I don't play games on a console myself; I prefer playing on a PC. My principal reason, aside from my own abilities at coding and tweaking on that platform, is the wealth of input devices and applications available, which provide a huge space for users to create their own physical and logical UI.

Obviously many input devices are available for PC's which offer reconfigured keys and buttons. (My favorite is the expensive but unequaled http://www.chproducts.com/retail/mfp.html from CH Products) Many of these also provide GUI's or scripting environments for more finely grained customization, and there are yet more standalone options (eg AutoHotkey) which can be used for far-reaching customization of game input.

Once the time and / or money has been invested in selecting from these tools and devices and setting them up, it's sheer torture to return to a plain old keyboard and mouse for game input, yet even that comparatively primitive combination offers vastly more options for interface input than console controllers.

Now, I have great respect for the clever UI designers who have squeezed from the limitations of console controllers well-crafted UI's. Nonetheless, when multi-platform games force PC users to live with the same limitations enforced by console hardware, because the UI has not been redesigned with PC's in mind, the sacrifice forced on PC players is both nonsensical and maddening.

Truly, a robust hotkey system is not difficult to incorporate into a game. By robust I mean that it leverages the standard input hardware of the PC (and, by extension, the many aftermarket devices and tools available for the PC) to provide the user with options commensurate with the number and variety of keys and buttons available on a standard keyboard and mouse. Modal keys (Control, Alt, etc.) are great, and multiply the number of key layouts usable by a player significantly. They also come in both left- and right- versions. Yet too many games ignore the multiplicative power of hotkeys, or do not provide differentiation between, for example, left-shift and right-shift. It's true that pressing right-shift is difficult with one hand when that hand is anchored in the WASD portion of a keyboard (though no more difficult than pressing, say, F9, which often is a hotkey option in such games). However, the aftermarket devices and tools discussed above make the physical layout of standard keyboards purely optional. Keys can be reassigned, or have been moved into a more ergonomic arrangement, etc. So enabling a robust selection of hotkeys and combinations actually empowers users to customize their own interface far beyond the limits of a standard keyboard, let alone a console controller. (When you get right down to it, ANY key can be used as a modal key; this functionality is not difficult to include in any game.)

Of course, letting the user select from a robust set of hotkeys and combinations is wasted if few in-game events can be hotkeyed. So let me get right down to it: please give us PC users more than a "favorites list" for items and spells, scrollable with a d-pad. Let us hotkey them, many of them.

I realize that the 'ready spell, THEN cast spell' system used for Oblivion may have been designed with gameplay in mind, and not just console-input-device-limitations. I can't fathom that any PC user would not prefer, however, to use instead one of the spell hotkey mods available for Oblivion, which allow a spell to be cast with one step, rather than two.

So. Let us hotkey the World Map. And the Local Map. And twenty, no, 30 spells. And as many swords, cuirasses, staves, scrolls, shouts. Let us hotkey them with Left Control - Right Alt - F12. Let us hotkey a ridiculous number of things. Because we will, and enjoy the game more, with less pausing, and scrolling, and clicking.

PC's are great. Let's use em to their full potential.

P.S. This is a longshot, but nonetheless: Have you considered http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/ compatibility?

Create a console command for key mapping. Bind/Unbind.
No expensive reworking of a system.

Problem Solved!

This isn't really about PC interface, more about interface for PCs with expensive peripherals...

Shift & control are probably unusable because they're usually bound to stuff like sprint and sneak. I can't reach 1 on my keyboard with one hand when pressing right shift but I can hit 0 when pressing left shift.
PCs are getting a minimum of ten hotkeys. Short cuts to menus are of course in, J for journal, M for map, I for inventory etc.
Support for peripherals that only a vast minority has isn't cost-effective.

Yeah I really hate how they only give us 1-9 for keybinds. I can't even reach anything past 5 comfortably so they might as well not even exist. I'd rather have 1-5, Shift+1-5, Ctrl+-15, Alt+1-5 at my disposal. Who cares if sprint is bound to shift and sneak is bound to ctrl? If you're pressing Ctrl+1 you aren't hitting only Ctrl. You're hitting whatever is bound to Ctrl+1 which would likely be a spell.

While they're at it I'd enjoy a UI and menu system that took advantage of the PC's resolution, the distance the player has from his face to the monitor, and the simplicity and ease of the mouse. That screenshot where I saw a star lit background and like 6 skills going from left to right was a gigantic waste of screenspace. Likely built around with consoles in mind forgetting that people play these games on the PC too. I should be able to see as much information on the screen that can fit as possible. Like Morrowind... where I click once and can see EVERYTHING! The guilds I'm in, my stats, my skills, everything in my inventory (no scrolling around searching), my spells, and even the map. I can even stick certain windows on the screen permanently if I want them. Like the spell list or the map if I'm lost. Why did all this functionality get downgraded and removed for the sequel?

So you would enter and exit every time you want a spell from the Ctrl row?

Noooooooo...

You couldn't see everything at once in Morrowind without scrolling. You HAD to scroll down to look at your guilds, you HAD to switch around every inventory category to see all of your inventory, and have I mentioned how spells were an unorganized mess?

Seriously, Morrowind has a really bad UI... why is everyone praising it?

Enter and exit what? You won't enter stealth as long as 1 was pressed with Ctrl. Don't be daft. It's the same reason you don't press whatever was bound to 1 when you hit what was bound to Ctrl+1. If the idea bugs you so much for some nitpicky non-existent excuse like that then just bind sprint to Z and sneak to C or X.



Uhh what backwater 640x480 resolution did you play the game in? It had an amazing and customizable UI if you didn't like it the only one to blame is you for not setting it up right. I guess you prefer traversing through mazes of menus and scrolling through a continuous barrage of lists to get around huh? Or the Fallout 3 approach where we limit the entire menu system to a tiny little screen on your characters arm.

So you can press two buttons at the same time without pressing the other even for a second earlier... good for you.

Also, it's easier to press ctrl than C or X...

Scaling doesn't change the fact there's no All category, it dosen't change the fact that spells are still not orgainzed, it doesn't change the fact that you have to hover over every item to find the one you're searching for, it doesn't change the fact that you still can't organize all the menus in one screen without making one screen too small...

And yes, I'd rather have some parts of the menu in different pages, taking the entire screen.

I would love to see TrackIR support in Skyrim!

Would make it very immersive!

We don't care

Is this about PC interface or expensive peripherals?

"Expensive" is, of course, relative, but I take your point. I think many PC users have not chosen to customize their physical / logical interface not because of the expense, but because they do not realize the magnitude of the benefit. The discussion above points this out. You can only easily reach the 1 through 5 keys? What if, when pressing Alt+1, the game received 6 as input? Has it ever ocurred to you that the thumb, with its wide range of motion, is wasted on the single, large space bar key? Consider abandoning WASD for OKL; -- then the thumb can easily choose between SPACE, RightAlt, RightWindows, and the App Key. Those can all be remapped to other keys, and reassigned as desired. This configuration also gives the pinky five keys to easily reach, which could be used as modal keys, without stretching absurdly to hit LeftAlt from the WASD position. You can do all of this, and much more, or much differently, with a free utility, http://www.autohotkey.com/.

My point is not that the PC UI should be designed with interface customizers in mind, and certainly not with the well-heeled customizers in mind. By simply letting us reassign the 'run' key, for example, those who prefer to run with LeftShift (or with Mouse 3, or whatever) instead of LeftControl are accomodated. Also accomodated, for free, as it were, are those who elect to customize their PC interface with tools designed to appear to PC applications as a normal keyboard, though they are very different, more flexible, or more powerful than a normal keyboard. Allowing hotkeys to be freely reassigned is easy to include in any game, and adheres to the basic principles of UI design that any interface professional should be aware of. See the iconic http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html, specifically, "Flexibility and efficiency of use." Or Theo Mandel's excellent book on the subject, which lists in Chapter 5, "http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ABxvpxmVdFkJ:www.theomandel.com/docs/Mandel-GoldenRules.pdf+user+interface+rules&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShMEjwme8LKiEAmPLQKAIqTN2B96NYHaCoyA42GjPOuRWfS2uk-RE86CxGd-3advqDu2cI2KOgpQ1oVIICUfFnTsgH5mTogrBprWB5CDeyQfZImO4nHc68Iafgd0pUQGiCUQji-&sig=AHIEtbS4oq6MdAYYeWiyfvWWTEZ1APTOIQ," the central tenets of the field. First on the list is "Place users in control of the interface."

One of the characteristics of the PC platform is the diversity of hardware and software options. Some of these options are "expensive," some are inexpensive, and some are free. Many can be used to make game interfaces more personal, and games vastly more enjoyable. Releasing a PC version of a game with this diversity on mind is hardly ill-advised, but all that's required for a great deal of customization is a standard keyboard and a game version that allows its flexible use.



Using a combination of nearly simultaneous key presses to leverage few keys into many logical keys is called "chording." There are interface devices designed around the concept, but again, purchasing one is hardly necessary. They can be implemented logically, indeed, already have been, with AutoHotkey. There must be some delay between the physical activation of a key and sending its vanilla input, to allow for the possibility that another key in a "chord" will be pressed, altering the intended input. Of course, striking multiple keys will never be "simultaneous" (as if simultaneity actually existed in the real world). The delay is on the order of 50 milliseconds, and varies with the user, which may or may not be acceptable to gamers, depending on the game. Anyone who wants to play around with such a system should do a search for "chording" on the AutoHotkey forums, where they will find scripts posted.



That's all well and good, but how flexible are those hotkeys? Can they use modal keys? Can they use more than one modal key? Such flexibility provides much more room for users to make a phyiscal UI that suits them, and is dead simple to include. But why only 10 (or possibly only 10)? Allowing 10 or 20 more is, again, trivially easy.



This is exactly the point. What one user finds easiest, most sensible, most efficient, is hardly guaranteed to agree with every other user, and a small team of interface designers.

A word about AutoHotkey, the most powerful, free tool available for altering keyboard input:
It has no GUI, just a script. Nonetheless it's very simple to use for simple things, like reassigning keys. It is also very powerful, and can use commensurately complex scripts. With it you can assign hotkeys with any number of freely chosen modal keys, use timers, detect onscreen images and colors, create your own GUIs, and more. It does not work with every game (Fallout 3 is a notable example of incompatible titles, as it uses DirectX for all its input) but provides different methods of sending input, so the vast majority of games are compatible.

A word about TrackIR:
This one falls into the "expensive" category for most, I'd say. It's most popular among flight-sim people, who tend to be older and have more disposable income. Basically it provides a touch of virtual reality, by letting you control your in-game perspective by simply turning your head, freeing manual controls for all the other things you need to do in game. As an above poster said, it does make things a lot more immersive, not to mention efficient, control-wise. TrackIr compatibility is built into many flight and racing sims, but not much else, unfortunately. As said above, adding this to Skyrim would not be cost-effective, as it would benefit few (very happy) users.

Well seriously, Oblivion has a really bad UI... why is you praising it? :teehee:
Don't be so radical Bukee because even if Oblivion have some inbuilt filters will not make vanilla oblivion UI automatically best UI it still have flaws but even more it also has axed good features like so needed spell delete button, inventory sorting in vanilla is also flawed with scripts there can be done much better sorters and such sorters was available for Morrowind also, vanilla UI has ridiculously large and clunky elements so thats decrease informative accessing value of UI as well obscures view, vanilla UI has bad scaling while Morrowind has it in much less problematic way.
I see only few food features in Vanilla Oblivion UI and most useful from them is ability to edit and improve it with mods
Oh well why I even need describe such facts for you if there is actual dates for this
BTmod by bieder Uploaded 08:26, 24 March 2006 four days after release of Oblivion in NA at the same day when EU version was released, this mod was even mentioned by devs as example of good mods they are use by self.
Best example of UI for Oblivion thats really beat Morrowind UI is DarNified UI with addition mods, not clunky, slow and unpractical thing what is used as UI for vanilla Oblivion.

My own issue is that consoles and PCs aren't just different in the number of buttons. Controllers and mice are good for completely different kinds of things. Overarching UI design decisions based on assuming a joystick and/or triggers constantly being under your fingers almost always translate poorly to a mouse and keyboard setup. There's no reason to believe it will be so bad this time around, but considering Oblivion UI issues (and I had issues with Morrowind's UI as well) I think it would be good to have some clarity.

Having an extensible UI markup and binding language would be cool for folks with obscure controller preferences, but I'm not sure that sacrificing large amounts of development resources so that Bob can wire the game to be controlled by the dashboard of his vintage Delorean would necessarily be a wise management decision. I'd rather see an efficient and effective quest log/journaling system. Or even spears, dammit.

A robust keybinding system that takes additional peripherals into account seems doable without excessive effort, but don't expect a guarantee that it will work with any particular device.

I'm not...

I just tend to say that Oblivion UI wasn't THAT bad, but maybe because I lowered my expectations from truly bad console port UIs...
And DarN UI doesn't fix most of the problems that has been mentioned here. It mainly adds smaller font, which is a big help (I probably gotten used to it a bit too much, now I don't remember the vanilla size...), but it still doesn't add hotkeys to other parts of the menu, there are still the same number of tabs all of them taking an entire page showing parts of your stats and inventory. I know DarN UI in fallout changed the stat screen to show everything in one page...

My only problem is when people are praising Morrowind's UI because... well, it wasn't good.

... and I know this isn't really on topic, but what the hell...

I rather take it for granted that lessons have been learned from the shortcomings of previous TES UIs, as well as excellent, popular mods, and other RPG games. A far greater danger, I think, is that the UI will be designed for consoles, with smaller resolutions, greater distance between viewer and screen, and a paltry number of controls, and NOT redesigned for the PC version. Compared to the work required in crafting plot, polishing the engine, creating art, balancing gameplay, etc., reconfiguring the UI for a much different platform is inexpensive and easy. And the popularity of interface mods for Oblivion demonstrates how important a well-designed UI is to TES purchasers.

The beauty of the market for interface devices and apps is that no account of that market must be taken. They are all designed to mimic standard keyboards and mice. All they require is bindable hotkeys designed with a standard keyboard and mouse in mind. Some design decisions can break compatibility with this or that tool; this is the nature of the PC platform, with its multifarious techonologies, designers, and fabricators. But when one tool fails, another will suit, which is also the nature of the platform.

A robust keybinding system goes a long way to ensuring that interface elements suitable for "triggers constantly being under your fingers" works as well for PC as for console. When you can reassign keys you can move your hand to any position on the keyboard and select your own hotkeys. Good selection of modal keys, I find, is the key to putting all your hotkeys constantly under your fingers. Now, games that are designed for an anolog joysticks are a bit more of a problem for PC's, it's true.

I agree that devoting a large amount of development resources to ensuring compatibility with obscure devices is undesirable for most. I also agree that it's simply unnecessary to please most, who can do alot with a standard keyboard and mouse, and even more if they choose to invest a little time in learning this script or that GUI.

Actually there's plenty that mimic neither. Joysticks are directional only, possibly with acceleration information. They are not like keyboards or mice. Six-axis controllers are even more different. Even trackpads are not directly anologous to mice, although the difference is easy to adapt to. Then there's the folks that got their wii-mote working on their PC using Bluetooth...

If all you're talking about is various takes on the 'more buttons' or 'lets make a mouse but weirder' concepts, sure thats easy and straightforward, I don't even think Bethesda has to do anything to support that, its in the drivers that came with your peripheral. Anything that isn't standard, would be an issue.

one thing i would like them to do is make use of 5 button mice. ive got two extra buttons on the side of my mouse that virtually no games take advantage of unless i map them myself and that doesnt always work. those types of mice are common enough and super cheap enough now that it should be a requirement at this point.

I'm already bummed out over attacking by clicking either the left or the right mouse button and blocking by clicking both buttons at once. In fact, nothing I have read about the interface -- from zoomable rotatable items, to the method for checking your skill progression, to wielding a sword in one hand and a blade in the other, to the technique for viewing the map, to the map itself -- has had me thinking, "Good idea!" The only feeling I have about the interface so far is a gloomy feeling of uh oh.

So a PC elitist has to down size th controller again?

Well, good luck....?