Nope. If he was hired, then he wouldn't have had time to work on his UI renditions for Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Besides, I think DarN resides in Germany, meaning he wouldn't exactly be there to discuss things with the other devs considering the UI.

Also if they would hire him to make the UI then the ui would not look like it do now right?

I completely agree that we need a UI for the PC can can actually show inventory and minimap at the same time. It annoyed me to much, that not only did I have to scroll through 10 billion things in oblivion, but I also constantly had to switch between tabs because they apparently couldn't fit the darn map in a seperate window >:<

Yup.

So you assume that modders are unemployed?

Not employed at Bethesda? Yes.

I didn't say some of them don't have various other careers and such. It's just that game development requires a larger commitment and sacrificing of free time than other careers.

Anyway *pokes Bethesda*. I know consoles need huge signs, big buttons, huge texts, lots of tabs due to the limitations of the console. But please spend a week working on a good UI for the PC. Its not that much to ask for.

And while we are at it...
Dont forget to allow options and settings for PC (a few multiplat games lately seem to have forgotten that).
Thanks!

This is a lie, RPGs on the SNes and PSOne have better UI and generally no BIG gigantic buttons and text. All that for a 320x280 resolution.

I think the truth is that game developers don't know jack [censored] about UI and they actually don't use them either, they just look at them and check if they do what their design document says they are supposed to do. Nobody ever wonder if they are actually usable in the context of playing the game.

Judging from the way that the magazine describes the UI (looking up at the sky to view your skills, looking down at the ground to see the map) I really hope we won't have to go through a set animation that we can't skip through

Menus may be old, but they work, you press a button and you're in the inventory or the map. You don't have to sit through an unskippable animation every time!

He meant that the essantial was right there when you open the menus but if you want you can get into much more details

@Lord Grevious

I'm 100% sure that there will be animations and almost certain they wont be skip able but they will be almost as short as the tab switching in oblivion

yea that would be terrible :S

I support this. While it looked cool, I would rather have it all visible in one single screen instead of having to scroll through everything.

Todd Howard has become the bane of TES. When you think everything an RPG is about is a knight riding around on a horse killing things, and making a UI that looks like Itunes, something is terribly wrong.

I second this. Todd's explanations of things sounds like something a kid would come up with. He used to be fine, but ever since Fallout 3, I've slowly been losing respect for him.

Here's a paraphrased example of what I'm talking about.

Loyal Fan: So why include VATS in Fallout 3?

Good/Obvious Answer: To act as a throwback to Fallout's targeting and combat system, in which skills help to determine the outcome, while adding a modern twist to liven things up.

Todd Howard's Answer: Because body parts and gore flying in slow motion are [censored] awesome. I mean, who doesn't like that stuff?

I can't be certain who makes which descisions, so I can't really say whether or not I agree it's Todd's fault ^^

Haha!

I like Todd though, and I hope he will narrate demonstrational videos like he did for Oblivion (without advertising radiant AI this time ).

This is a valid point. Maybe there is a board of directors deciding the primary focus of the game or the target market, maybe there is a contract with Microsoft stating that it the PC version should never look superior to the console version. In any case, if one person stands up and claims responsibility for a project then they are the one who will take the flak, this is part of the job they signed up for and it is their decision to be either puppet or master.

You know what I don't get? Why Bethesda has to be hush hush about everything. I mean jeez, J.E Sawyer was all over this board and Something Awful after Fallout: New Vegas first showed itself, telling us stuff about the game, and why the team did something. Whereas here Bethesda'll only answer your questions in one of those bloody fan interviews in which they'll pick like 13 questions that have already been answered and answer only 7 worthwhile ones. I don't think Todd Howard has posted here in years.

And don't tell me the Meet the Devs thing is talking to the fans. That's pure fluff, not related to anything.

Obsidian is a much smaller game studio when compared to Bethesda. Usually, the much smaller a studio is, the more time they have to talk to fans and other people about things considering their games.

I would honestly love if Bethesda devs actually took time to talk to fans about why they did this or that, but since Bethesda has grown to basically the popularity of Bioware, it's more than likely not happening. I'm afraid the closest we'll ever get to Bethesda interacting with fans is the occasional post by Gstaff.

I couldn't believe it when I saw the new skill UI. Seriously, could they put less information on the screen? People do not like to scroll a million times to see the information they want. The skills should be stacked vertically rather than horizontally. The UI in the oblivion was bad (without mods) but this is even worse!

Well sadly devs tend to avoid their customers like the plague for some reason. Bioware is the only dev (large dev) where i have talked to a dev in a PM on their forum. Every one else you are LUCKY if they even read the forum. That is why i always go "wtf" when devs go "yeah we had customer feedback about this" Yet in ALL my years of gaming i have never received a "what do you think"?

Sure they cant read everything or post in every topic but some times its nice when a dev show is face and communicate with the community.




Well you dont sit 3-6 meters away from a snes right ? Yes but i can just pray that a dev or some high up guy or that some CM will forward this and bash their head (not to hard) abit and tell them how wrong their UI design is :'(. Sadly most of the time when they go out and show things in the press then it dont change alot of that thing (not always but most of the time).

They might read these forums but not reply, but still, I liked how in the FNV forums I frequently got a reply from one of the devs

True sadly i dont think we will ever know

Well, in the last Bethesda Podcast, Todd said that he enjoyed reading the speculation threads regarding The Elder Scrolls V. So he at least proved that he does read the forums occasionally.

As to what he reads whenever he gets on, that we'll never exactly know unless he plainly tells us (like he did in the Podcast).

Ah i have not looked at the podcasts are they any good?