» Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:58 pm I have some concerns about the UI going to be used in Skyrim for pc. There are 3 key thing that will improve the UI with out making things worse for others that did not have any issues with past UI's, less load times,more hotkeys(map and journal specifically) and more information on screen. Based on what we know so far and things Beth has done in there two most recent games I am worried about these 3 main concerns.
Many of the new articles said many positive things about the UI manly that it was beautiful, but beautiful is not the point. Function is, it will only take a few hours to get use to how cool it looks, and then function will be all that matters. Look at Fallout for example, at first I thought oh cool I am looking at my pip boy neat. But after a few hours only its flaws did I notice. Only half the screen was used for the UI. It took a half second to load because of the animation were you have to look at your wrist, unlike the instant UI with MW or close to that with OB. So when you had to go into your UI, to check you map there was a short load time, same on exit. Going in and out of you UI multiple times in a short period was very annoying because of this delay.
Also, There was not a single button to access your quests or the map,the F keys only getting you closer at times, not always right to were you wanted to go, so there was a lot of unnecessary button pressing. OB has similar issues. And because of the wasted screen space and use of a list view instead of a grid view, there was a lot of scrolling needed to see everything and this is with DarnUI Mod installed. Speaking of mods that was the worse part of FO UI because of its special look it was not moddable to the extent OB's was, were a grid system(or better list view if you prefer that) could be added and the map could be expanded to use the screen space much better, unlike Fallout.
Now again with Skyrim, there may be a delay in acsessing the UI i.e instead of looking at your wrist like the pip boy you look at the sky or the ground, a wasted half second and very annoying when your going back and forth between your map,etc, its sounds like because of the imbedded menus that the screen space might not be used well(I.e you won't be able to see very much information at one time), and we don't know yet if there will be a one button hotkey for the map and journal like MW, both are things needed to be accessed all the time.
I play on a pc, pc's use windows, which can be resized to your needs, MW had a pc interface. That was simple and did the job(tough it had some issues as well). I don't mind a nice looking UI, things like the Total War style map sound neat, but I worry that the fancy look will just impede usability like Fallouts Pip-Boy UI did, I don't know yet if SR will do that, but Beth's recent track record is not good on pc UI's. I hope I am wrong.
Right now I don't know enough to judge, I am just expressing my concerns.
What do you pc users think of what they have heard or about the trend Beth has been on since MW for User Interface's?
I am noticing something interesting, most people agree that longer load times are worse than shorter ones, that removing hotkeys is a bad idea and more information on screen is a good idea. There has yet to be a person that seem to disagree with the concept in principle, only those that don't care or are not bothered by such things. If this is the case, then it would be good to see these idea taken into consideration by Beth. As the players that currently don't care won't be affect and most that do could end up with a better UI. Beside that UI mods are very popular and even Beth themselves have admitting to having problems with the pc UI.
