The Elder Scrolls Online

[Paelos]

No, it's delayed. They wanted this thing to start making money ASAP, but they've realized that if they release a PC version early, it will smoke their console sales when it proves to be recycled SWTOR garbage.

[WayAbvPar]

They need the time to consoleize the interface to make the PC experience as completely shitty as possible.

[Hoax]

I wish they were selling lifetime subs to this game. What a piece of shit.

[Paelos]

They need the time to consoleize the interface to make the PC experience as completely shitty as possible.

If there's one thing Elder Scrolls is known for, it's a solid UI experience. 

[Goreschach]

I thought it was most known for being the only game series that the users have to finish developing.

[Ingmar]

Neither of those criticisms are true of Skyrim, the default UI was perfectly functional and it doesn't need any other modding at all.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Not sure if serious....

[WayAbvPar]

Can't be, since the default UI is what made me stop playing after 4 hours.

[Falconeer]

Skyrim's UI was terrible, on the PC. Sure it can be played and enjoyed, after all some of us grew up playing games in the 80s, but it was ridiculous especially for a game of that scope and budget. Skyrim's inventory is what I mention in any discussion about bad UIs and idiotic design.

[rk47]

delaying MMO release is never a bad thing.
It's when they release too early it can fuck it up badly.

[satael]

delaying MMO release is never a bad thing.
It's when they release too early it can fuck it up badly.

Delay means that someone has mucked up the development schedule and it's very very rare that something is delayed so long that they can actually fix everything.

[amiable]

Skyrim's UI was terrible, on the PC. Sure it can be played and enjoyed, after all some of us grew up playing games in the 80s, but it was ridiculous especially for a game of that scope and budget. Skyrim's inventory is what I mention in any discussion about bad UIs and idiotic design.

Yeah this.  I like to play Skyrim unmodded to get the "pure" experience, but I always, always have skyUI loaded, for my own sanity.

[Paelos]

Neither of those criticisms are true of Skyrim, the default UI was perfectly functional and it doesn't need any other modding at all.

 

[Ironwood]

I've always used the default and, to be brutal, it's never really been an issue.  Ugly, sure, but not a huge pain in the ass to use.

I may look up better ones now.

[Jherad]

Yeah, the default isn't completely terrible. But SkyUI is a big big improvement. I couldn't go back.

[Dren]

I'll have to try that.  I play vanilla, but inventory management was always my biggest complaint.  One of my sons loves to play still so he'd probably get the most out of it.

[ajax34i]

My issue is that I've found it impossible to play any of the TES games without, at the very least, increasing magicka to 500.  In all their games, high level spells cost way more mana to cast that the game seemed to make available vanilla.  Like 3-4 times more.

An MMO would prevent me from modding the game to make it playable for me.

[Ingmar]

I'm completely serious. Other than some occasional funkiness with selecting the wrong conversation choice, Skyrim's default UI is perfectly usable on the PC.

Now, for Oblivion, that's not true, certainly.

[Paelos]

I'll put that in the 4,356th file folder of "Shit Ingmar and I don't agree on."

[schild]

The Oblivion UI was not good, but it was fine. I never had to fight with it, and I'm a UI nazi.

[rk47]

I'll have to try that.  I play vanilla, but inventory management was always my biggest complaint.  One of my sons loves to play still so he'd probably get the most out of it.

You can sort by item type, item value, even filter the stolen items, sort by highest attack value.
I can't possibly go back to that shit UI after what they've done with SkyUI.
Don't know why people wanna torture themselves.

[lamaros]

Skyrim UI wasn't great, but it was perfectly useable.

[Threash]

I'm sure if i installed a UI mod i would go "yup, this is much better" but the UI was never bad enough that i set out to find a replacement.

[Falconeer]

Again, "usable"? Sure, everything is usable once you get used to it. No matter how bad a UI is, once you get used to it, it's usable. Case in point, old games.

Now please show me why, in the second decade of the third millennium, the Skyrim way is a good decent acceptable way to deal with an RPG inventory.

I guess when so many things are fantastic in a game people tend to give the shitty aspects a pass.

[Draegan]

As far as UIs go, it was shit. Really shit. Was it usable? Sure. Did I often skip doing things during play because I didn't want to have to deal with it? Yes. Did it prevent me from playing the game? no.

[Paelos]

Again, "usable"? Sure, everything is usable once you get used to it. No matter how bad a UI is, once you get used to it, it's usable. Case in point, old games.

Now please show me why, in the second decade of the third millennium, the Skyrim way is a good decent acceptable way to deal with an RPG inventory.

I guess when so many things are fantastic in a game people tend to give the shitty aspects a pass.

Yes, that's my take on it as well. We're 5 iterations into this game or whatnot, and the best we can say about the UI is it's "usable"? This isn't some small studio who makes games in a basement. They should have this shit together by now. It's a failure in my book when a game that sells that well can't get the simplest of functions right.

Again, why is the paper doll so horrible to these people? Why must we "equip" items in a menu and not on a visual representation that makes sense. Why is sorting and selling so horrible?

[Bunk]

- open window one
- select Tab for type of item/magic
- locate desired item in long list by scrolling through
- set desired item as a favorite
- close window one
- open window two
- locate desired item by scrolling through favorite list
- select hot key for item
- close window two

Congrats, you've hot-keyed one weapon! What could be more straightforward and intuitive than that?

[Ironwood]

Yeah, the favourite system is utterly retarded, but it's console retarded, so what can you do ?

Does SkyUI or whatever make that better ?

[ajax34i]

SkyUI changes the lists of items to be sortable lists of items AND their stats.  So you don't have to hover over an armor piece to see its weight, value, weight/value, type, armor rating, etc.

As far as favorites, it's unable to work around the 8 hotkeys max, and marking things as favorites THEN assigning hotkeys in a different window.  However, they have added F1-F8 functionality where you can have groups of favorites, or outfit sets, or potion sets, that you can activate with a keypress.  It's effectively doubled the number of hotkeys.  Before, I had 1-4 as various Destruction spells, 5-6 as heals / armor spells, and 7-8 potions.  Now I have 1-8 Destruction attacks, F8 I drink a whole bunch of potions, F7 switch to a sneaking clothing set + Illusion spells ready, F6 - F1 various combos of utility spells (one per hand).

It's not great, and they've embedded the core UI functionality too deep for SkyUI to really fix it, but for most people the fact that the stats are listed with the items now, and sortable, is why they can't go back to the standard interface once they've used SkyUI.

[Ingmar]

Again, "usable"? Sure, everything is usable once you get used to it. No matter how bad a UI is, once you get used to it, it's usable. Case in point, old games.

Now please show me why, in the second decade of the third millennium, the Skyrim way is a good decent acceptable way to deal with an RPG inventory.

I guess when so many things are fantastic in a game people tend to give the shitty aspects a pass.

95 times out of 100 I never felt like the UI was interfering with me, and it was clean and stayed out of the way for the most part. It certainly didn't get anywhere near 'unacceptable'.

EDIT: I actually don't particularly care for paper dolls - especially in a game where you can't see yourself most of the time anyway. They're nice enough for games where you're trying to get your look right because other people will see you or you'll have to look at yourself all the time, but for a game like Skyrim, a paper doll would be bloat.

[Venkman]

I was ok with the UI, except inventory management. Not so much my character's, but all the other places I needed to stash stuff. It was designed for console for sure, but then, this kind of UI is one of the reasons I avoid console versions if a PC one is available. Too many different UI modes when so much could be combined.

If it was because of immersion, sure, I could get behind that in the same way I was fine with default UO UI elements. Having to organize visually and spacially is fine if there's a reason. I'm also one of those that didn't hate the Diablos' inventory management system. Not realistic, but certainly more so than having what you can carry be only restricted by weight. I appreciate the attempt to add some additional variables to it.

[Teleku]

Go ahead and add me to the list of people who were fine with Skyrims UI.  Put plenty of hours into the game and had no real problems with it.  It was there, it worked, and never got between me and the game.

[Xuri]

For me the Skyrim UI is (I still play) horribad for mouse and keyboard use. It's pretty, but slow and I don't find it very userfriendly overall. I've learned to live with these issues though (or work around them with mods). One thing I haven't been able to find a fix for though, is a better way of making conversation choices, because when selecting them with the mouse you don't always get the one you try to cllick on.

[ajax34i]

I'm on the list of people who found the hassle of installing SkyUI much smaller than the hassle of using the "it's fine" standard interface after about a minute of using it.

RE: conversation choices, I always scroll down the options with the mouse wheel to make the choice I want be at the < arrow, and THEN click on it.  But, there's a mod to try to fix the issue, apparently.

[Ingmar]

If SKSE was available from the Workshop I'd be a lot more inclined to at least give SkyUI a try.