UT3 User Interface vs the rest

MonsOlympus · Feb 25, 2008

Grobut said:
2k3? what has that got to do with anything!? it too lacked some of the options i wanted (i recall it also did not have a preffered team option at launch for one, really annoyed me then too untill they patched it).

Okay first off, wow I unignored you and you have a good point! An advanced checkbox isnt a bad idea but it does take alittle to get things to auto-sort to fit which is the cause of alot of 2k4s problems.

You can disable auto-taunts! Please look at some of my pictures before mouthing off!

That is an unpatched 2k3 GUI shot! See right there?

Now I think Epic went the way they went with bot rosters to keep a unified feel, it kinda works as well. So ummz, I dunno it depends if you want a more cohesive experience of a title vs a customizable one. Some might say the customer is always right but in my eyes they never know what they want exactly anyways so sometimes its best to force feed.

Lethargy · Feb 25, 2008

Sir_Brizz said:
That is only one small part. That's like saying "Compare clicking on the settings button in UT3 to clicking on it in UT2004". There's really no point. I may not be able to do what you've said in your post in UT3 and able to do it in UT2004, but for everything I could do in UT2004, there was something else irritating about it. For example, if you try to join a server in UT2004 mid-game and it fails, you still get ejected from the game you're in. Wow!

Well I guess we'll agree to disagree then... it just seems to me that, as with your example, the 2k4 interface problems were a lot less widespread and debilitating. I feel that the "not able to do it at all" vs. "get disconnected if the connection fails" comparison is about right, one is a slight annoyance in execution, and one is the complete lack of a useful tool. A lot of the UT3 interface feels like it follows that paradigm to me.

Sir_Brizz · Feb 25, 2008

Grobut said:
Incorrect, there was a "show advanced options" checkbox both in video options and in Instant action (in the game rules tab).
UT3 could do well using the same system, as i allready pointed out, it could even cover more of the menu's, i woulden't care, aslong as the menu's remember what i set the checkbox as i'd be fine with that, just give me moar opshionz!

That's why I said "I don't remember". Did you conveniently decide not to read that part?

And im just saying thou art wrong kind sir.

Again, add a "show/hide advanced options" checkbox and all will be well.

Hell add a "show super duper advanced options" box too if it pleases you, i'll just set that one to true aswell so i can have even more options.

I don't really understand why one checkbox for that would not suffice.

If we allow the people with the least amount of demands, wants and needs to rule, we wont get very far at all now will we?

So what if the casual gamer doesen't care about this or that option, i do!
If he gets his way i'm boned, if i get my way, there will be a button there he has to ignore (ohh the horror!), what's really the worst case scenario there?

Besides, i allready mentioned the ideal compromise (show/hide advanced).

And all I did was say that there is a reason to accommodate the lowest common denominator. You're acting like I said they SHOULDN'T do what you said, and I said they SHOULD. Having sliders is good for those people because they can maximize the look of the game without having to know what different settings do. Add a half dozen checkboxes, and they can't really function (for example, having one additional checkbox for "Real Time Shadows" that was not attached to moving the sliders would leave a lot of people with them on when their card couldn't handle it, or off when their card could).

2k3? what has that got to do with anything!? it too lacked some of the options i wanted (i recall it also did not have a preffered team option at launch for one, really annoyed me then too untill they patched it).

Of course it did. But that didn't make the UI less operable.

And i still dont care what options you liked or used, you are not me, i am not you, and there is no good reason why we can't both get what we want through smart design.
And if some of thease options where infact community made, doesen't that just go to show that the community wants them?

I don't care what you want either. I'm just pointing out that just because you find an option useful doesn't mean that everyone else does. I hardly used any of the options that were in UT2004's Instant Action settings, even when I did play it, and it's probably pretty likely that few other people did either. So, frankly, I don't really give a crap that those options are missing.

fuegerstef · Feb 25, 2008

Sir_Brizz said:
If I was a fanboy, why would I complain? I have plenty of problems with UT3, but most people's complaints are simply a joke.

Well, I felt laughed at, although I can say why I don't like the UI of UT3 less than the one of the other UTs. That made me angry and I felt a little insult would be good.

Grobut · Feb 25, 2008

MonsOlympus said:
Okay first off, wow I unignored you and you have a good point! An advanced checkbox isnt a bad idea but it does take alittle to get things to auto-sort to fit which is the cause of alot of 2k4s problems.

I am guessing you are talking about optimizing screen layout to fit all the options, that obviously takes some work and some smart solutions, but it is quite doable, we've seen it done before.

2k4 did suffer a bit from wacky proportions of some menu elements, but at the end of the day, i'd take that over no lacking options any day if thats what it takes.

MonsOlympus said:
You can disable auto-taunts! Please look at some of my pictures before mouthing off!

One down, 30 to go.. no reason to shout though

MonsOlympus said:
Now I think Epic went the way they went with bot rosters to keep a unified feel, it kinda works as well. So ummz, I dunno it depends if you want a more cohesive experience of a title vs a customizable one. Some might say the customer is always right but in my eyes they never know what they want exactly anyways so sometimes its best to force feed.

There's one problem with that, namely that it needlessly narrows down the target audience of the game.

Allow me to be blunt here: I do not really like vanilla UT, never have, i didn't in 1999, i dont like it now, the defaults for all gametypes have allways bothered me, its one of the reasons i mostly play offline, its very hard for me to find servers running settings i do like.
But, UT's in the past have never forced things on me, i could easilly change the gameplay, or game rules if you will, and make my own themed matches and what have you, with just a few tweaks, and perhabs a couple of good mutators, i could allways change the gameplay from something that annoys me, to something that was awesome to me, its little things really, but they make a huge difference for me.

So if Epic really intends to go with with this "unified" force feeding, then they have effectively killed the franchise for me, to me its selling point has allways been how modular it is, that prety much regardless of what new features or whatsits they came up with, i could allways just change that if they wheren't to my liking, i could allways make it play the way i wanted it to play.
I can't in UT3 though, alot of options that really annoy me, makes me foam at the mouth every time i see them, are not tweakable.

MonsOlympus · Feb 25, 2008

And thus a modder was born!

Seriously I like the stock UT3 gameplay but I do like more which is why I mod

I can adjust pretty much all you are talking about in a short amount of time without Epic having to do anything to please me.

Now sure these options arnt on the GUI but thats not Epics problem, infact I would say its yours. See with previous UTs I guess they spoiled us some with all these extra options but let me tell you now that weapon throwing and weapon stay options both on was one of the worse descisions made at Epic since well... Ever!

Like I said UT3 is a cohesive experience and modders can do the rest, as you said you play offline so put in some mutator requests

Epic decided which options to give and when, which modders can go in and modify but for the stock UT3 it plays pure, exactly how Epic wanted it to.

See things which could be seen as exploits became part of stock gameplay mechanics because of server admins tweaking a few options and these options will reflect on stats pure or not. Where now it doesnt, now ofcoarse stats arnt entirely accurate but when you look at pure you know that person is playing the game Epic made and not the game made by modders or server admins.

So Im kinda against adding more gamerules which can dramatically affect gameplay because when I join a server I like to know what Im in for. Its also a reason why I keep my mutators as option free as I can, now sure I make some with options but I dont give the player every options because I feel there are certain things best left for testers and I to sort out.

I do agree that there are options that could be added which wont dramatically affect the way the game is played in its pure state and those are the types of options I would like to see added to the UI.

Grobut · Feb 25, 2008

Ahh, but why buy a game you know you will have to mod extensively before you can start enjoying it?

It's neither asking much, nor is it a huge impact on vanilla gameplay on servers to have the very basic stuff we had in 2k4 put back in, we have been playing with most of thease options since 1999, and the rest since 2004, why is it a problem all of a sudden?

Besides, it seems most of the community would like thease options to make a return, i haven't heard many people who would be terribly opposed to any of them coming back, just people who don't feel it is important (whilst to others they are very important).

MonsOlympus · Feb 25, 2008

Most of the community being the most vocal? Or perhaps the most vocal on the forums?

Im opposed to some of the options coming back especially as pure options but thats not what this thread is about. Its about the interface vs the rest and perhaps some suggestions to improve it.

I can tell you now its not a problem all of a sudden I have been vocal against many features which I think are unneeded or ones that just dont work in other threads where the discussion is more on topic.

I think the "importance" of these features is where you should actually be looking, not just this oh we had it then, lets have it now cause majority rules. Simply put its not very basic and thats why it was removed in the first place, now sure friendly fire is one I could be alittle soft on but there are others that I wont have any part of. So if the majority rules then Ive just lost a solid game experience in the name of your "enjoyment".

If you actually gave me some reason then perhaps I could agree, but hey start another thread on gameplay features which should be added. You can see my views on weapon throwing and weapon stay in another thread though. You need to say this is the option, this is why its good, this is possible fixes if theres issues, more reasons why it should be allowed on pure servers etc.

BigDragon · Feb 25, 2008

On the discussion who has the better UI, UT2004 or UT3, I think you guys are forgetting one critical personal preference. Some people like utilitarian menus that have everything under the sun when it comes to options, and other people like aesthetically pleasing menus that look good without all the extra clutter. I don't mind the look of UT3's UI. I do mind it's response time and the way it doesn't always respond to keyboard commands...but that's just me. I've used worse so it doesn't bug me much--it's an imperfection, not a show-stopper to me. UT3's UI has response time I've not seen since Battlefield 2.

Wail of Suicide said:
In my opinion, it's attitudes like this that get people's opinions ignored in the first place. Epic is full of smart guys who I'm sure can get the message after 50,000 posts of people saying, "This UI sucks." Continuing to harp on a known and acknowledged issue comes across as pretty arrogant to me. Why should Epic want to interact with the community if you're just going to hold every screw up over their heads?

Because Epic wants to sell games...lots of games...like the breaking records and getting lots of publicity kind. Screws are easy to replace with greenbacks when things go right. Epic didn't get the message after long drawn-out complaints, criticisms, and suggestions about the UI back in the beta demo. People had faith that the UI would be changed back then, but it wasn't. 4 months after the beta demo and 3 months after retail release, the UI is still unchanged.

shoptroll · Feb 25, 2008

Sir_Brizz said:
Those of you saying the UT2004 menu is better than the UT3 menu make me laugh. When UT2004 first came out almost everyone was complaining about how bad it was, because it is only very slightly better than UT3 in terms of how many clicks it takes to get places.

Heh. I was thinking the same thing as people were pointing to UT2004 and saying it's better. I seem to recall the "GIVE US UWindows BACK" threads from 3 years ago.

Welcome to the ADD age of Gaming?

Wail of Suicide · Feb 25, 2008

I'm not sure what ADD has to do with comparisons between two (or three) things. I am not a huge fan of the UT2004 interface compared to the original UT's, but UT2004 has clearly superior interface functionality to UT3 at the moment. Would I like a UWindows-style interface back? Absolutely. Would I be happy if we got a UT2004 interface carbon-copied and palette swapped? It'd be an improvement.

toniglandyl · Feb 25, 2008

I prefer UT2004's menu over UT3's one. And I'm not ashamed of my TASTES !

Uwindow style is my favorite because it's clean and you can have different menus open at the same time and all.

Anuban · Feb 25, 2008

JaFO said:
To summarize : UT3's GUI may not be perfect but it's not as bad as UT2kx was.

I totally disagree with that ... UT2K3/4 has way more flexibility and especially for offline players. And no UT3's GUI is not perfect ... the best GUI for a shooter I have seen recently (and I have ALL the shooters and even WiC) is Crysis hands down. I also think World in Conflict has a very good UI. Anyway these are just my opinions but in light of what has been said I had to voice it.

Entr0p1cLqd · Feb 25, 2008

MonsOlympus said:
...You can disable auto-taunts! Please look at some of my pictures before mouthing off!...

Maybe so, but you can't turn the damn things off completely. Which means any idiot can spam the taunts mid-game and you either have to turn the "voice volume" down to ignore them, or suffer.

Of all the UT options in previous games, not being able to turn taunts off is one I miss the most.

Dark Pulse · Feb 25, 2008

Entr0p1cLqd said:
Maybe so, but you can't turn the damn things off completely. Which means any idiot can spam the taunts mid-game and you either have to turn the "voice volume" down to ignore them, or suffer.

Of all the UT options in previous games, not being able to turn taunts off is one I miss the most.

TAKE IT!!!

(Seriously, I think taunts are part of the game. I don't see anyone but snipers or something being absolutely quiet when running people over in a tank.

)

MonsOlympus · Feb 26, 2008

Entr0p1cLqd said:
Maybe so, but you can't turn the damn things off completely. Which means any idiot can spam the taunts mid-game and you either have to turn the "voice volume" down to ignore them, or suffer.

Of all the UT options in previous games, not being able to turn taunts off is one I miss the most.

Yeah spamming is certainly always a problem in an online environment, like the spamming anim taunts of 2k4. So I can appreciate this problem and perhaps an option to turn off taunts should be added, Ive had to disable VOIP in TF2 because of the annoying **** which happens over that yet it can be so useful to helping your team win a match. Like someone could say incoming heavy/medic or we need a demoman (lolz riiight)

Anyways one of the features I like in fury is the ability to draw and ping the minimap, people on your group and team can see it in that game because the way its setup. It would be a kewl feature in Warfare now we have the ability to turn off the white arrows, like oh I'll draw a line to where Im going so people can follow, the lines in fury do get removed slowly over time. Pinging works well for setting up defense or telling people where an assualt is coming from.

Currently in UT3 I get incoming's from bots and I do wonder where the hell people are incoming from. The taunts however give the bots much more personality even if the voices arnt to your liking.

UWindows certainly has its up points vs 2k4's and UT3's menu's with the ability to click quickly between windows so you dont need to hit back back back to get anywhere. As I said before it certainly doesnt make for the best use of screen space though so with any interface there is alittle bit of a balancing act.

I also agree with you BigDragon, the responsiveness is one of the main issues UT3's menu is facing. I had to disable DOF to even tell there was an actual map in the background anyways, one thing I did consider is using the bink format to improve the speed perhaps, dunno if it would or not but Id think it would be better than running a map in the background. It'll also allow a more solid background because people with DOF off would see the exact same thing as those with it on and so on.

I cant really agree with the people who want UT2004's back in the same form, the graphics alone are horrible let alone some of the layouts although the functionality is there it was just never used to its full potential.

I think on a whole people are alittle biased when it comes to UT's menu's with each one doing its own thing. Honestly I wouldnt mind seeing Epic stick to one and staying with it for longer than 1 or half a game, its the only way I think we'll see a steady improvement on things because simply dumping the menu each time people complain doesnt seem to be working.

To that end I think the UT3 menu, whilst lacking in options and perhaps some functionality certainly has the potential to be better than UT games of the past if done right

MonsOlympus · Oct 26, 2008

Buuuuuuump

Jrubzjeknf · Oct 26, 2008

Whyyyyyyyyy? :|

MonsOlympus · Oct 26, 2008

Cause if people are making lists they might as well get in on the discussions instead of bullet points hey? Plenty of pics in here to describe what you would like to see happen to the UI as well, if it does thats a different matter but hey... Thought it would be more useful in here

Defeat · Oct 26, 2008

I'll bump you! madface

UT3 User Interface vs the rest

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