Some ways to improve the user interface

[pinnacle]

With patch 1.2 almost out I thought it would be a good idea to post some ideas for people to see and (hopefully) Epic to consider implementing as they start working on more patches.

First of all, the "logging in" screen when you load up the game is irritating and doesn't let you do anything else while it's going. A more subtle approach would be to go directly to the main menu and have a little bar at the bottom to show login progress (obviously this only applies if auto-login is enabled):



Second, the multiplayer screens could use some cleaning up. The screen you see when you first hit "Multiplayer" from the main menu contains very little and could easily be eliminated. The three options could be integrated directly to the server browser:



Lastly, we've all been begging for more options in the settings menu. I put together a simple mockup to show how such a menu might look like:



Anyway those are just my suggestions. Post your own or comment on mine!

[T2A`]

Instead of having to search through all the gametypes for a populated server or to find a specific server that runs multiple gametypes (a la FragBU), an "any" choice should be in the menu to bring up a list of all the servers.

Get rid of the extraneous gametype menu for bot matches. Do it like UT2003 where you can change the gametype on the fly and the map list adjusts appropriately. It's very easy to do; I have no idea why Epic stepped away from this. Oh, and the map list needs to show more than 10 (or so) maps at a time in the list via a smaller font or bigger listbox.

In fact, all Epic really needs to do is get rid of the extra menus that are mostly pointless and put more options on a single page. And add in all the features they left out, of course.

[pinnacle]

Oh yeah I forgot about those. I generally only play the game online but since half the people who buy UT play it offline it's important to make that part of the game easy to use.

[Rankz]

is it me or wheneva you want to have a quickie match (just one match) in any of the game types it overwrites your map cycle? it would be good if they could keep the map functions the way there were in UT2k4 and only add a random playlist function.

[Nereid]

I like these changes. I don't think there's much else that could be improved with the menus.

There are other non-gameplay things that need to be changed though, imo.

[Taleweaver]

Here you go...I'd say the date and place of the post* says something of how much chance there is that suggested changes will make it into the game itself.

Happy pipe dreams...





*during the demo days; Epic's official "UI feedback" thread