The UI still has several issues: 1. Large amount of wasted space 2. Repeating textures 3. Still limited to 12 action buttons 4. Copy pasted icons from BG2 5. Disjointed UI elements
To sum it up, it provides no additional functionality and looks amateurish.
@Bercon What extra functionality would you want it to sport? Most of what you've noted is aesthetic, not functional. The 12 action buttons are tied to the F-keys, so there's not much that can be done about that.
@Aosaw Can't speak for @Bercon, but personally I think it's silly to tie action buttons to F keys as if we're all still playing on Win95 in 1998. They're releasing on four platforms. Three of them don't have the same F key setup as Windows does, and two of them don't have F keys at all.
My biggest concern is that the UI imitates the original without adding anything substantively useful. It's also obviously *not* designed with mobile in mind, which I think is horribly shortsighted.
And personally, my inner graphic designer cringes every time I see the unnecessary whitespace in between the action keys, and how that entire bar is misaligned against the rest of the UI.
The UI still has several issues: 1. Large amount of wasted space 2. Repeating textures 3. Still limited to 12 action buttons 4. Copy pasted icons from BG2 5. Disjointed UI elements
To sum it up, it provides no additional functionality and looks amateurish.
1. The "wasted space" is because the UI stretches for widescreen support. The only way to fill up the space would be to make larger icons. What do you think should go in the space, more buttons? The point of the UI is that it can scale from 4:3 to 16:9 without losing functionality. 2. Again, a result of a scaling UI. They are not going to build a background for every single resolution, that would be a huge time waster. 3. Not sure what you mean 4. The icons were redrawn to scale, but otherwise look the same. If they did not use the same look to the icons, then some people would be upset that they changed familiar icons. 5. What do you mean? Disjointed UI is not very descriptive.
If you could provide more detail it would help to figured out a way to alleviate your concerns.
My biggest concern is that the UI imitates the original without adding anything substantively useful. It's also obviously *not* designed with mobile in mind, which I think is horribly shortsighted.
What are your suggestions for substantively useful additions? Its a game gui not a spacecraft control room.
Also I dont follow you with the "not designed with mobile in mind", Baldur's Gate is not supposed to be played on a mobile phone - It would be extremely pain in the a$$ to play it on a mobile and I dont see a reason why anyone will want to play it with such a small screen...
If you are talking about iPad/Android, they have enlarged the buttons of the AI and "Select Group" plus added a Zoom Button which is unnecessary for the PC - I dont see how they could do it any other way..
What are your suggestions for substantively useful additions? Its a game gui not a spacecraft control room.
The release GUI may or may not have a couple more buttons on it, but the functionality that they might add won't exactly rock anyone's world. I don't think there's much functionality that you can add to the GUI.
What are your suggestions for substantively useful additions? Its a game gui not a spacecraft control room.
Take the "sword" icon that appears on the character portrait. That's kind of a neat idea, but really it doesn't tell you anything meaningful that you didn't already know. It just ends up adding visual noise to an already cluttered screen.
Less is more. Real estate is at a premium in smaller screens. There's no reason to, for example, constantly display half a dozen buttons that see occasional use.
If you look at any of the bigger ports to tablet platforms, most of the time you'll see UIs that are simplified and specifically design for tablets.
This UI is just a dump from the PC, and a fourteen year old UI at that.
If you are talking about iPad/Android, they have enlarged the buttons of the AI and "Select Group" plus added a Zoom Button which is unnecessary for the PC - I dont see how they could do it any other way..
Tablets have additional inputs that PCs lack, like gestures. There's zero reason to have zoom buttons when a player could easily pinch and swipe to the same effect.
The most successful UIs I've seen on tablets don't force the user to constantly shift their hands. They work well when a player is grasping the device with two hands, and all frequently used UI elements are within easy reach.
To put it another way: The action bar is too far from the portraits. The portraits are crammed together with broader UI elements. Every UI element is flush against the sides of the screen, which fosters more accidental events. Some elements are too small for all but the most careful taps.
It's not a good mobile experience if the UI forces you to interact with the game as if you were still on a PC, with the tablet lying flat on a table and your fingers awkwardly substituting for a mouse pointer.
I guess we'll have to see how it plays in practice. It's not a standard tablet game where you'll only ever do two or three things--with twelve action buttons (and the assertion that this "isn't enough"), something has to give.
That said, they could probably design a mobile UI that would alleviate those concerns. But what you're talking about isn't a rework of the PC UI--it's a need for an entirely different UI specifically for tablet users.
The tablet UI wouldn't make much sense, for example, to a PC user.
Mungri I just said it looked bad ... do you think I haven't seen it? I initially really liked the idea of merging the two games, then I saw screenshots, and heard of all the little details it breaks, and changed my mind accordingly.
Anyway I'm not convincing you of anything ... you think it looks good, I think you're crazy, it's that simple. And you probably think I'm crazy too. That's fine.
-------
That said, I'm not concerned about the new UI. It looks like they tweaked some things, like the distance between the portraits seems greater which is very appreciated as that looked weird in earlier screenies. The blue seems slightly strange but whatever, like @Tanthalas said we will get used to it, we're worrying too much. I think it looks kind of pretty; a little awkward since I've been playing the vanilla game for 13 years, but how is that surprising? I'm just glad they changed it from BGII UI, which is what I was expecting them to do out of laziness.
While Tutu and BGT break a lot of things a out the original BG1, nothing of that has anything to do with the graphics. The entire graphical overhaul to BG2s engine,including the UI is the sole purpose for why so many people use the mods. Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game. I think you are crazy for applying gameplay elements into the comparison of graphical engines, people who can't seperate graphics from gameplay ultimately become the reason for why most modern games are terrible, though that's not the case with BGEE. An enhanced edition should keep the same identical gameplay of the original game, while being an enhancement of the engine and appearance, and I don't think that BGEE has done a good job of this.
@Aosaw Well, yes. This is what was done for Grand Theft Auto III, Doom, Sid Meier's Pirates, and Civ Revolutions. Each of them has an interface that was specifically designed for tablets. But Baldur's Gate doesn't?
BG:EE has a lot of demands in terms of UI, but if someone can create a tablet interface for something as complex as a Civ game (even a "dumbed down" Civ game), I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for BG:EE.
Civ V has also just had an update for Windows 8 touch screen capability, though I havnt tried it. I have the mobile phone versions of Civ Revolution, Plants vs Zombies and Monopoly, all of which play beautifully and handle perfectly on a 3.8" touch screen. The interface being shown for BGEE so far doesn't seem to be comfortable for a touch screen at all, though that maybe why only the PC version is coming out first, the android one might be getting changes.
Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game.
While Tutu and BGT break a lot of things a out the original BG1, nothing of that has anything to do with the graphics. The entire graphical overhaul to BG2s engine,including the UI is the sole purpose for why so many people use the mods. Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game. I think you are crazy for applying gameplay elements into the comparison of graphical engines, people who can't seperate graphics from gameplay ultimately become the reason for why most modern games are terrible, though that's not the case with BGEE. An enhanced edition should keep the same identical gameplay of the original game, while being an enhancement of the engine and appearance, and I don't think that BGEE has done a good job of this.
I said I was done, bud. Always gotta get in the last word huh? You would do well to stop acting like your opinion is fact. Your opinion is fine, but it's just that; an opinion.
Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game.
I think it's really too early to judge, but it's also not really THAT important, is it? I mean, even if it turns out to be ugly as hell I'm sure we won't be thinking about it for long.
Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game.
This is precisely the opposite of reality.
You have to have a huge chip on your shoulder to think that the original BG1 looks better than the modded versions with BG2s engine. The latter is a visual improvement to every part of the game - far less pixelated graphics, higher resolutions, nicer spell effects. I wouldn't be able to touch the original unmodded game with a bargepole.
The problem with the mods however is that they ruin too much about the gameplay (Two weapon fighting for every NPC, oh really? How useless). BGEE will be keeping the original gameplay running on the BG2 engine, but there was no need for them to change the BG2 UI other than adding high resolution support and reworked hotkeys.
@Aosaw Well, yes. This is what was done for Grand Theft Auto III, Doom, Sid Meier's Pirates, and Civ Revolutions. Each of them has an interface that was specifically designed for tablets. But Baldur's Gate doesn't?
BG:EE has a lot of demands in terms of UI, but if someone can create a tablet interface for something as complex as a Civ game (even a "dumbed down" Civ game), I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for BG:EE.
I'm not saying it shouldn't have a tablet UI for tablet users. I'm saying that's a different criticism than "this UI sucks".
Note, also, that all those games you just mentioned had teams of developers designing the interface. This game has one. So while I can get behind wanting things to be improved, let's avoid making things out like they're a sign of laziness or bad design. At worst, it's the same as vanilla BG1 (which wasn't terrible) because Trent's also thinking about a couple other things (like directing the whole project and co-managing Beamdog in general and trying to get approvals for things like trailers and screenshots and negotiating deals and all the other things that make a business run even its most basic functions). So let's maybe dial back the "why would you ever think that this was the absolute perfect solution" attitude a bit (that's not a note for you, @Brude, but for the discussion in general).
Oh dear. Someone is always gonna have something bad to say i guess. I am happy to say that i think it looks awesome Looking forward to finaly playing the legendary game enhanced
@Aosaw Well, yes. This is what was done for Grand Theft Auto III, Doom, Sid Meier's Pirates, and Civ Revolutions. Each of them has an interface that was specifically designed for tablets. But Baldur's Gate doesn't?
BG:EE has a lot of demands in terms of UI, but if someone can create a tablet interface for something as complex as a Civ game (even a "dumbed down" Civ game), I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for BG:EE.
I'm not saying it shouldn't have a tablet UI for tablet users. I'm saying that's a different criticism than "this UI sucks".
Note, also, that all those games you just mentioned had teams of developers designing the interface. This game has one. So while I can get behind wanting things to be improved, let's avoid making things out like they're a sign of laziness or bad design. At worst, it's the same as vanilla BG1 (which wasn't terrible). So let's maybe dial back the vitriol a bit (that's not a note for you, @Brude, but for the discussion in general).
@Aosaw Fair points. I *am* saying the the UI "sucks" for half the platforms of this release. And I think not doing a tablet UI, regardless of circumstance, is pretty much the definition of lazy, bad design.
Look at it this way: Historically, producers that tried to do quickie console ports to the PC always got roundly thrashed for it, and their games didn't fare well. Fans and critics hated it.
My fear here is that the same is true in reverse -- dumping an old PC interface, unchanged, onto a tablet is going to garner similar reactions.
(Not to mention that I really want to play BGEE on my iPad, but the more I look at that UI, the more I think it's going to be a frustrating experience).
You have to have a huge chip on your shoulder to think that the original BG1 looks better than the modded versions with BG2s engine. The latter is a visual improvement to every part of the game - far less pixelated graphics, higher resolutions, nicer spell effects. I wouldn't be able to touch the original unmodded game with a bargepole.
Things that BG2 did better:
Resolution
Spell effects
Things that both games did well:
Background art
Things that BG1 did better:
Spell icons
Inventory icons
Paperdolls (they were actually LESS pixellated in BG1, as @erephine's screenshots in 1PP's readme file demonstrate).
Vanilla BG1 is ugly by every definition of the word, the BG2 engine improves the look of the game by a tenfold in everything to do with what your eyes see in the game.
This is precisely the opposite of reality.
I think he has a point. The higher resolution really makes a big differences, plus the 3D spells do look better. Now, you're in beta and I'm not, but from what I see comparing BG:EE upscaled graphics, juxtaposed to vanilla BG, I see a big difference. The art isn't better and such, but overall the game looks more modern, relative to vanilla BG, which means a lot.
The list you came up with is detailed, but of all those things, the only that I ever noticed different in BG2 was the shield icons. Until people here pointed out the others, I didn't even notice as I focus more on the game play than the graphics. The rest of the things you think BG1 did better, doesn't bother some people, so they may only see things like better resolution ,etc. in BG:EE.
(Not to mention that I really want to play BGEE on my iPad, but the more I look at that UI, the more I think it's going to be a frustrating experience).
I think you're worrying too much about that. I remember this game called Trauma Center on the Nintendo DS - there were a whole 10 icons in that tiny interface on the touch screen, which just isn't intuitive or well played at all. But soon enough I wouldn't even look at them, just tap them and go back to what I was doing in a flash ... literally in a flash because the game is ludicrously fast-paced.
I think you'll find the BG:EE UI will be that simple in a matter of time, too, on the iPad.
When people make blanket character judgments about a game's developers based on their opinions of what should have been done, and then try to excuse those character judgments as being "concerned" for the developers. That's like pissing on a painting in front of its artist and saying, "I'm just telling you, this is what your artwork made me feel. I'm doing this for your own good, you know. You'll thank me later."
My point was tone, not content. If you're saying that the tone was intentional, then we have nothing more to discuss. They've said that they plan to continue to make improvements post-ship, so maybe a UI for tablets can be part of that. Maybe instead of calling them lazy or saying that "this sucks, do it better", you could speak a little more specifically about what you'd like to see in a tablet UI.
We're playing a 14 year old 2d game so my standard for good graphics is quite low I think, but my opinion is that they could have done much, much better with the GUI. I think in the previous topic, just about every edited UI that forum members posted looked a lot nicer (except maybe the pink one). I really thought that we would see something completely different for the final product considering the less than enthusiastic response the community gave it (even the most positive people could say little more than "we'll get used to it"). I'm only posting this because it's a bit sad to see people defending something that they clearly aren't that happy with. If you accept crap, don't expect game-makers to give you anything better in the future. If you are happy with it, it's nice to be you.
I think he has a point. The higher resolution really makes a big differences, plus the 3D spells do look better. Now, you're in beta and I'm not, but from what I see comparing BG:EE upscaled graphics, juxtaposed to vanilla BG, I see a big difference. The art isn't better and such, but overall the game looks more modern, relative to vanilla BG, which means a lot.
As I mentioned above, resolution and spell effects are the main advantages BG2 has over BG1 in terms of graphics. It does look more modern than BG1, because it is. BG:EE looks more modern than both, because it has native support for widescreen resolution with one hell of an upscaling algorithm (which really is the best they could do given the unavailability of the source art assets).
@Quartz I hope so. But these days every time I click the wrong spell icon (Arcane when Viconia is highlighted, for example), I can't help but feel a small annoyance (that the game displays UI elements which are totally irrelevant to certain characters and situations).
There were trade offs involved in 1998 that don't exist now, and it'd be nice that a game describing itself as an "extended edition" reflected that.
@Aosaw Lol, fair enough, I guess. Metaphorically, I'm totally the guy who'd piss on the painting. Any creator worth their salt has got to have a thicker skin than that.
This isn't specifically the designer's fault. They're only implementing what the producers told them to implement. I'm criticizing the initial decision to dump a fourteen year old PC UI onto a modern tablet.
I can understand the demands here around time and money, but I still think it's a bad call. Having worked in and around this industry for years, bad design and short changing users is a major pet peeve of mine.
Comments
The UI still has several issues:
1. Large amount of wasted space
2. Repeating textures
3. Still limited to 12 action buttons
4. Copy pasted icons from BG2
5. Disjointed UI elements
To sum it up, it provides no additional functionality and looks amateurish.
My biggest concern is that the UI imitates the original without adding anything substantively useful. It's also obviously *not* designed with mobile in mind, which I think is horribly shortsighted.
And personally, my inner graphic designer cringes every time I see the unnecessary whitespace in between the action keys, and how that entire bar is misaligned against the rest of the UI.
1. The "wasted space" is because the UI stretches for widescreen support. The only way to fill up the space would be to make larger icons. What do you think should go in the space, more buttons? The point of the UI is that it can scale from 4:3 to 16:9 without losing functionality.
2. Again, a result of a scaling UI. They are not going to build a background for every single resolution, that would be a huge time waster.
3. Not sure what you mean
4. The icons were redrawn to scale, but otherwise look the same. If they did not use the same look to the icons, then some people would be upset that they changed familiar icons.
5. What do you mean? Disjointed UI is not very descriptive.
If you could provide more detail it would help to figured out a way to alleviate your concerns.
Also I dont follow you with the "not designed with mobile in mind", Baldur's Gate is not supposed to be played on a mobile phone - It would be extremely pain in the a$$ to play it on a mobile and I dont see a reason why anyone will want to play it with such a small screen...
If you are talking about iPad/Android, they have enlarged the buttons of the AI and "Select Group" plus added a Zoom Button which is unnecessary for the PC - I dont see how they could do it any other way..
He means that he wanted to have the freedom to add more buttons to the bottom GUI bar, which would have been a great feature. The release GUI may or may not have a couple more buttons on it, but the functionality that they might add won't exactly rock anyone's world. I don't think there's much functionality that you can add to the GUI.
Less is more. Real estate is at a premium in smaller screens. There's no reason to, for example, constantly display half a dozen buttons that see occasional use.
If you look at any of the bigger ports to tablet platforms, most of the time you'll see UIs that are simplified and specifically design for tablets.
This UI is just a dump from the PC, and a fourteen year old UI at that. Tablets have additional inputs that PCs lack, like gestures. There's zero reason to have zoom buttons when a player could easily pinch and swipe to the same effect.
The most successful UIs I've seen on tablets don't force the user to constantly shift their hands. They work well when a player is grasping the device with two hands, and all frequently used UI elements are within easy reach.
To put it another way: The action bar is too far from the portraits. The portraits are crammed together with broader UI elements. Every UI element is flush against the sides of the screen, which fosters more accidental events. Some elements are too small for all but the most careful taps.
It's not a good mobile experience if the UI forces you to interact with the game as if you were still on a PC, with the tablet lying flat on a table and your fingers awkwardly substituting for a mouse pointer.
That said, they could probably design a mobile UI that would alleviate those concerns. But what you're talking about isn't a rework of the PC UI--it's a need for an entirely different UI specifically for tablet users.
The tablet UI wouldn't make much sense, for example, to a PC user.
BG:EE has a lot of demands in terms of UI, but if someone can create a tablet interface for something as complex as a Civ game (even a "dumbed down" Civ game), I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for BG:EE.
The problem with the mods however is that they ruin too much about the gameplay (Two weapon fighting for every NPC, oh really? How useless). BGEE will be keeping the original gameplay running on the BG2 engine, but there was no need for them to change the BG2 UI other than adding high resolution support and reworked hotkeys.
Note, also, that all those games you just mentioned had teams of developers designing the interface. This game has one. So while I can get behind wanting things to be improved, let's avoid making things out like they're a sign of laziness or bad design. At worst, it's the same as vanilla BG1 (which wasn't terrible) because Trent's also thinking about a couple other things (like directing the whole project and co-managing Beamdog in general and trying to get approvals for things like trailers and screenshots and negotiating deals and all the other things that make a business run even its most basic functions). So let's maybe dial back the "why would you ever think that this was the absolute perfect solution" attitude a bit (that's not a note for you, @Brude, but for the discussion in general).
Look at it this way: Historically, producers that tried to do quickie console ports to the PC always got roundly thrashed for it, and their games didn't fare well. Fans and critics hated it.
My fear here is that the same is true in reverse -- dumping an old PC interface, unchanged, onto a tablet is going to garner similar reactions.
(Not to mention that I really want to play BGEE on my iPad, but the more I look at that UI, the more I think it's going to be a frustrating experience).
- Resolution
- Spell effects
Things that both games did well:- Background art
Things that BG1 did better:The list you came up with is detailed, but of all those things, the only that I ever noticed different in BG2 was the shield icons. Until people here pointed out the others, I didn't even notice as I focus more on the game play than the graphics. The rest of the things you think BG1 did better, doesn't bother some people, so they may only see things like better resolution ,etc. in BG:EE.
I think you'll find the BG:EE UI will be that simple in a matter of time, too, on the iPad.
When people make blanket character judgments about a game's developers based on their opinions of what should have been done, and then try to excuse those character judgments as being "concerned" for the developers. That's like pissing on a painting in front of its artist and saying, "I'm just telling you, this is what your artwork made me feel. I'm doing this for your own good, you know. You'll thank me later."
My point was tone, not content. If you're saying that the tone was intentional, then we have nothing more to discuss. They've said that they plan to continue to make improvements post-ship, so maybe a UI for tablets can be part of that. Maybe instead of calling them lazy or saying that "this sucks, do it better", you could speak a little more specifically about what you'd like to see in a tablet UI.
At last.. Multiplayer on multiple devices :-D
There were trade offs involved in 1998 that don't exist now, and it'd be nice that a game describing itself as an "extended edition" reflected that.
@Aosaw Lol, fair enough, I guess. Metaphorically, I'm totally the guy who'd piss on the painting. Any creator worth their salt has got to have a thicker skin than that.
This isn't specifically the designer's fault. They're only implementing what the producers told them to implement. I'm criticizing the initial decision to dump a fourteen year old PC UI onto a modern tablet.
I can understand the demands here around time and money, but I still think it's a bad call. Having worked in and around this industry for years, bad design and short changing users is a major pet peeve of mine.