Re: [Adonthell-general] GUI design

[Kai Sterker]

On 6/29/07, Andrew Phillips <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 6/28/07, Kai Sterker <address@hidden > wrote:

> I'll address these three first, since they seem logically grouped to me. I
> wouldn't mind seeing the character "portrait" all the time.
[...]
> Ultimately, that's the important thing to me: being able to quickly see
> character status.

I agree with that. That's absolutely essential.


> Wait, there's an idea. Might we auto-activate the indicator (if it exists)
> whenever the game goes into a combat mode?

I thought about that too, but depending on the implementation there
could be some drawbacks:

1. it might give away that combat is about to start if it happens automatically
2. even after combat is over, you'd still want to check on your health
to see  if healing is required
3. spells are not always combat related, so you would want to keep an
eye on your power at other times too.

However, if going into combat is a manual operation at least point 1
and 2 wouldn't apply. And that is what I'd like to do anyway, having
one 'action' key that behaves differently depending on the context.
Like

Facing        |   Normal Mode   Combat Mode          Stealth Mode
-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NPC           |  Start Dialogue   Attack with weapon  Pick Pocket
Door/Chest |  Open/Close       Open/Close             Pick Lock/Disarm Trap
Item           |   Pick up            Pick up                   Pick up

But that goes more into the direction of game controls, which we
probably should discuss separately :-). My point is, if we would have
different modes, we could display information specific to each mode.
Possibly in addition to generic information that is always present.


> I think the Options, Inventory, Stats, etc can in fact be key-based, as long
> as the user documentation highlights them sufficiently. If we want to
> include icons at all, they can be very, very small and still be effective.

One solution would be to have one key to bring up a main menu from
which all other screens can be accessed. In addition, each screen
could have a shortcut key assigned that takes you there directly.
Again, this goes more into the direction of game controls ... since
those are going to be configurable, people will also be able to
customize them to what they are used to from other games they've been
playing lately.


> A good in-screen mini-map would seem rely heavily on transparency and
> having a lot of screen real estate.  Also, I'm not quite sure that there
> would be any difference between the mini-map and the main map, at least for
> DB. For Adonthell 1.0, a mini-map might be really, really useful, at least
> in maze-like areas like towns or cities. I'd hate to try to navigate large
> urban areas like Elgilad, Cirdanth, or heaven help us, the Mines of
> Zhet'kal, without one.

Instead of a minimap I'd rather have maps of different areas as actual
in-game items that you can buy or find. They would not necessarily
indicate your current position (or even be accurate renderings of the
gameworld) but should help to find important landmarks, etc ...

In cities, I also expect that you could ask NPCs for directions to
shops and the like.


> > An alternative might be to have one slot for magic, usable items and
> > fighting feats. Two keys/buttons are required to cast the spell/use
> > the item while the feat is always on. Then 3 more keys to switch
> > quickly between 'items' of the same category.
>
> You've lost me on that specific idea.

Consider it a quick way to access items (mainly stuff like potions),
special powers (spells or songs) and to select weapons and fighting
feats without the need to go to a separate screen.

To be more specific:

Slot 1 shows the active weapon, slot 2 the active fighting feat. The
keys "1" and "2" can be used to switch through all weapons and feats
currently available to the character. Pressing "space" launches an
attack with selected weapon and feat.

Slot 3 is for usable items. slot 4 for spells and songs available to
that character. Again, keys "3" and "4" switch the "active" item
respectively power while "u"se and "c"ast might activate it.

That way, it isn't necessary to bring up an extra screen just to sip a
potion or  to change the battle tactic. You still would do that to
manage your inventory or to have a closer look at all the spells and
songs you learned so far.

But to really make that idea work, we definitely need unique and
representative icons for everything (or include the name of stuff in
the GUI).


> I like the idea of grouping items, at least in terms of potions, scrolls,
> and the like. The grouping would make some of these items pseudo-stackable,
> wouldn't it?

What I meant was not so much a grouping of items (as it would happen
in an inventory) but more a convenient way to access certain items
without actually bringing up an inventory screen. (Same applies to
magic and so on ... see above).

As an aside, the actual item/inventory implementation already supports
stacking of identical items. Items can also have "tags" assigned (in
the code they are called categories) which could be used to
automatically group them in an inventory screen. Which is a good idea
:-).


> I think we should have a weapon slot visible, though how we would denote
> separate weapon sets and allow characters to toggle between them might be
> more difficult (and impinge on the inventory system). Just to throw out main
> cases on this without delving deeply into it, I think there are five basic
> states of being armed:
>
> 1) having nothing in either hand
> 2) having a one-handed melee weapon in one hand and a non-weapon item in the
> other. Most likely, a shield or a light source.
> 3) having a small ranged weapon and a non-weapon item
> 4) having a large melee weapon requiring both hands
> 5) having a large ranged weapon requiring both hands

I agree that quick toggling between weapons is probably not able to
handle all those cases. We might be able to address some of them
though in the way we design equipment sets. For example, we could have
a separate shield slot (so it could be always equipped) but only
consider it in our damage calculations when one hand is actually free
to use it.

I'm not sure about the value of switching weapons without opening the
inventory, but the more gameplay actually takes place on the map view,
the better, I think. If somebody does not grasp all the key bindings
at first (or if they are stuck with an 8 button gamepad), they can
still use the more traditional way to manage things.

Kai