A Realm Reborn Items Menu

[Wolfie]

I was going to fully ignore this thread, but I cannot let this pass.
I am terribly sorry, but being an advocate of the usage of keyboard and mouse, I still say explode that stuff (not to use more colorful words) to icons. I find those really, really hard and anti-intuitive to navigate plus auto-sorting is non-existant to a suitable level, I much prefer lists.

There's no sorting feature that lists have that can't be implemented by a grid system. The underlying code that determines item order stays the same.

And since you brought this up, do you feel that your signature listing your class levels is unintuitive to read? Do you feel that since it's not a list, it's not sorted and people can't navigate it?

[Helius]

I thought it looked amazing compared to the crappy and slow one we're using right now...

[Lirion]

This is what Yoshida said in an interview and I agree 100%. I'm so glad some of you are not in charge of designing this game. Why try and reinvent the wheel when there is a standard that WORKS and works really well? There is a reason almost all the other MMO games on PC use it.

Could you please explain the basic goals for Mouse+Keyboard mode and gamepad mode?
Y: For Mouse+Keyboard mode it’s “Global Standard”. Basically when players from “World of Warcraft” and players from “RIFT” play Final Fantasy XIV they don’t have to check the keybind to play.

That’s bold idea and some will have negative comments for this one. They would say why didn’t you go with original.
Y: For this one I have a clear answer. I like FPS games and I play them a lot but no matter which game you play the key assign for fire is all same right? Having a original keybind doesn’t make the game fun. In a MMORPG moving from one to another is hard so in a game which you lived in 3 years, 5 years and moving from one country, depending on environment you have to move to a completely new planet and the stress when moving from one to another is very high. If the UI’s are same you won’t feel as much stress. In order to succeed in an MMORPG I believe that’s the minimum requirement. For mouse+keyboard movements there are standards and I believe changing it because it’s convenient isn’t the way to go every time.

[Skies]

There's no sorting feature that lists have that can't be implemented by a grid system. The underlying code that determines item order stays the same.

And since you brought this up, do you feel that your signature listing your class levels is unintuitive to read? Do you feel that since it's not a list, it's not sorted and people can't navigate it?

See, that's the thing. Right liek, 20s after I made that post I went on that spiel with my friends and I figured out I must be the only one to think this way.

But- The signature and the inventory have a single particular difference that makes, well, all the difference. The signature's elements are static, the level values might change (and heck, it was quite confusing when I changed signatures, because the other one's got bugged and I had to change styles), but there is nothing added or removed from it.

Now picture you having to stop after each and every battle to re-sort your bag because of loot.

Augh, that causes me nightmares. There is a single big problem with sorting on grids, the fact is that a grid is a GRID, which means it extends on the X and Y axis, so the next item on the list could either be to the right or below the item, both equally viable, both also end up 'wrapping over', causing possible confusion!

Also to the person who said I was used to it from XI... I... Actually never played that game. In fact I simply hate playing inventory tetris and hell, ALL of my computer is configured to show stuff in lists instead of icons, even did as much as I could with my desktop.
Other MMOs i've played included Ultima Online (the mother of bags in MMOs!), Ragnarok Online (which is essentially just one bag, does not uses a list) and City of Heroes (holy crap the salvage fucking tab, so awful, so fucking awful). So as you can see, all bags, all bad.

But i've resigned to believing i'm the only one who simply prefer lists, specially if they offer added details like spiritbind %, condition, materia and sell price without having to mouseover.

Regardless, the UI will be moddable, I WILL learn whatever language, even if it has to be goddamn assembler, and change it to my tastes, no need to be a bother to everyone simply because i'm in the minority here.

[Wolfie]

See, that's the thing. Right liek, 20s after I made that post I went on that spiel with my friends and I figured out I must be the only one to think this way.

But- The signature and the inventory have a single particular difference that makes, well, all the difference. The signature's elements are static, the level values might change (and heck, it was quite confusing when I changed signatures, because the other one's got bugged and I had to change styles), but there is nothing added or removed from it.

I meant more about being able to find something at a glance, even for someone who's not already familiar with the layout of your sig. Icons work because the human mind is able to correlate both pictures and words with concrete thoughts and concepts. After the initial learning phase of learning what the icon is, there is no problem finding something even in an unsorted grid (unless, of course, and I'm not trying to be offensive here, you have a disability that prevents that).

Now picture you having to stop after each and every battle to re-sort your bag because of loot.

Augh, that causes me nightmares. There is a single big problem with sorting on grids, the fact is that a grid is a GRID, which means it extends on the X and Y axis, so the next item on the list could either be to the right or below the item, both equally viable, both also end up 'wrapping over', causing possible confusion!

The underlying code for how the items are held in memory on the server does not change. Any kind of sorting that you do with a list will be available on a grid, including the autosort that we have now. Each slot in a grid is numbered as though it were an item on a list, and then the appropriate item is added to that slot when the sorting occurs.



The two dimensions that are presented to you on the front end are an illusion, because the items are going to be stored in a one-dimensional list/table/array on the backend.

[Felis]

We get mouse&keybord UI and a gamepad UI for PC. And we can change the UI with Add-Ons to our liking

We have options. Use the options if you don't like the default

[Keres]

That's cause they are the same icon minus the fist or wand underneath.

When the game shifts to an icon interface they will undoubtedly be better about making all icons look unique. There is mouseover popup help to tell you what everything is anyway.

What we've seen of 2.0 so far seems to show that they've redesigned a lot of the action icons, which is good. Too many of the weaponskill icons look almost exactly the same, which is something that I've disliked since beta. Icons -- action bar icons especially -- need to be visually distinct.

Hopefully item icons will get the same treatment.

[Skies]

The two dimensions that are presented to you on the front end are an illusion, because the items are going to be stored in a one-dimensional list/table/array on the backend.

Yes, I am aware.
It is an illusion is deeply dislike.

But as this one says

We have options. Use the options if you don't like the default

Which is what i'm going with! I'll just find my way, the beauty of having a customizable UI! One of the things i'm pretty excited about.

[TimonLoon]

As someone who designs UIs in one form or another quite often - the golden rule should always be "First, do no harm". Between cascading menus, non-optimal search algorithms, and failure to follow genre conventions, the 1.0 interface broke that rule in spectacular fashion. It may come as a surprise to some that the very last thing that dictates a good interface is how "good" it looks. That, of course, comes into play; but only after everything else has been dealt with.

As apposed to the 1.0 interface, the 2.0 interface looks quite well tuned to it's platform. Information is presented to the user in a compressed fashion without overloading them (I particularly like how they've compressed the equipment, stat allotment, and character info pages into one page). Similarly, everything response the way you would expect given the platform: context menus when right-clicking, drag-and-drop icons, hover-over tooltips. These are all things that people expect when using a mouse and keyboard. It has nothing to do with MMOs, or even games. It's learned behavior from years of day to day use on a computer.

Everyone will have personal visual preferences, but the ability to easily access controls - in this case items from your inventory - is ubiquitous and essential. What is "right" is entirely dependent on your platform. I would not be making this argument for the PS3, for instance. "Simplicity" depends entirely on user input. On a PS3, having a list-page like control makes more sense, given the absence of some 200 keys.

As for the problem of not being able to tell one log from another. The solution is deceptively simple: Don't make your players select items to craft. Design around your UI limitations and no-one will even notice they are there. If to craft an item, you just open a journal and select the thing you want to make and it starts the synth process as long as you have the materials, there's no need to hunt down the materials.

Honestly, between gearsets and the recipe book we've been promised, I don't foresee Inventories being used for much other than asking "how much space do I physical have on me?" Besides, while this is somewhat of a cop out, if you seriously want to be able to see the names of items next to them at all times (or even a list), it sounds like the user created content will be robust enough to allow you to make a mod that does that.

Quoting this again because people are still breathing through their mouths in this thread.

[Deceptistar]

I kinda agree too the UI on the new on looked kinda subpar... I was looking forward to the 2.0 but when i looked at the video carefully and saw the UI i could clearly feel my enthusiasm die down i tried to ignore it tho...

It's a pre-alpha build, it may not look the same after launch. Also, it's better than what we currently have imo.

those words ... since 2010... trauma >.>