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

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Hook <bwh at wksoftware.com>

> The strength of a console is the controller -- it forces fairly
> concise control mechanisms that most people find easy to
> understand and adjust to. The strength of the PC is the local
> storage and keyboard -- it allows more depth of control.
 
> The problem is that PC developers often end up using the
> keyboard/icons/menu systems as a crutch that allows them to get
> lazy.  They don't have to think about interface nearly as much as
> a console developer because they have a very versatile input
> device.  Instead of thinking through the game design, they just
> make all actions valid and attempt to code for all the relevant
> cases.  This makes for an "open ended" game, but it's frustrating
> and often ends up forcing the player to do "all possible
> combinations of actions on all items" solution searches, which are
> lame.

What about the most extreme form of a protean interface: Fully
scriptable controls?  Tribes 2 shipped with flying vehicles, but
with very inadequate Joystick support.  Within less than a week, a
player had scripted and distributed an addon that gave more
traditional joystick flight controls, in another other players had
built on that to provide support for throttle control, automated
hovering, and other assisted flight mechanics.

The default interface for T2 can be completely replaced, even the
visual elements can be augmented, hidden, moved, etc.  Most of the
players have no idea how to do this, but they download these scripts
from players who can.  T1 was the same way, by the end many players
had completely replaced the default UI with customized versions.
Just a brief example of how the interface can be improved: Throwing
grenades.  The default for throwing a grenade is to hold down a key,
the longer you hold it down, the harder the grenade is thrown.
Although realistic, it wasn't extremely useful and hand grenades
were normally only used in a "death dance" (throw all your
explosives while surrounded by enemies).  One of the most commonly
used interface changes was "TapThrow", which threw the grenade at
the *maximum* force every time.  Another was an automated "death
dance", spinning you in circles while throwing all your grenades at
nearly minimum force.

Now, admittedly this power over the interface allowed players to
exploit the game in more ways, but those were fixable.  And it
allowed the player to adapt the UI to his own personal quirks and
playstyle.  On the other hand, if a console game UI doesn't suit my
foibles, I'm stuck with it.  An easy example is the small joysticks
on them, because of breaking it when I was young, my right thumb
isn't very flexible.  Frequently when I've sat down to play a
console game, I've found there were functions on the right
mini-stick that I couldn't properly use.  With a console, I have
*no* choice, the developer's carefully crafted UI is absolute.  In a
PC game, I could, if all else failed, assign functions to keys and
then hack a keystroke forger.

Don't get me wrong, my start in programming was doing UI's on
contract and I certainly believe we can do better.  But we shouldn't
fall into the trap of thinking that just because we put a lot of
work and thought into our UI, that it doesn't still suck.

--Dave Rickey

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