UTXMP HUD

[Sir_Brizz]

I cant stress how much i agree with this comment ... and as of late (no offence) i cant help but feel this conversions gone a little off track ... maybe its just my narrow view but i sorta viewed this project as a bunch of very talented people helping to export a game that in all rights and senses is a work of art and a testiment to legend ... so that other people can see it ... while im sure little tweaks need to be made .. maybe a few balancing issues with the help of legend .... Arguement or discussions about "maybe we should change this or maybe remake that" cant help but make me feel your not trying to convert a game but make a new one ...

All the new hud designs look very nice, but i'd prefer the old one, it was slim, and gave all the info i needed without consuming 2/3's of my viewing space ...
I understand that you needed to get the best interests of the avid nostalgic gamer (me), and with the the apeal to attract new users from teh UT community etc, who would prob drool at the aspec of a shiney big HUD before they even try the game....

Anyway i'll end this cause i feel myself getting a little disheartened,

Keep up the good work and try not to stray too far from the original, least ye lose sight of what you originally intended to aim for ...

The Peoples Mouse

What you want is a straight port. But a straight port is NOt a good idea to attract new players. XMP didn't essentially die because it lost support, because 90% of the people playing it left before that.

The game has to be accessible for people who have never even played anything but UT2004 before. In fact, it has got to be accessible for people who haven't even played that. Otherwise, it will follow the exact same path that U2XMP did. I find it funny that people are saying things like "Leave it exactly the same" when a thread like this is posted and an EX-LEGEND EMPLOYEE comes in and says:

I prefer Indian's initial layout, with the exception of the bottom right corner. I like Skatchers version better there.

I'd like to see the final have a better color comp though.

Which is exactly how I feel. I don't like the HUD being disorganized like it was in XMP. It's confusing and hard to get used to. Information placement is WAY OFF from 99.9% of every other game out there. For a game to be successful, it has to be FAMILIAR the very first time you play it (for old AND new players) which is why the HUD gets redesigned in the sequels to every game ever made (to try to make it more accessible to new players).

 

[WolfmanK]

A blend of what brizz says and the clasic style is probably best. I agree with Brizz but I like the classic look cause it is discrete. Some sort of blend should be available.

We do need new blood in this community.

 

[[[Vash]]]

We do need new blood in this community.

So true and I agree with you wolf, I am partial to the XMP current map, but some compromise should be available

 

[W0RF]

orthographic map is to time consuming to deploy, there's another thread about that and somebody made a good suggestion, i think it was mort, check it out you and you're hunger for orthographic maps

How is it more time consuming to look at an overhead view of the map and click on a place you think you might like to be, than to click, click, click, click, click through all the spawn points your team is on until you find the one that you hope is right, only to find the deploy animation dying down which means you need to wait 18.5 more seconds?

I can think of some valid reasons that they may want to leave out an orthographic map for spawning, but "time-consuming" isn't one of them.

 

[Emmet Otter]

classic look?

[SCREENSHOT]http://img60.exs.cx/img60/6430/HUD5.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

Thats what I want

Edit*I think there shouldve been a poll made and to let it speak for itself

 

[Mantik]

The original hud is quite possibly the easiest mfing hud that has ever existed in a game short of doom or friggin quake 1. where all the info you needed was a little medical symbol followed by a number, and a little gun symbol followed by an amount of bullets. how can this get any more ****ing easy? what do you people who think this is somehow "confusing" do with yourself all day if you're too confused by a simple 4 corner concept? sit there and drool on yourself while watching squirrels play outside? come on. this argument is getting ridiculous.

everything you need to know about your player is in top left.
everything you need to know about your gun is in top right.
everything you need to know about your energy usage/sources is in bottom right.
everything you need to know about artifacts/speed is in the bottom left.

it's really quite simple. if you think looking in 4 corners, the easiest place to look.. you know.. in case you "forget" where something is on the screen because it's too "confusing" with it's multiple layers of 87th dimension informational pockets that you have to travel backwards or forwards through time in order to access , is hard.. then i think you're playing the wrong kind of game to begin with and fps' and you don't mix. you need to go back to playing virtual pokemon.

"omfg, my health/shields are in a position not equal to my gun/ammo information! this is too confusing! i think i'll abandon the game! because as every one knows, HUD's make the game.. NOT THE CONTENT!"

yeah, i'm sure people saw the hud, promptly vomitted, and then uninstalled the game forever back in the day, right?

i grow tired of the same played out biased opinions that get spewed forth with absolutely no concern for the actual game, just YOUR PERSONAL play style. yeah, we all want it to cater to our own habits and our own ideas but despite what your mommy says when she bounces you on her knee, you are not special. and fmi isn't going to abandon their own personal image of where they want this game to go, for YOU. you have an "image" of this game you want to share with the rest of the community?

http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2003/contest_register.php

wait for the next phase and be our guest. until then, this is FMI's conversion.. and their vision of it, however it differs from yours, is how it's going to be. so better start sucking it up while you can. wouldn't want any emo's to go around slitting their wrists when it doesn't conform exactly to your own personal specifi friggin cations.

 

[wraithzcage]

compromise

i think alot of the ideas in this thread are valid.......dont want to go into specifics but its kindve like mantik said this is FMIs vision of xmp and its going to be the way they invision it regardless when the final product arrives......i do think however compromise and choice is very important and maybe instead of one hud u could somehow have a choice of huds......i never used it but i remember seeing a custom hud i think goldfish from pet had made and a few people used that as well as somebody had made a custom crosshair set or two....never used those either even though i tryed like heck to find them lol.......anyways my point is that regardless of what comes out with the basic package theres always somebody with the skills to produce a new custom hud and if not study up a little if youre that adamant about it and create your own....i mean if its TRULY that important to you........as far as my own personal tastes i like the basic u2xmp hud never had a problem with it and use the radar all the time as i play mostly mid field hacking gens and deploys....would be nice though if the radar actually showed units instead of just landmarks but hey either way its just a hud and not the end all end all of everything xmp related......but i think some customization options on the players part would be nice ...even if its nothing but color but some other things would possibly be radar placement one way u could achieve this is in options having a set of SNAP TO pts where u could drag the seperate parts of the hud where u wanted them......having the option to enable disable the total hud etc.......i think the SNAP TO way of customizing the hud would solve this problem that way everybody can put the stuff where they want.....and please dont reply to this thread with some hateful statement or i have another place u can SNAP IT TO

 

[Sir_Brizz]

The original hud is quite possibly the easiest mfing hud that has ever existed in a game short of doom or friggin quake 1. where all the info you needed was a little medical symbol followed by a number, and a little gun symbol followed by an amount of bullets. how can this get any more ****ing easy? what do you people who think this is somehow "confusing" do with yourself all day if you're too confused by a simple 4 corner concept? sit there and drool on yourself while watching squirrels play outside? come on. this argument is getting ridiculous.

everything you need to know about your player is in top left.
everything you need to know about your gun is in top right.
everything you need to know about your energy usage/sources is in bottom right.
everything you need to know about artifacts/speed is in the bottom left.

it's really quite simple. if you think looking in 4 corners, the easiest place to look.. you know.. in case you "forget" where something is on the screen because it's too "confusing" with it's multiple layers of 87th dimension informational pockets that you have to travel backwards or forwards through time in order to access , is hard.. then i think you're playing the wrong kind of game to begin with and fps' and you don't mix. you need to go back to playing virtual pokemon.

"omfg, my health/shields are in a position not equal to my gun/ammo information! this is too confusing! i think i'll abandon the game! because as every one knows, HUD's make the game.. NOT THE CONTENT!"

yeah, i'm sure people saw the hud, promptly vomitted, and then uninstalled the game forever back in the day, right?

i grow tired of the same played out biased opinions that get spewed forth with absolutely no concern for the actual game, just YOUR PERSONAL play style. yeah, we all want it to cater to our own habits and our own ideas but despite what your mommy says when she bounces you on her knee, you are not special. and fmi isn't going to abandon their own personal image of where they want this game to go, for YOU. you have an "image" of this game you want to share with the rest of the community?

http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2003/contest_register.php

wait for the next phase and be our guest. until then, this is FMI's conversion.. and their vision of it, however it differs from yours, is how it's going to be. so better start sucking it up while you can. wouldn't want any emo's to go around slitting their wrists when it doesn't conform exactly to your own personal specifi friggin cations.

So in other words, you would rather have people confused and quitting than not confused and continuing?

I guarantee you that alot of people left the game because it was not "intuitive" enough in design, and the VERY FIRST THING you notice when you play a game IS THE HUD. If it's not intuitive, then that is a terrible first impression.

The HUD is confusing. Plain and simple. The little class symbol doesn't help you figure out where anything is. All you see when you see the original HUD for the first time is a bunch of bars and numbers and that's about it. It's not a design that you can go from never seing to actively using in a matter of seconds. It's not accessible. It's not engaging. It's NOT COOL. It's not fun. It's a hack, a throw in...it's like a beta HUD that the developers would use use so that they could show more of the game and less of what the player sees.

Yep, it might be easy to someone who has used it before extensively...but I'm thinking of someone that has never played XMP before, which is going to be a huge portion of the players initially. (Yes I know where things are on the original HUD, because I played XMP alot!)

Also don't like your statement about "the HUD makes the game not the content". What makes the game is the sum of the parts that make up the game, so in essence, THE HUD MAKES PART OF THE GAME. Yes, playability and fun are more important, but that doesn't negate the importance of a high quality HUD.

 

[Mantik]

The only thing that isn't labelled and the only thing that doesn't have a number value are the energy(including personal energy and stamina)/artifact visual labels and bars. The lower portion of the hud is not labelled, and could be a tad confusing I agree, but that's all there is to cause confusion.. which 5 minutes of playing and moving and seeing what happens, eradicates.

If someone looks in the upper left and sees "Health" and a numerical value next to it, or looks in the upper right and sees "Ammo" with a numerical value next to it, and gets confused I'm sorry, but uh.. you've got some SERIOUS mental issues you need to deal with.

I do appreciate your concerns Brizz, and I know where you're coming from.. I just don't think you could make it any more simpler without saying "PRESS ENTER TO WIN THE GAME!"

 

[Sir_Brizz]

The only thing that isn't labelled and the only thing that doesn't have a number value are the energy(including personal energy and stamina)/artifact visual labels and bars. The lower portion of the hud is not labelled, and could be a tad confusing I agree, but that's all there is to cause confusion.. which 5 minutes of playing and moving and seeing what happens, eradicates.

If someone looks in the upper left and sees "Health" and a numerical value next to it, or looks in the upper right and sees "Ammo" with a numerical value next to it, and gets confused I'm sorry, but uh.. you've got some SERIOUS mental issues you need to deal with.

I do appreciate your concerns Brizz, and I know where you're coming from.. I just don't think you could make it any more simpler without saying "PRESS ENTER TO WIN THE GAME!"

well we're probably both a little too much on either side of the issue

I just know how people are. They will look in the bottom left for their Health and the bottom right for their Ammo. By combining them in the bottom left, they will know they are both there. This is because 99% of FPS's out there do it that way. The reason it's confusing is that they will more than likely think that the jets or the personal energy bar over there are their health or ammo and not even realize that the health is at the top.

 

[W0RF]

Part of the problem is that the only primer for the original game was a long drawn-out tut with poor sound quality that most ppl didn't even bother to watch. That's not entirely Legend's fault: ppl just like to jump in and pick it up along the way (oh this is just class-based CTF right? )

Mantik: it's stupidly obvious to you because you've been playing the game for probably a year or so by now. What Brizz is suggesting is that the HUD should be stupidly obvious to everybody, especially if it's not going to be labeled or if there is no tut that puts a big red circle around it and says "THIS IS YOUR ENERGY BAR".

This thread seems headed in the direction that every other suggestion thread has gone. People try to discuss TWEAKS (FMI has stated ad nauseum that they are going to make the conversion as true to the original as possible) and the tweaks are treated like complete overhauls that will kill the gaming experience.

Take effects for example. If you said "hey, FMI should tweak effects for things like deploys and forcewalls to take advantage of UT2004's particle system"...

"OMFG J00 WANT TO CHANGE WHOLL GAME AND IT WILL SUK JUST MAKE IT LIKE IT WAS AND WE WILL ALL BE HAPPY YOU FKING LAM0R RAAWWWRRRR!!!! "

Look at the video. The forcewalls look sweet. The deploy effect looks sweet. The art-capture effect looks sweet. It's not changed. Just tweaked. Even if you look at the HUD images posted here, they're not hardcore changes, just tweaks.

/me recommends prozac all around.

 

[W0RF]

:double-post:

BTW Indian, the screenie you have posted on the first page currently... looks sweet.

 

[Mantik]

This thread seems headed in the direction that every other suggestion thread has gone.

Nah. Brizz nor I am saying the other sucks, just bringing up concerns is all. We gotz no beef, y0.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Nope, no problems. Slightly heated discussion, but I never saw any personal attacks flying

 

[takwu]

I just know how people are. They will look in the bottom left for their Health and the bottom right for their Ammo. . . .

What makes you say that? Did you talk to a lot of people and they said that was what they thought? Or did you run a survey to get these information? Or did you recall your own personal experience and used it as a representation of "how people are"?

I never know how people are. I look at the facts and reasons I know and figure things out. Considering what has been said from everyone, I do not see any facts or reasons to suggest that the original HUD made anyone quit XMP, not even partially. And I do not see how these suggested changes could draw more people in. However I do see why some people would miss the old HUD, a lot.

As you can see there are some who like the new one and some who like the old one. However, do not forget this: We have all used the old one. We have not used the new one in XMP, but you can make your own to look like the new one. Some people, such as dandel, have used (is still using) a custom hud in XMP, with the radar in upper right, so I'll trust them about their preference. BUT if you have not used something similar in a similar game (something with tactics based on locations and ownership) then perhaps your "wow this looks cool" or "hey this looks just like the other games" isn't a practical reason for perfering it; wait till you play a match with it, I'd say.

For all I know, the new design *could* even be more confusing for those new to XMP. Because:

<< Old HUD >>
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: ok, where do we get that?
Vet: look at your radar, see the box icon with ears?
Noob (Generator): I'm hacking this!
Noob: cool we got 2 out of 3 energy sources!
Vet: yeah you saw that icon light up?
Noob: yeah it's right there, on the hud

<< New HUD >>
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: ok, where do we get that?
Vet: look at your radar, see the box icon with ears?
Noob: What radar?
Vet: upper right
Noob: ooooo.... that's a radar? thought it was a minimap
Vet: sorta...
Noob: cool
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: oh, right. what am I looking for again?
Vet: box icon with ears
Noob: ok, I'm following it
(3 min later)
Noob: I'm lost
Vet: use the radar!
Noob: oooo, I forgot. Upper right, right?

- Act XXII -
ok just kidding

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Radar positioning has nothing to do with it. It's all about where information ABOUT YOUR PLAYER is found.

Radar->Upper Right would be for continuity from UT2004->UTXMP.

 

[[[Vash]]]

<< Old HUD >>
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: ok, where do we get that?
Vet: look at your radar, see the box icon with ears?
Noob (Generator): I'm hacking this!
Noob: cool we got 2 out of 3 energy sources!
Vet: yeah you saw that icon light up?
Noob: yeah it's right there, on the hud

<< New HUD >>
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: ok, where do we get that?
Vet: look at your radar, see the box icon with ears?
Noob: What radar?
Vet: upper right
Noob: ooooo.... that's a radar? thought it was a minimap
Vet: sorta...
Noob: cool
Vet: We need energy!
Noob: oh, right. what am I looking for again?
Vet: box icon with ears
Noob: ok, I'm following it
(3 min later)
Noob: I'm lost
Vet: use the radar!
Noob: oooo, I forgot. Upper right, right?

- Act XXII -
ok just kidding

 

[Xabora]

Ok... why not the true classic why.

Unreal 1 Setup.
It had 8 diffrent Hud Options.


Made things easier, and the player was able to setup the Hud the way they liked it.

 

[McKain]

Why not make evryone happy and make a hud where you can go in to the hud setup move the difrent parts just to your own liking ( see the ut2k4 mod Troopers: Dawn of Destiny ).

Then ppl like Sir_Brizz and alike can have evry thing on the bottom of the screen and the radar on the upper rigth part of the screen,
while some one else can have the old u2:xmp setup or have it in there own way.

 

[dutch_gecko]

I'm sorry but I have to say this...
When I first installed XMP and joined a server there was one thing which really annoyed me. There was this godawful map/radar thing right in the middle at the bottom of my otherwise beatiful HUD. It wasn't anti-aliased properly, had the wrong colours, no transparency... and it was right in the middle! This was the only thing that really changed from the Unreal 2 HUD (yes i know there's the enrgy bars and stuff, but they're already sort of based on the existing bars), and it appears to have been thrown in as an afterthought. The fact that making a radar for a map is nigh on impossible (I haven't tried, but I believe Fireball when he says this) seems to indicate to me that this was somethin Legend sort of forgot.
Anyway, for this reason, I vote for the first HUD in this thread. It is quite frankly perfect.