Redesigning and Overhauling the interface.

[Kabbalah]

Pooky, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but that's a tool for WOW, not a tool for FFXI.

[Kabbalah]

the world is humongous yes; the interface is a piece of crap (worse than XI's; it's a minimalist interface with 80% of actions in context menus for click on object and the other 20% either on unlabeled hotkeys or unlabeled buttons on the UI, oh, and those unlabeled buttons have context menus. some of which spawn windows with options and unlabeled buttons (that have context menus)).

One of your key navigating tools is actually a context menu tied to the label of the name of the system you're in. and no, it's not marked as a button and doesn't do anything when you mouse over it, just when you happen to right click it.

Speaking of which... Yahtzee's decided to take a stab at EVE Online.

[Ragns]

Its bad enough people use apps like yarnball or that shadow counter/autocancel. Yes, i get that they can be helpful, but honestly how hard is it to time things like refresh/haste cycles? Do people seriously have trouble with counting to 3? I mean, what next? How about we make an app that cures people when they hit a certain percent? (Oh wait...) Hell, lets get rid of all jobs in general and just replace them with npc's to watch them do everything for us.

^__________^

[nitsuj]

^__________^

<3 Yarnball and <333333 MsJans

[miokomioko]

Why would you take the liberty of renaming Missions as "Main Quests" and Quests as "Side Quests?" What the hell is the point of that?

[frodnonnag]

first rule of any interface design, K.I.S.S. keep it simple, stupid. or keep it stupid simple.


adding needless buttons or effects, or renaming things is a bad, bad idea.

[SephYuyX]

^__________^

Ragns, go update your plugins D;

[Pooky]

Pooky, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but that's a tool for WOW, not a tool for FFXI.

Yes, I do realize. I probably should have quoted a little clearer.

Some WoW mods I think FFXI could definately do with are:

Decursive, an interface to your party's debuffs and status effects, to help casters quickly act on removing the effects. Also comes with a clever macro interface so you only have to hover your mouse over the person's name on your UI and press a button to cure status effects.

That better?

[Riker]

yarnball is a godsend for endgame mages I dont understand how anyone could dispute that, what it does is instead of sitting there starring at your screen to see your own refresh/haste wear off so you can start ur cycle again, you can see how much longer you have with a visual number, and go take a piss and know u dont have to leak all over the floor on the way back to keep ur shit going.

If your main healing a dynamis alliance your LS is retarded, so i'm gonna assume you main healed a party and are exagerating~

[Amele]

yarnball is a godsend for endgame mages I dont understand how anyone could dispute that, what it does is instead of sitting there starring at your screen to see your own refresh/haste wear off so you can start ur cycle again, you can see how much longer you have with a visual number, and go take a piss and know u dont have to leak all over the floor on the way back to keep ur shit going.

If your main healing a dynamis alliance your LS is retarded, so i'm gonna assume you main healed a party and are exagerating~

no. it was an alliance.

and it's what happens when you have good mages.

extra healers don't let you go any faster, and you get plenty of downtime and mp in dynamis as it is, so you only take as many as you need to get the job done.

[Kabbalah]

By the way, this topic is falling off-topic. There's a difference between the GUI and third-party tools.

Here's a starter, for instance. SE could do the smart thing, take a page out of WOW's handbook, and totally restructure the login and splash pages so that it revolves entirely around FFXI instead of POL. I mean, seriously, it's been six years now: who the fuck do they think they're kidding with this PlayOnLine bullshit? Does anyone even play Tetra Master anymore? You log in, you skip the mail, you skip the announcements, you go directly to FFXI, then get into the game. Why not just skip a bunch of steps and allow yourself to be greeted by an FFXI splash page with a login? Just kill the POL part and get directly to the meat of the program; anything else is a waste of time that merely serves to frustrate the player with every unnecessary step.

[Rhianu]

Opens up a new window to display information? Fail. Current UI contains it all in one 'window', including navigation, quest title and description. I don't want to be opening up multiple windows, or having to close a window out to be able to view my screen again. Should all be attached to the menu still.

Should also stick with current terminology 'Missions' and 'Quests'. Renaming them doesn't help when the game has been out for years already.

Nothing to do with UI, but you can have completed missions from other nations. They shouldn't have the message 'Not allowed under current allegiance'.

Under the current UI, when you click on the quest name, it clears the current window and displays the information in place of the menus, which, from a usability standpoint, is actually no different from displaying the information in a new window.

And if I'm going to take the trouble to redesign the interface, I may as well fix everything I think needs fixing, and that includes correcting vague and cryptic terminology.

And as for displaying the "Not allowed under current allegiance" message, well if you haven't ever done any of the missions for the other nations, you'd need to have something there.

Why would you take the liberty of renaming Missions as "Main Quests" and Quests as "Side Quests?" What the hell is the point of that?

Because the distinction isn't clear. I'll explain below.

first rule of any interface design, K.I.S.S. keep it simple, stupid. or keep it stupid simple.

adding needless buttons or effects, or renaming things is a bad, bad idea.

While you're right about adding needless buttons or effects, you're completely wrong about renaming things. Renaming things isn't bad if the current name is vague and/or confusing, which is the case with missions and quests. The distinction between the two really isn't very clear at all, which can be very confusing for new players.

A mission is a task that is undertaken in order to secure or achieve something.
A quest is a task that is undertaken in order to secure or achieve something.

The two words are almost perfectly synonomous, and so new players to the game are not going to understand the distinction between them. Not to mention the fact that the game itself is really starting to blur the line between quests and missions, especially in the WotG expansion. But by simply changing the names to "Main Quests" and "Side Quests," the distinction instantly becomes crystal clear, even to a complete and total noob.

[Mirinika]

Under the current UI, when you click on the quest name, it clears the current window and displays the information in place of the menus, which, from a usability standpoint, is actually no different from displaying the information in a new window.

And if I'm going to take the trouble to redesign the interface, I may as well fix everything I think needs fixing, and that includes correcting vague and cryptic terminology.

And as for displaying the "Not allowed under current allegiance" message, well if you haven't ever done any of the missions for the other nations, you'd need to have something there.



Because the distinction isn't clear. I'll explain below.



While you're right about adding needless buttons or effects, you're completely wrong about renaming things. Renaming things isn't bad if the current name is vague and/or confusing, which is the case with missions and quests. The distinction between the two really isn't very clear at all, which can be very confusing for new players.

A mission is a task that is undertaken in order to secure or achieve something.
A quest is a task that is undertaken in order to secure or achieve something.

The two words are almost perfectly synonomous, and so new players to the game are not going to understand the distinction between them. Not to mention the fact that the game itself is really starting to blur the line between quests and missions, especially in the WotG expansion. But by simply changing the names to "Main Quests" and "Side Quests," the distinction instantly becomes crystal clear, even to a complete and total noob.

Common , I'm not even english and it took me about 1 second to understand the difference between a mission and a quest.

[miokomioko]

Renaming things isn't bad if the current name is vague and/or confusing, which is the case with missions and quests.

You just might be the only person who confused these two things.

Taking the liberty to replace terminology that has been in use and widely understood for years seems a little presumptuous.

[Rhianu]

Common , I'm not even english and it took me about 1 second to understand the difference between a mission and a quest.

Had you ever played any other FF games?

You just might be the only person who confused these two things.

Taking the liberty to replace terminology that has been in use and widely understood for years seems a little presumptuous.

Actually, I don't even remember whether I got them confused or not when I was new. It's been so long, I no longer remember what I had trouble with, and I'm guessing it's probably the same way with you guys. You've been playing so long, and you've become so accustomed to how the interface works, that you can no longer remember not understanding it.

Anyway, I've done a little more work, and come up with a new design for the map marker menus:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...r-redesign.gif

[Ivve]

Had you ever played any other FF games?



Actually, I don't even remember whether I got them confused or not when I was new. It's been so long, I no longer remember what I had trouble with, and I'm guessing it's probably the same way with you guys. You've been playing so long, and you've become so accustomed to how the interface works, that you can no longer remember not understanding it.

Anyway, I've done a little more work, and come up with a new design for the map marker menus:
[Image]

I agree that the pages of the marker menu should have labels, but there are already arrows present to indicate that there are multiple pages that can be turned. I never had to ask anyone how to rotate through my pages, but I still don't understand what SE's green markers are even used for. Aside from the initial introduction where the NPC marks the map for you and I assume the few NPCs present in some cities that will mark up your map with what they consider important landmarks, there's no reason to even have the page of green markers for the vast majority of zones. I think that's stupid. I'd like to have more than 10 markers, because there's no realistic reason that I can't take a pen and draw all over any map as much as I want IRL.

Also, I would love love LOVE party markers and alliance markers to be on separate pages, and for each page to be extended to hold 12 markers, as well as altering the maps to show 12 markers at a time. That way I can find stragglers/dead members/lost members of my party and alliance much more quickly. Right now it's incredibly hard to find one person that dies in sea when you have to be aware of all the true sight aggro around you, but you're fucking frozen in your map menu for 5 minutes flipping through 6 screens looking for that one fucking asshole who wasn't paying attention and got teabagged by the UFO.

[Amele]

I agree that the pages of the marker menu should have labels, but there are already arrows present to indicate that there are multiple pages that can be turned. I never had to ask anyone how to rotate through my pages, but I still don't understand what SE's green markers are even used for. Aside from the initial introduction where the NPC marks the map for you and I assume the few NPCs present in some cities that will mark up your map with what they consider important landmarks, there's no reason to even have the page of green markers for the vast majority of zones. I think that's stupid. I'd like to have more than 10 markers, because there's no realistic reason that I can't take a pen and draw all over any map as much as I want IRL.

Also, I would love love LOVE party markers and alliance markers to be on separate pages, and for each page to be extended to hold 12 markers, as well as altering the maps to show 12 markers at a time. That way I can find stragglers/dead members/lost members of my party and alliance much more quickly. Right now it's incredibly hard to find one person that dies in sea when you have to be aware of all the true sight aggro around you, but you're fucking frozen in your map menu for 5 minutes flipping through 6 screens looking for that one fucking asshole who wasn't paying attention and got teabagged by the UFO.

really what SE should've done was just given you a marker to draw on the map with...

a bitmap is a bitmap is a bitmap. they all take up the same disk space (Based on size) no matter what they look like.

[Tymon]

People DO play still play tetra master. I don't but I know some people that even have clans and stuff that play it regularly.

Anyway, they don't have to get rid of playonline. All you'd have to do is make bypassing it straight to FFXI an option. Log in to FFXI, or log into PoL. Not hard, they already have a FFXI icon that serves virtually no purpose as it does the same thing as the PoL one, why not?

[Darknightleo]

Didn't you hear? PS2 has limitations.

They can increase the size of the game files to accommodate that in theory. and also PS2 limitations isn't a real excuse, it's just SE saying "We're too lazy to do it."

[byte]

People DO play still play tetra master. I don't but I know some people that even have clans and stuff that play it regularly.

Anyway, they don't have to get rid of playonline. All you'd have to do is make bypassing it straight to FFXI an option. Log in to FFXI, or log into PoL. Not hard, they already have a FFXI icon that serves virtually no purpose as it does the same thing as the PoL one, why not?

The FFXI icon gives you a crystal on the main POL page which you can click on to get to the games splash screen rather than having to wait for the menu to load up then click games -> FFXI. The POL exe does not.