Why devs are so afraid of proper UI today?

[CryptRat]

OP's right, but designing an UI is hard.

 

[Mustawd]

the most popular MMO has an UI that generally looks like this for "serious" players:

Not sure I’m seeing your point here. We’re talking about how the UI is designed, not how much crap people fill it with. But since you mentioned it, I’ll add that if it wasn’t for the UI’s transparency of windows and lack of borders, you wouldnt be able to do what you see above.

And I think we should all be reminded how far back this trend goes.

Old style Everquest (per the internet):

By the time I got around to playing it in 1999 or 2000 (cant quite remember), the UI was more like this:

Look how close it looks to modern UIs.

There’s no border. The windows are functional, minimalistic, and can be as opaque or as transparent as you want.

Compare that to recent games:

Again, we have the outer edges being used but only with relevant info. So the screen isn’t blocked with anything that the player doesn’t need to see.

To me the influence of MMOs in rpgs is obvious. Especially as rpgs went more and more towards action oriented gameplay, making it important for the player to see as much of the world as he could on a moment to moment basis.

 

[a Goat]

The deal is - the same amount of info(or more) is displayed on smaller percentage of screen. Which is something UI design was always going for, whether for games or professional software(and then ribbon happened).

 

[Skall]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/..._approach_to_multiplatform_game_UI_design.php

The article's not as bad as it might sound, but it doesn't tackle the issue of info-dense games. Your typical FPS might simply not need a whole lot of UI elements, so the difference between mouse+keyboard vs. gamepad can be minimized. For RPGs, sims, etc., it's a whole other story.

I distinctly remember when I stopped playing EA's PC NHL games. One year, team info was a spreadsheet that showed 18 or so player-rows with 20+ stat columns. The next, only 3 player-rows with 5 stat columns were visible. It was also implemented via some terrible Flash GUI with cursor loading/flickering, and scrollbars/scrollbar arrows that were just visual indicators and not meant to be clicked themselves. The previous version of the game is still being modded to this day, while EA stopped making PC NHL games soon after.

Visual flair for UI is a bit trickier, and I understand the more minimal approach of current-day games. Still, I do occasionally miss the the more thematically intertwined interfaces of yore, and tried to make things a bit more stylized in a tactics game I was working on:

 

[opener]

UX/UI is very important and there is no difference is this iOS/Android/website or MMORPG. Great UX/UI is better revenue.

 

[Beastro]

By the time I got around to playing it in 1999 or 2000 (cant quite remember), the UI was more like this:

The first UI revamp came between Velious and Shadows of Luclin, so prolly late 2001. It was a functional update that didn't last long before the new one came to replace it with Planes of Power.

I rememeber the change since I was bound in PoM at the time still killing shit for cards.

This is the one you're thinking of:

Before then it was common to switch from the first UI you linked to the bare, full screen and back to cast spells and such. One of the major thrills of finally owning a mouse with thumb buttons was binding the screen key to the thumb and switcing between the two while kiting mobs.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

OP's right, but designing an UI is hard.

Designing a user-interface from nothing is difficult, but in 2018 any computer game developer can look at a plethora of similar games from the past for guidance, even if only as a cautionary example for how not to design an interface. For CRPGs, specifically, there have been two pioneering graphical user-interfaces.

First, Dungeon Master from 1987, which created the "paper doll" inventory screen and for its main interface ringed the central first-person view with controls and info relating to each party member, the party members in relation to each other (and individual party member facing!), the magic system for spellcasting, weapons/items held by each character for immediate use, and directional movement --- all contained on one screen!

Second, Morrowind from 2002, which had basic information at the bottom of its first-person (or optionally behind-the-shoulder) view but where pressing the right mouse button would instantly pause the game and bring up four windowed menu screens, which could be resized and moved around as desired. The image below is from Mobygames, and the windows have been moved and resized from their defaults, but it demonstrates the separate menus for inventory, magic, the map, and character statistics.

In the wake of the example set by Dungeon Master, CRPG graphical user interfaces experienced a general incline for an extended period of time, but eventually they began a retrogression, prompted in part by consolization (compare Oblivion to its predecessor, Morrowind, for example) but continued for reasons that are hard to fathom (Skyrim's UI is almost a joke, as though Todd Howard wanted to see how horrible a UI could be while still being played by console-users who, unlike computer-users, had no means of modding it).

Of course, any user interface should be tailored to the needs of its particular game. For a CRPG, this means first designing a user interface suited either for turn-based or for real-time and either for a single-character or for a party, and continuing from there based on game mechanics.

 

[Cael]

Actually, the drive for a bigger view space and minimalist UI happened long before consoles got big. Look at the difference between Ultima 6 and 7, and between Ultima Underworld 1 and 2. One of the drives for innovation at Origin Systems was a large view space and minimalistic UI.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Coverin 70% of the screen with UI is dumb, but the lack of stylish UI, and minimalist approach are bad too.

I think all things considered, DOS 2 got decent UI, with toolbar below the screen, covering the whole bottom part, while the play screen is still substantial, and take the majority of the place.

 

[Risewild]

Second, Morrowind from 2002, which had basic information at the bottom of its first-person (or optionally behind-the-shoulder) view but where pressing the right mouse button would instantly pause the game and bring up four windowed menu screens, which could be resized and moved around as desired.

You forgot to mention an important thing about Morrowind's windows. You can also "pin" them to the screen to keep them open while playing the game.
I always have the map resized into a small window and pinned on the top of my game's screen. It serves as a minimap since I tend to get lost easily.

 

[Fowyr]

On the whole I loved the inventory of W7 with the AC appearing on the armor for the individual pieces of armor, but yeah, the exit sign in the background of the inventory was a terrible idea. I actually learned to click there to exit the inventory by chance, and only realized on a playthrough years later that there was actually E X I T spelled out

As for the M&M buttons, lots of 90ies games had icon designs where the developers thought these were completely intuitive, but which actually weren't. I was quite happy when a lot of the developers went back to a healthy mix of text and icon buttons

There are a lot of keyboard commands in Wiz7 and it's beautiful and now seems like a lost art. Just press Esc to quit, b to see swag bag, e to equip, etc.

Speaking of UIs, I think Stonekeep was first cRPG that tried to eliminate all on-screen GUI.

 

[J1M]

I have been really impressed with Pathfinder: Kingmaker's UI. It doesn't surprise me at all that it came from Russia.

One of the pervasive reasons UIs have become shitty is due to the increase in the number of dedicated designer positions in bloated hipster game studios. These days, it is common for someone to be hired specifically to design the UI, and of course that person can't work alone so they have to run their ideas past other designers, etc. The problem is that these people are, by definition, not technical enough to actually create a UI. This leads to an impedance mismatch where instead of taking pride in delivering something functional, the person designing the UI takes pride in an unrealistic plan for the UI that exists in the form of images/mock-ups. When that 'perfect' plan doesn't come to pass there's a series of mental gymnastics that take place to blame anything other than the design.

It is certainly nice to have a pleasant looking UI, but it is more important for it to make playing the game more enjoyable. That isn't really the primary motivation of UI designers. They want to create something visually impressive to help them land their next job, create a unique interaction to feel significant, align their work with whatever the latest design precepts being hailed by Apple are, hit an arbitrary deadline from their boss, etc. The actual way the UI makes the game better is a distant consideration.