[MUD-Dev] When the interface becomes the challenge.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

> I REALLY miss player names hovering over characters. Hell, if I'm
> running past a character, I can't even tell if its an npc without
> clicking on the thing.

NPCs walk and players run? NPCs stand and players sit? :-))

> That, and the appalling 1st person controls may be enough to seal
> its fate for me...

The basic mistake all MUD developers make is not in the game system
but in the interface and the legibility of the world :-).  Game
designers should try to make an interface that suit their own
parents, and then make a smooth transition to a more transparent
interface for the hard-core players. Designers seem to think the
other way, hard-core first (themselves), then add some tweaks as an
after-thought to lower the threshold somewhat. (I believe you can
use the TAB key or something to shift focus, there's a lot of
keyboard-accessed functionality, did I mention focusing on the
hard-core?) Btw, the movement controls are fairly DOOMesque, arrow
keys?

Experienced players seem to prefer 3rd person view, and only use 1st
for narrow tunnels and such. 3rd person feels reasonably empowering
to me once you get used to it, at lest in the out-doors environment,
but that is the problems of course. You need to deal with the
confusion for quite some time in order to deal with it
transparently. As a hard-core player I would actually want even more
flexibility when it comes to controlling how I view the world, and
make it easy to switch between views too.  Different views are
useful in different situations. There is a lot of uncovered
territory when it comes to 3D interfaces...

It would be cool if the user were allowed to program/plot the
viewpoints "in/into" the environment in order to fully customize the
presentation of the environment. (Oh yeah, in this spot I want the
camera tied to that tree and switch to IR vision). Then you could
exchange "viewpoint" maps with other players as well. Same thing
could be done with equipment. (I guess some text MUDs affords this
through triggers and macros)

Btw, I personally find virtually ALL 3D games confusing. I basically
need several hours just to manage the interface well, and that goes
for any game! (except some racing games, but they fake a lot in
order to make the interaction smooth) Maybe realistic 3D is ill
suited for casual players... Actually 2D games used to be quite hard
in the old days, remember getting stuck at corners? Eventually all
designers added magic-forces-at-corners that pushed you in the right
direction. Lots more need to be done in the 3D realm IMO.

Anyway, it would be interesting to know how you feel about the
interface and the game when you hit level 20-30.  If it is mostly a
familiarity problem, then you should've gotten used to it by then.

--
Ola  -  http://www.notam.uio.no/~olagr/
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