@Stoibs: I understand the frustration, but given Beamdog's MO over the past three years, I honestly think the best thing is to wait for modders to step in and clean up the mess. I know it sucks, and it's certainly not what BG deserves, but that's just how it is. It's not worth getting upset anymore.
OK, I don't quite understand you guys (I'm talking to @shawne and @Erg specifically). If you loathe EE's so much, why do you even bother to express your frustrations here instead of just played modded vanilla/tutu/BGT or whatever configuration suits your needs?
It just seems you show up in every topic where someone criticizes Beamdog (rightly or not is the matter of debate), to the point that I'm willing to bet that you'll emerge in such cases.
I really don't give a damn, at the moment, if you'll ever play EE's or not, but your constant bickering discourage other players to try it and see by themselves if the games are worth playing.
Sorry for my rant, but this is getting ridiculous. Whenever I try to read constructive criticism, you're flooding the topic with bile...
For the record, I'm up for constructive criticism, but proportions here were elevated to some gigantic sizes. It's not that you don't have a merit for some (even many) things, but you virtually did not say a good thing about BEamdog and EE's. I would just give up the games at that point.
Sigh... to lighten things up I love you guys for your work with mods (@Erg for all his little mods and custody over PPG NPC mods, and @shawne for your Ascension epilogues).
Sigh again... I was mistaken. I do want you to like the EE's, maybe that's why I'm so mad at you And yeah, I'm getting softer with each word.
@Cahir: Sometimes it's a wiser course of action to know someone's history before you call them out. I didn't start out critical of the EEs or of Beamdog, and I didn't get where I am now with them because that's where I wanted to be. I have given my constructive criticism, I've paid my dues, and if you and bengoshi want to wave pompoms and cheer Beamdog on no matter what they do, that is absolutely your right and you can have it. That doesn't mean I have to sit down and shut up.
Other than that a lot of text in the character ui is in the wrong place (text alignment as well as in the wrong tab), several button inconsistencies, colouration and uiux issues, I actually do not hate it as much as I thought I would.
My main beef is that it is so clearly unfinished (found roughly 25 ui bugs in a few minutes of just clicking) that I was surprised we were actually given this to play test. Most of the items should have been caught at alpha and be fixed before beta.
But I am anxious about the next beta build to see how it is improved. With respect to the old ui, the v1.3 ui and the v2.0 ui I cannot say which is better, as they are very different in use.
@Cahir: Sometimes it's a wiser course of action to know someone's history before you call them out. I didn't start out critical of the EEs or of Beamdog, and I didn't get where I am now with them because that's where I wanted to be. I have given my constructive criticism, I've paid my dues, and if you and bengoshi want to wave pompoms and cheer Beamdog on no matter what they do, that is absolutely your right and you can have it. That doesn't mean I have to sit down and shut up.
I don't recall to waving pompons and cheering Beamdog no matter what they do, so I guess we're both mistaken. And I didn't say your criticism isn't constructive.
One of my work goals for next week is to write up some information on how to do just that. I'll explain how the new UI system works (although I won't be writing detailed instructions on how to make big changes), and I'll offer a couple examples of things that you can do.
Here's a work-in-progress preview:
Just so that there's no confusion, what I'll be providing is instructions on how to understand the UI system we've created, along with some example files to get you started. I'm not an artist, so the examples I'll be posting will be using existing art--which means, as in the example above, you're going to see some things that don't necessarily line up the way you want them to.
This also means that what I'll be posting isn't a sign of things to come from development, nor is it a promise to maintain the examples I'm providing as mods in their own right.
If UI modding is something that interests you, I highly recommend brushing up on Lua, but that's not a requirement for understanding how everything works.
Anyway, I don't mean to derail the discussion, just giving a glimpse of what's coming.
@Dee: As a clarification, could you tell us if you did the above example entirely by yourself, or if the dev programmers had to help you out here and there?
@Dee: As a clarification, could you tell us if you did the above example entirely by yourself, or if the dev programmers had to help you out here and there?
While I don't agree that "Easyness of modding" should cover any obvious issues with the new UI, such as inconsistent text alignments and inconsistent use of capitals, it does provide an alternative to those that don't like the general direction the new UI is headed in (like the tabbed interface).
Hi @Dee Will it be possible to replace "Character Sheet" with CHARNAME? I know what page it is. I would like to have some way to make CHARNAME be the central top element versus the XP bar. Having the bar right there especially with the red makes it much much MMO like and much less DnD like as others have ably noted. Or moving the XP bar to another location altogether? Thank you.
Hi @Dee Will it be possible to replace "Character Sheet" with CHARNAME? I know what page it is. I would like to have some way to make CHARNAME be the central top element versus the XP bar. Having the bar right there especially with the red makes it much much MMO like and much less DnD like as others have ably noted. Or moving the XP bar to another location altogether? Thank you.
Absolutely. I'll walk through that when I write it all up, but everything you described is 100% doable.
So pretty much every element is going to be changeable then so we can have really customized character sheets? That is really awesome. Is it per character or for all characters? For fighter types I would arrange things a bit differently than for spell casters like my PnP character sheets were always done.
What about the other screens, mostly inventory? The comparison is okay and I appreciate the work, but as an old timer I would prefer to use that space differently. Thank you.
So pretty much every element is going to be changeable then so we can have really customized character sheets? That is really awesome. Is it per character or for all characters? For fighter types I would arrange things a bit differently than for spell casters like my PnP character sheets were always done.
The UI system is global, meaning that you don't have to recreate the layout every time you make a new character. But if you're interested in creating (and coding) custom layouts for each class, the new system probably supports that. It's a little beyond my skills as a programmer, but if you think about the Skills tab on the Character Sheet screen as an example, which only appears if your character has thieving skills, that may give you a hint as to what kinds of things you could do.
What about the other screens, mostly inventory? The comparison is okay and I appreciate the work, but as an old timer I would prefer to use that space differently. Thank you.
The Inventory screen is just as modifiable, although I haven't dug into it yet myself.
@Dee For the MP purpose, will all the players of a particular game need to have the same modded UI? Will it have the same effect as having same content-changing mods for the MP stability?
Comments
It just seems you show up in every topic where someone criticizes Beamdog (rightly or not is the matter of debate), to the point that I'm willing to bet that you'll emerge in such cases.
I really don't give a damn, at the moment, if you'll ever play EE's or not, but your constant bickering discourage other players to try it and see by themselves if the games are worth playing.
Sorry for my rant, but this is getting ridiculous. Whenever I try to read constructive criticism, you're flooding the topic with bile...
For the record, I'm up for constructive criticism, but proportions here were elevated to some gigantic sizes. It's not that you don't have a merit for some (even many) things, but you virtually did not say a good thing about BEamdog and EE's. I would just give up the games at that point.
Sigh... to lighten things up I love you guys for your work with mods (@Erg for all his little mods and custody over PPG NPC mods, and @shawne for your Ascension epilogues).
Sigh again... I was mistaken. I do want you to like the EE's, maybe that's why I'm so mad at you
My main beef is that it is so clearly unfinished (found roughly 25 ui bugs in a few minutes of just clicking) that I was surprised we were actually given this to play test. Most of the items should have been caught at alpha and be fixed before beta.
But I am anxious about the next beta build to see how it is improved. With respect to the old ui, the v1.3 ui and the v2.0 ui I cannot say which is better, as they are very different in use.
I cannot wait to start to mod it though.
Here's a work-in-progress preview:
Just so that there's no confusion, what I'll be providing is instructions on how to understand the UI system we've created, along with some example files to get you started. I'm not an artist, so the examples I'll be posting will be using existing art--which means, as in the example above, you're going to see some things that don't necessarily line up the way you want them to.
This also means that what I'll be posting isn't a sign of things to come from development, nor is it a promise to maintain the examples I'm providing as mods in their own right.
If UI modding is something that interests you, I highly recommend brushing up on Lua, but that's not a requirement for understanding how everything works.
Anyway, I don't mean to derail the discussion, just giving a glimpse of what's coming.
While I don't agree that "Easyness of modding" should cover any obvious issues with the new UI, such as inconsistent text alignments and inconsistent use of capitals, it does provide an alternative to those that don't like the general direction the new UI is headed in (like the tabbed interface).
What about the other screens, mostly inventory? The comparison is okay and I appreciate the work, but as an old timer I would prefer to use that space differently. Thank you.
Thank you Beamdog.
I guess I can't post links just yet. It was intended to go to the earlier thread on the UI with the nice mockups. http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/48436/comparing-the-old-and-new-character-record-ui-is-it-final
@Dee For the MP purpose, will all the players of a particular game need to have the same modded UI? Will it have the same effect as having same content-changing mods for the MP stability?