SWTOR

[Draegan]

Copying UI elements from another game is way, way low on my list of "sins" a game can commit, yeah.

The only sin of copying a UI is if you steal the artwork.  You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

[Surlyboi]

Smuggler advanced classes get fleshed out. And you get a look at their ships and sidekicks too.

I like the idea of sidekicks, but I'm not sure I dig the fact that every one in a certain class has the same one. There should be some variety or option there.

[UnSub]

There should be some variety or option there.

I'm going to dye my Wookiee azure blue.

[Sjofn]

Copying UI elements from another game is way, way low on my list of "sins" a game can commit, yeah.

The only sin of copying a UI is if you steal the artwork.  You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

Yeah see, I can't even get that riled about that. "Oh no, the portrait is in a circle JUST LIKE IN WOW. BURN THEM!"

[Draegan]

Copying UI elements from another game is way, way low on my list of "sins" a game can commit, yeah.

The only sin of copying a UI is if you steal the artwork.  You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

Yeah see, I can't even get that riled about that. "Oh no, the portrait is in a circle JUST LIKE IN WOW. BURN THEM!"

I ridiculed Alganon for stealing everyone from wow, including the window art work.

[Sjofn]

Haha, well, that is something of a special case.

[tmp]

I'm going to dye my Wookiee azure blue.

Purple may be nice. Or pink, but purple has that special ring to it.

edit: btw their article on companions says "and each class has a completely unique set of Companions" and "you will be introduced to your first Companion Character early in your adventure. But as you become more seasoned, more will rally to your cause" so perhaps there's going to be some variety here actually? Unless that got changed.

[Sky]

You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

This falls down where many games adopt WoW's UI in places where EQ2's UI is far superior.

[Ingmar]

You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

This falls down where many games adopt WoW's UI in places where EQ2's UI is far superior.

Has it changed since release? Because I found EQ2's interface pretty bad personally. Tiny buttons + indistinct button art = annoyed Ingmar. (I have this problem with LotRO too.)

[Sjofn]

The main thing EQ2's UI has going for it is I can move anything anywhere whenever the fuck I feel like. But yeah, the icon art is way too samey same (I don't find their icons too small in their default state though, not like LotRO's) (LotRO's UI blows).

It's funny, as much as I make fun of Blizzard for all of the paladin icons being glowing hands or glowing hammers, I still find their icon artwork much better at looking distinct than anything else I've played.

[Sky]

Resizability, customizability is pretty awesome in the default EQ2 UI. Tiny buttons? Make them bigger (agreed on icon art, but it never bugged me). Resizing bags on the fly, both in cell size/padding and internal layout, is awesome. Also from the gameplay angle, it just felt the most (sorry to use this word) organic. The buttons and the refresh/recast vs wow's GCD, the queueing, etc.

I just felt there were a lot of options for control and they worked together to let me make a HUD that worked for different classes. Some tiny hotbars some big ones, some padded some not, some mouse-over only, etc.

I do like WoW's portraits with the health/mana bar area, though.

[eldaec]

You should be copying everything else if the UI is extremely well done.

This falls down where many games adopt WoW's UI in places where EQ2's UI is far superior.

Has it changed since release? Because I found EQ2's interface pretty bad personally. Tiny buttons + indistinct button art = annoyed Ingmar. (I have this problem with LotRO too.)

EQ2 had to have smaller buttons and it would always be harder for EQ 2 to have distinct buttons, because in EQ2 you had a reasonable number of spells/abilities on each character.

[Ingmar]

I didn't stick with it long enough to experience it for myself but wasn't everyone's complaint that the number of abilities was unreasonable, as in way too many?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I didn't stick with it long enough to experience it for myself but wasn't everyone's complaint that the number of abilities was unreasonable, as in way too many?

imagine kick, punch. spin kick, falcon punch, hurricane kick, uppercut punch, roundhouse kick, sucker punch and chop.

Now, imagine each one was so similar you couldn't tell which one to use.

Now, think of five different for each but 'levels' so you arent even sure to use punch2 or kick4

That was my eq2 experience

[Lantyssa]

Depends who you asked.  It was far too many abilities for my taste, but then I think WoW has too many.  GW is my comfort level, which ironically, has more total abilities than either.

[Lakov_Sanite]

wow has a lot and I think it borders on too many at max level but they all do wildly different things. (mages might has a lot of sameness with different versions of nuke) but I always found EQ2 to be 100 flavors of vanilla.

[Sjofn]

WoW depends on the class, some of them are pushing into "too many" and some of them are hovering around "just right" with only holy paladins getting up my nose with "too few." EQ2, and bear in mind I think my highest person was like level 18, was already dancing in the "too many" for me. I think the samey-same problem contributed to that though, I had like 5 different "use sword on man" type abilities that felt exactly the same. I'd rather spam 2 2 2 2 2 3 than have to do 1 2 3 4 5 6 to get the same basic effect, I guess.

[Lantyssa]

In that sense I like Vindictus, as you do combos to determine your attacks.  Still waiting to see how the mage plays though.

[eldaec]

I didn't stick with it long enough to experience it for myself but wasn't everyone's complaint that the number of abilities was unreasonable, as in way too many?

"everyone" is a pussy.

I only had around 60 spell lines on a defiler. Which I guess is about adequate.

[DayDream]

You know, I don't care a whole lot about the number of abilities I have.  But I'm absolutely sick of the number of abilities I get that are unbound to a usable key.  I need to be able to push buttons and have spells come out.  Swimming around trying to click on my 3rd hotbar from the left is absurd.  If your game is moving fast enough that I'm interested, then clicking is too slow.  As long as I have my movement fingers mostly free, I'm good, I don't care how complex you make it.

[Sjofn]

In that sense I like Vindictus, as you do combos to determine your attacks.  Still waiting to see how the mage plays though.

The warden (Warden? Shit, I think that's what they're called. The spear/shield class.) in LotRO is pretty nifty that way. You have your set up attacks and then your finisher, where your finisher changes depending on what set ups you hit, but it's always the same "finish" button instead of taking up three quickbars with specific buttons. So you have to remember stuff like, "The finisher I want is set up with red red yellow" or whatever (they get up to five), but the actual number of buttons staring at you is a lot more tolerable.

[Lantyssa]

I need to get higher than level 8, however I was enjoying the Warden before the f2p change.  Now if only I didn't have to shout so much...

[tmp]

The warden (Warden? Shit, I think that's what they're called. The spear/shield class.) in LotRO is pretty nifty that way.

So are the LotRO monsterplay classes which is one of reasons i really enjoy that aspect of the game. Think they get something like 10-15 abilities total? Can very much play with all useful stuff mapped to 1-5 keys, with shift/alt/ctrl modifiers for less used stuff.

[Surlyboi]

I didn't stick with it long enough to experience it for myself but wasn't everyone's complaint that the number of abilities was unreasonable, as in way too many?

imagine kick, punch. spin kick, falcon punch, hurricane kick, uppercut punch, roundhouse kick, sucker punch and chop.

Now, imagine each one was so similar you couldn't tell which one to use.

Now, think of five different for each but 'levels' so you arent even sure to use punch2 or kick4

That was my eq2 experience

Except spin kick usually replaced regular kick and hurricane kick usually replaced that. Granted, I generally only played melee classes, but it was all about just using your top abilities and not worrying about the rest. The only reason I could ever think of using the lower-level stuff was because a)You couldn't afford the plat to upgrade to the latest greatest, which renders that pretty much moot anyway. or b) You're laying waste to grey stuff that doesn't give XP anyway.

That said, I generally found WoWs dane animations to be better thought out than the combat animations, so maybe I'm not the best judge,

[Lakov_Sanite]

Granted it's been a while since I played eq2 but you're right. The problem lies when you have rank4 punch being better than your rank 1 uber punch, that's when things got silly and confusing. Also the whole idea of ability upgrades being drops can fuck right off.

[tmp]

Hmm, i've been skipping most of the info on this game to be honest, since from the glimpses i'd get to see it looked mediocre and pretty silly, coupled with set of most generic MMO mechanics plus i'm not exactly keen on the whole Star Wars thing to boot.

But i've browsed their info pages couple days back and i still think the same of it, yet have jedi consular and imperial agent all lined up in my mind and waiting for their playthroughs; and i can't wait.

there's something wrong with me

[Samprimary]

Like 80% of my apprehension over this game is over how bad the character animations look. That's it. The mechanics might be spot-on, but hell if we would know from the herpy derpy running and fighting animations.

[Surlyboi]

Sadly, I kind of agree. Maybe I've become shallow in my old age, but the character animations are by far, the biggest strikes against the game to me.

[Shrike]

+1 on the animations. It's the thing that stands out most to me when I watch videos.

Interestingly, the lightsaber melee actually looks fairly good, but the ranged combat animations are just painful to watch.

[Lantyssa]

Whatever else I might rip on, smooth animations matter a lot.  Moreso than textures and polygons.  It's the one specific "system" I wish games would steal from WoW.  (I think Free Realms does pretty good here as well.)

[Sheepherder]

Sadly, I kind of agree. Maybe I've become shallow in my old age, but the character animations are by far, the biggest strikes against the game to me.

The way shit animates and moves around is a pretty big deal.

[birdsguts]

I would agree that movement does add quite a bit to immersion and is important on a slightly higher level than textures and effects. I think humans might be a bit more sensitive to it for whatever reason (survival once upon a time?). When things move around awkward you either laugh or roll your eyes but what you don't do is empathize with characters or care about what is happening. We are keyed into body language in some pretty severe ways.

/1.5cents

[Surlyboi]

That's it. I really liked the animations in SWG, for all it's maligned (and in many cases, deservedly so) The mocap in the character animations was superb.

Before the dark times, before... NGE...

[Cyrrex]

I think humans might be a bit more sensitive to it for whatever reason (survival once upon a time?).

So any Rodians and Wookiees playing the game won't be bothered?

Kidding.  I know what you're saying.  You can fuck up the way Giant Vampire Rat King animates, because nobody will likely notice...but we are finely attuned to how other people are supposed to move and it sticks out like a sore thumb when it's off in any way.  This is why facial animations in video games is so fricking hard to pull off.

[Samprimary]

They should just even get the animations to be sufficient. As it is, they look remarkably amateurish, as though what we're seeing now is just a basic stand-in. Very little else done to improve the game's aura matters until they get the animations up to par.

I'm holding out hope that the current animations are largely stand-in. If it's purposeful design or 'thematic,' or they've convinced themselves that what their current animation teams have produced are good enough to go into the final product, I really hope that focus group testing and beta disabuse them of the notion early enough that they can overhaul the animations professionally. It really should be a priority.