A Realm Reborn Items Menu

[Wolfie]

It does if i want to play mostly with Controller only.

That's all I need to know. The controller/PS3 UI will be available on PC. Shut up and stop replying to this topic.

[Tiago]

/facepalm

FFXI came out for PS2 first. It is a direct port from the PS2 version to the PC version.

JP PS2- May 16th, 2002
JP Windows- November 7th, 2002

Well i was wrong then because ive never actually read how the JP release was, but that it was released 1 year pre-US version and 2 years pre-EU version. Still, they could just have changed into Item icon menu for PC - 6 months are enough to make an icon based menu i whould say, no? It worked good for all the 3 platforms, i've never heard anything against it and about it being slow.

[Hulan]

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.

[Tiago]

That's all I need to know. The controller/PS3 UI will be available on PC. Shut up and stop replying to this topic.

And how do you know about this? I want to read about it. Please link me up to it.

[Dawiichan]

Well i was wrong then because ive never actually read how the JP release was, but that it was released 1 year pre-US version and 2 years pre-EU version. Still, they could just have changed into Item icon menu for PC - 6 months are enough to make an icon based menu i whould say, no? It worked good for all the 3 platforms, i've never heard anything against it and about it being slow.

They could have done many things with the PC version. Though it doesn't change the fact that the Keyboard/mouse was not optimized the way it should be and one could easily notice that the controls favor a controller.

[Wolfie]

And how do you know about this? I want to read about it. Please link me up to it.

http://wdl.square-enix.com/ffxiv/dow...Outline_EN.pdf

Really dude? This has been known and posted for like a year.

[Estellios]

Even with a gamepad being able to move across a grid will be a lot faster than scrolling up and down a list. It's starting to really get to me how annoying moving up and down a list is and I played FF11 with a gamepad for like 7-8 years.

Re: Icons, information will undoubtedly pop up when your cursor is over an item and if you are wanting to look at your item list at a glance its easier to see when everything is laid out and visible for you. Like Hulan brought up, crafting is going to be done by selecting recipes instead of selecting the item out of the list removing the only real issue with any items that may look similar to each other.

[Felis]

It doesnt look bad, just XI is better to search for items, etc. On crafting for example, i mostly search for the items names and add it to the craft menu. On the new system i'll have to look at all the (for example ) Logs to find the Oak for my crafts, and if Retainers menu are the same, i'll have alot of icons to search for it instead of just search their names...

No, you don't have to find the oak in your inventory to craft with 2.0
You only have to find the recipe in your recipe book
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post567971

And the bags support manual sorting, by the way ^^
and the inventory size is 100 items (4 bags with 25 slots each) with 2.0

We have only seen the mouse&keyboard UI. I can't wait to see the gamepad UI ^^

[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.

^ Nail in the coffin right here. No further posts are necessary in this crappy thread.

[Chinook]

I prefer lists over icons personally, though the current item lists could have used different tabs and other features.

If today's standards are icons and that's what the majority of gamers like, then I'm fine with it.