mailed in the past.
• On whether there are plans for a new PvMP zone: nope, no plans for it.

These are but a few of the questions that the devs answered. Among the remaining ones, there is a particularly detailed entry regarding radiance gear and some upcoming changes. Check out the "Ask the Dev Team" feature at the official LotRO site for all the details.

So last time we had an Anti-Aliased, we had a bit of a tussle. I talked about microtransactions and how I felt about Champions Online's model, and I heard from people who agreed with me, disagreed with me, and who thought I was getting fat bribes from Cryptic Studios. I had people picking apart my thoughts, people saying I was Bill Roper's puppet, and people who really couldn't care less. It was insane.

Through all of this though, I want to thank everyone who put in their thoughts onto the article. Even if you disagreed with me, I love seeing that type of discussion going through a topic, and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to make their voices heard, even if it was to tell me that I've sold my integrity. (Which I haven't, by the way.)

This week however, we're changing gears but not changing them entirely. It's Champions Online NDA lift time, and boy do I have a preview for you! The rest of their staff got their turn earlier this morning, but now it's my turn to be horribly opinionated with all the words I can fit in my article.

Is it good? Is it bad? Is it kind of eh? Well, I'm not saying anything -- I'm just going to relate my initial experiences to you, with snark!

Dave Murray is the UI director of Champions Online, although this isn't his first gig working on a user interface. Before he came to work for Cryptic, Dave was part of the team that developed Google's Gmail interface, so you can imagine he's got some experience. He worked on that project for two years, and that time spent seems to have taught him that less is more.

Our experience with user interfaces have proven the simplicity-to-powerful ratio to be incredibly important. In our time with Champions Online, the powers window and its ability to sort through the huge list of powers fluidly has been a prime example of this philosophy. We already knew that someone over at Cryptic knew what they were doing with the UI, but it's good to have a name so we can say thanks to Dave. Thanks Dave!

Just think about that title for a second. Of all the games genres you've played, isn't it MMOs that feel most like carbon copies of one another? Level systems, the character creation process and class archetypes are nearly universal, with hundreds of games sharing the same characteristics. Don't you sometimes wish that MMO developers would step back and reassess the genre they have collectively created? This week, as part of Massively's "Redefining MMOs" series, it's my turn to muse on a topic and I've chosen to look as whether it's time the MMO mould (or mold, as my American editors would say) should be broken and re-examined.

A few weeks ago, we at Massively started the weekly "Redefining MMOs" series, a collection of articles examining how the MMO genre has been redefined during the current generation of games and where it's headed in the next. So far, we've looked at the terminology we use to refer to MMOs, how the art of storytelling has changed over the years, and the rise of the "massively singleplayer" online game. In this week's article, I examine what happens when players are given the reigns of an MMO or have a hand in part of its development. If you have something important to say on the topic, feel free to post a comment on page 3 or even write your own "Redefining MMOs" blog post and leave a comment with the URL.

Traditionally, all content for an MMO is designed by the game's development studio and players have no direct influence on its creation. The idea of handing the reigns of an MMO to its players is considered heresy and we shudder to think of what horrible quests and areas players would construct if given a chance. But is our aversion justified or is it something developers should strive to overcome? Certainly Second Life has successfully capitalised on letting players develop almost every aspect of its virtual world but could successful mainstream MMOs make use of it too? City of Heroes, EVE Online and even World of Warcraft are prime examples which suggest they can. All three of these games have handed at least some part of the game's development over to players, with incredibly promising results.

In this article, I look at these three successful examples of players being allowed to develop aspects of an MMO. I then go on to explain why this works and how the next generation of MMOs could learn from these pioneering feats.

Massively has pointed out a few highlights of what the Apocrypha 1.2 patch brings to EVE Online, but today's dev blog from CCP Greyscale explains the big changes they've made to the overview. The overview is an essential aspect of the UI which allows players to better understand what's happening around them in three dimensional space, so any major change to how it works or displays threats is something all EVE players really need to be aware of.

When the Apocrypha expansion launched in March, players (finally) gained the ability to freeze the overview by holding down 'control', a useful enhancement which hopefully has led to fewer friendly fire incidents. Today's patch, however, changes how hostiles are displayed in the overview. CCP Greyscale's tl;dr version is "After patch, blinky people on overview = war targets, not outlaws." That said, there's a lot more to this and he details how and why they've made changes to the overview in his dev blog, "Apocrypha 1.2 - Important Overview Indicator Changes". The players are discussing the changes Greyscale outlines in a forum thread connected with the dev blog, so be sure to weigh in there with your views or questions.

The luau may be over for LUA add-on developers in World of Warcraft who make money for their code, as Blizzard just released a new add-on policy preventing them from doing just that. Under the new policy, add-ons must be free-of-charge and written in clear code. They may not solicit donations or run third-party advertisements.

This is a fairly surprising move by Blizzard since the new policy basically screws over some add-on developers who have helped propel WoW to the success it is currently experiencing. Not only has the game benefited greatly from add-ons that addressed deficiencies in the standard UI, but Blizzard themselves have patched in UI updates 'inspired' by successful add-ons, as Lum points out.

This is a clear message that no-one except Blizzard should profit from WoW. They are basically saying, "We'd love you to improve our game for free, but don't expect anything other than warm fuzzies as compensation." It will be interesting to see reaction to this news from developers of popular donation- and fee-based add-ons. How much of an impact will it have on WoW if they cease to develop and support these (or new) add-ons?

While they seem to draw a fair amount of controversy and commentary, massively multiplayer online games that offer kick-in-your-ribs PvP aren't really a new thing. Darkfall is the title that everyone's talking about of late, but it's really cut from the same cloth as the progenitor of all MMOs, Ultima Online. Granted, Ultima Online wasn't and isn't purely focused on player killing, but the fact remains that when you log into games that allow for the possibility of being ganked, in some respects it is what you signed up for. While the no-holds-barred style of play isn't for everyone, it certainly is what some players want. Or at least think they want.

MMO world celeb Sanya Weathers, writing for Examiner, says "Darkfall has been, since its conception, an unapologetic return to Ultima Online's original style of full metal ham kicking. The gang at Aventurine never pretended their game would appeal to a mass market, and certainly never pretended that the game would have anything but a vicious learning curve."

The sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online has long been known for its harsh setting but also for its (almost) equally unforgiving learning curve. That is, until the Apocrypha expansion launched, bringing EVE's New Player Experience (NPE) with it. CCP Games aims to slowly ease new players into what is a rather complex game, giving them a feel for what they can already do and what they want to do in New Eden over time.

So how well does the New Player Experience for EVE Online tackle the difficulties of learning how to play one of the most complex MMOs on the market? Writing for Eurogamer, both Jim Rossignol and Oli Welsh write about the New Player Experience. Rossignol, from the viewpoint of a veteran player, and Welsh from the fresh perspective of a rookie. The end result is an overview of how EVE has changed, including a revamped tutorial and Neural Remapping (attribute respecs), as well as Epic Mission Arcs that allow players to make choices in how EVE's mission storylines progress.

Among all the massively multiplayer online games out there, with their respective learning curves, EVE Online perhaps has the deserved reputation for being the hardest MMO to get a grasp of. Much of that confusion is because the game itself is such a departure from your standard fantasy MMO, in almost every respect: open world/single server, PvP can happen everywhere, a harsh setting, and a UI that's a far cry from anything a player has seen in World of Warcraft.

The EVE in-game tutorial has been revamped a few times in order to make it easier for new players to get a handle on things. What is currently offered is a noticeable improvement over the tutorial of a few years ago, but CCP Games is in the process of completely reworking a player's first steps into the game's setting of New Eden. EVE Online developer CCP Fear's latest blog is, in his words, required reading for anyone interested in the game, new player or not. He says, "I want to get one misconception out of the way. This blog *will* concern you and everyone else. If you have played for a year, 6 years, 3 months or a week, you will want to read further than this. Chances are there will be changes that will affect you!"

Among the changes that will come to EVE Online with the March Apocrypha expansion is the user interface for fitting ships, and this is the topic of the latest dev blog from CCP Fendahl. Critics of the game's user interface might be surprised to learn that there is a team that focuses solely on UI, and it seems they've been quite busy with this radical layout change. Ship fitting in Apocrypha will be focused on an iPod-like ring where you array your modules and rigs, as well as subsystems for Tech III ships, while viewing your ship (and how it changes) in the center. This large fitting reticle is flanked by collapsible side panels which are used for item selection and displaying ship stats.

Browsing the hundreds (in some cases thousands) of items in the various division hangars in a given station should be easier, with collapsible sections in the left side item panel. The stats panel to the right actually provides more info about your ship setup than before, by mousing over and bringing up a pop-up box. CCP Fendahl addresses the fact that this is more complex than the previous system: "While this increases the barrier to entry when learning how to fit a ship for the first time, we also think that the fitting screen is a critically important interface that needs to show all the relevant numbers."

Longtime players of EVE Online will be very familiar with the name 'Winterblink', or Michael Lastucka. He's the man behind years worth of contributions and commentaries linked to EVE, through the Warp Drive Active comic, the WDA podcast, and now he's a columnist at Massive Gamer Magazine as well.

His latest column, "Quantum of Polish" looks at the recent EVE expansion deployment and how it's changed the game. Lastucka points out some of the user interface changes that he finds beneficial. Visual representation of module cycles provide greater understanding of what's happening and weapon grouping allows players to switch between ammo types, and have a single 'fire' icon as well. But there's clearly more work to be done in terms of weapon/turret effects and some aspects of the UI, in order to reduce lag and improve performance.

[Via WoW Insider]

The Quantum Rise expansion for EVE Online, while only recently deployed, has drawn a substantial amount of forum rage for sweeping changes to how the game is played, namely for the nerfs of speed and missiles. This follows in the wake of unrest created by the CCP Games decision to phase out ghost training. The latest change, announced Tuesday, targets the in-game email system ("EVE Mail" to be precise).

CCP Wrangler says: "To address performance issues in EVE we are making some changes to the EVE Mail system in Quantum Rise 1.0.1. You will now be able to fetch up to 1000 undeleted EVE Mails, however EVE Mail number 1001 and beyond will not be fetched, whether it has been read or not. To gain access to those EVE Mails, you must delete newer EVE mails. In addition to this all EVE Mails sent by NPCs that are older than 3 months will be deleted."