[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Study of MMORPG/MUD friendliness

[Brett Bibby]

"Sean Howard" <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

> One thing which I don't like is that SWG decided to encourage
> talking by making the keyboard ALWAYS chat. If you want to see
> your inventory, you hit CTRL-I, which is really frustrating. I
> think it was a valiant attempt, but it didn't work out - I've
> noticed no future MMORPGs have followed in a similar fasion.

I was going to say the exact opposite!  My favorite "feature" of any
MMORPG I've played is SWG's UI.  It's very Windows like and thus
intuitive (the game only runs under Windows so it was okay to follow
the Windows model) so even newbies have no trouble with it.  I never
chat in other MMORPGs (or WoW) because just pressing that extra
enter key first sucks, but in SWG even in a fight it's really easy
to bang out some chat, fight, bang out some more chat, all without
accidentally activating some other action (which happens to me all
the time in WoW).  I like the ctrl key modifier a lot and thought
the navigation was ingenious (which also reminds me of how much I
dislike pressing both mouse buttons together to both move and turn
like WoW).

By making SWG feel like an application I found it more immersive
because I "forgot" about the UI because it was so ho-hum everyday
normal, and intead just enjoyed the game.  WoW on the other hand is
a constant struggle for me and I'm always hitting the wrong key.  It
just feels so old-school and I'm never sure how to do something in
WoW.  It's miles ahead of EQ, but lags behind SWG in my opinion.

Anyway, as long as the game allows you to reconfigure your keys at
will, people can have it any way they want.  It would be nice if the
MMORPGs asked you on install though if you have a preference
(e.g. Use the scheme from this game, SWG, EQ, AO, etc.) that way new
players can easily get into the game.

Brett
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