Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Why devs are so afraid of proper UI today?

Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
999
Times change. People get old and fat. Ain't nobody with a job and family to provide for got time for that clunky UI. This is why only retards with a couple braincells to rub on a septic tank are the only people playing video games anymore. Let alone "propah" RPGs
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath
Because ol game UI is shit and having everything on the screen was more of a gamplay thing than design.

When you play old blobbers the focus is never about whats on the screen. You can replace all the presentation with excel sheet sgowing changes in number and it would be fine because the focus was on change in number and turn based movement on a grid (which you need to make the map manually even).

As game changed from turn based to real time implementations, it is critical that you keep players focus on whats happening on the screen.

Aestethic wise, as more importance is put on graphic, your "proper UI" is a hinderance and an eyesore. Heck even mid-late 90s RPG say IWE and BG has simpler UI than 80s blobber UI.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
Reposted by popular demand:

That sure is how you made a UI in 1987.

This is how a UI was made in 1987
:
VehXEyN.jpg


Though not perfect, Dungeon Master's UI was not only extremely innovative for its time but also significantly better than the UI of most RPGs released since then. If anything, UIs have suffered a regression in design in the last decade or so.
 

Ocelot570

Educated
Joined
Aug 13, 2017
Messages
55
So many UI fags have nothing better to complain about in a game. Sure it sucks but who cares find something else to complain about. I swear to YHWH that all the mouth breathers have nothing better to complain about in their uninteresting and pedantic lives...
 

ItsChon

Resident Zoomer
Patron
Joined
Jul 1, 2018
Messages
5,381
Location
Երևան
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I like my UIs to be well optimized, simple in nature, and relatively clutter-free. Underrail had a good UI, and so did the IE games once you eventually figured out how everything worked. Don't get 90% of the complaints these UI-fags have.
 

Mark Richard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2016
Messages
1,192
C'mon now. Inquisition was panned for its UI. Don't try passing it off as the norm.

All of those were widely acknowledged as having bad UIs.
How many more examples do you need? That's all the Triple A RPGs. If we go outside of RPGs there's Battlefront 1, Battlefront 2, Battlefield V, For Honor, etc. So many major releases have the same jarring social media aesthetic. It's especially weird to see period-specific games with these shiny minimalist menus. Modern interfaces are generally functional (and nothing else), whereas older games had an almost borderline insane thematic dedication. If you ask me they had the right idea. There's a middle ground somewhere, but everything from the inventory to the loading screens should be selling the game's world.
 
Last edited:

Makabb

Arcane
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
Messages
11,753
Not even mentioning that in 80's and 90's every game had original soundtrack created for it.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I like my UIs to be well optimized, simple in nature, and relatively clutter-free. Underrail had a good UI, and so did the IE games once you eventually figured out how everything worked. Don't get 90% of the complaints these UI-fags have.
Yeah, good UI isn't that hard to do.
Don't waste space - you can always look at Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3+ and Mass Effect 3 for how NOT to do that.
Don't waste time - information should be accessible by as few clicks/key presses as possible and not hidden behind 3 sub-menus.
Show only most important information in the "main" view - more space for the important thing, the actual game.
Make it thematically fitting (art-wise, that is).

If you keep to those, your UI will at least not suck. Many modern games fail at the first two, that is true.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
And it's the norm today, because the AAAA+++++++++++++ 'RPGs' all have UI's like that.

2 billion players could play that shit, it wouldn't make it the norm, the norm is what is used the most by a number of games, counting the number of retards playing it won't get you far.
 
Joined
Jan 28, 2015
Messages
891
Location
Canuckistan
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Modern UIs suck from the conolization of MMO interfaces. Old school MMO UIs are actually not too bad like the previously posted EQ screenshot, it's when they got cartoony and made to be used with controllers that they got crappy.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
If in 90's we could play on 320x200 resolution with a UI that almost covered whole screen, leaving a small portion of window for the game

1.jpg



Today on 1920x1080 there should be no problem to make a good UI, leaving the rest of the screen still visible for the game.

For one, I can't see shit in that screenshot. It's too small. I played the IE games at their native resolution in a window, and I had to glue my face to the screen because of how small everything was. That's why I'm against Fallout's Hi-Res patch: it's "high resolution" only in that more of the screen is occupied, but everything has the same level of detail as before. So it not only ruins the atmosphere of the game by making everything look like a set piece, but also everything remains as small as it did before, so why bother?

Second: cluttering the screen up with info does not make a good UI. This isn't even up for discussion: just because you are autistic enough to love a screen filled up with numbers and letters doesn't mean it is accessible, which is the point of a good user interface (and the reason why GUI look like they do nowadays, if it's not broken don't fix it). It's not even a matter of "content" in the UI either, but how it is handled and distributed. You can have the same exact content on two different UIs, but one distributes it much better and makes for a far more readable UI.

Third: that is one nice looking game. What's it called?

There are two major issues with modern UIs:

- UI has a lot of unnecessary menus because space simply isn't optimized.
- All game UIs look pretty much the same, i.e. they lack flavor.
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Are you saying UI in games today is worse? That's just patently false.

Holy shit

maxresdefault.jpg




1.jpg

All I see is the dungeon crawler comes equipped with standard dungeon crawler UI elements: compass, movement arrows, and a small map. The only thing it actually has over the one above is that it shows your equipped items, and that it aesthetically looks nicer (but aesthetics =/= good UI, it's just the cherry on top).
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
The funniest thing about this thread is that the supposed "90s UI" screenshot is from a game whose release is scheduled for 2019.
Don't waste space - you can always look at Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3+ and Mass Effect 3 for how NOT to do that.
You can go too far in this though - the tiny 2-pixel buttons in DOS annoyed me to no end. Not everyone is playing on huge screens!
 

SpoilVictor

Educated
Joined
Feb 25, 2018
Messages
84
Location
My room, sometimes other rooms
Beside obvious answer - consoles, there is another one:

Information or rather lack of demand for it. No one need information in modern games (especially RPGs) just flashy icons and cool stuff happening on the screen.
 
Unwanted

YanBG

Unwanted
Joined
Mar 10, 2016
Messages
175
Old UI looks kinda better, new is too cartoony, so i get what you mean. That topic can be useful for new devs. :)

My guess is some popular game in early 2000s(wow?) started to get copied or UI artists were working on several projects and reused their stuff.
 
Self-Ejected

DakaSha V

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 16, 2017
Messages
436
The title of this thread reminds me of fat women claiming good looking / fit guys are just scared of, or cant handle their curves
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom