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Dev blog: The New Character Selection Screen

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Xaarous
Happy Endings.
Good Sax
#21 - 2013-11-11 18:54:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Xaarous
Regarding character selection: The way I'd like to see this done is to give users a command-line option to the launcher that lets you pass in the account name to be pre-populated. Then, if I want to manage 3 characters (and I do Big smile), I can have 3 *shortcuts*. That still saves clicks vs. using the switch-account feature.

At that point, it'd also be nice to have the launcher close on play (maybe a checkbox next to the auto-play checkbox?).

Edit: Just had another thought. You know how with Office, you can right click and go straight to a doc? How about showing your auto-complete account list when you right click on the launcher shortcut on the taskbar?
cpu939
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#22 - 2013-11-11 18:55:05 UTC
i know it's all subjective but i think this is ugly - i was hoping for more... but i don't know what.
somethings i like, the timers are good and the drop items to the char
Aethlyn
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#23 - 2013-11-11 19:05:26 UTC
Only one little thing immediately coming to my mind: "Add Character" is centered, while the character name(s) are not. I'd center them all and only use left alignment, if a name doesn't fit into the box (or possible make it scroll then instead).

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Aethlyn
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#24 - 2013-11-11 19:06:50 UTC
Xaarous wrote:
Edit: Just had another thought. You know how with Office, you can right click and go straight to a doc? How about showing your auto-complete account list when you right click on the launcher shortcut on the taskbar?

You're talking about custom tasks when right clicking a pinned launcher? That would be neat! Although it might be a possible security problem. :(

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Drak Fel
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#25 - 2013-11-11 19:08:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Drak Fel
CCP karkur wrote:
wizardz wrote:
Makoto Priano wrote:
Awesome!

So-- when will we be able to go back to the character selection screen from in-game? ;)

this!

No. We would love to be able to do that, but that is not at all a "character selection screen" issue.
Once a connection has been made, both the server code and client code make a lot of assumptions that the characterID will not change, and it's very far from trivial to change that (otherwise we probably would have done that a long time ago)


Could you work on that instead?

Being able to switch characters without having to completely close the client and log in again would be much more useful than spending your time on making the screen players try to get past as fast as possible when logging in look nice.
Kelduum Revaan
The Ebon Hawk
#26 - 2013-11-11 19:34:47 UTC
PinkKnife wrote:
So, for those of us with computers that aren't pre-millennium, can we get the full character load screens as an option?

I'd agree with that too - despite long load times. CCP would need a Full body character renderer to supplement the portrait renderer, but it could be faded from a static image to the 3D model the same way the "card" based character select screen in Dota 2 does it once the character is loaded.

Hell, you could even have a pre-rendered video of the characters (generated locally on the client) doing their idle animations and save load-times.
Noriko Mai
#27 - 2013-11-11 19:35:04 UTC
ATM the news item (CCP Guard with DevBlog 1 of 2) is to big. It's also hides the ship/system/station info. Can you maybe display it on the side or something?

"Meh.." - Albert Einstein
Kelduum Revaan
The Ebon Hawk
#28 - 2013-11-11 19:36:52 UTC
Drak Fel wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
wizardz wrote:
Makoto Priano wrote:
Awesome!

So-- when will we be able to go back to the character selection screen from in-game? ;)

this!

No. We would love to be able to do that, but that is not at all a "character selection screen" issue.
Once a connection has been made, both the server code and client code make a lot of assumptions that the characterID will not change, and it's very far from trivial to change that (otherwise we probably would have done that a long time ago)


Could you work on that instead?

Being able to switch characters without having to completely close the client and log in again would be much more useful than spending your time on making the screen players try to get past as fast as possible when logging in look nice.


Apart from the reason she explained, that's something which has been asked for a lot over the last 10+ years. I'm guessing once all the server-side code has been modernised, it would be possible then.

I'd expect to see that some time in 2024... Blink
Tavarus Excavar
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#29 - 2013-11-11 19:41:47 UTC
Where is going to be the eve news? Stop making the fiction and events harder to access. i miss easy to access chronicles.
Merida DunBrogh
Black Screen Of Raging Defeat
#30 - 2013-11-11 19:48:44 UTC
So did you add an ability to see your entire training queue, or the total time till completion? Or still just the most recent skill?

What about hiding the characters etc. to show the full background?
Arec Bardwin
#31 - 2013-11-11 19:52:09 UTC
Remember to set a long skill before patch day, girls Big smile
Octoven
Stellar Production
#32 - 2013-11-11 20:06:24 UTC
Very nice design, laid out simple and easy to read. It looks sexy, cant wait to see it on TQ.
CCP Fear
C C P
C C P Alliance
#33 - 2013-11-11 20:21:11 UTC
Noriko Mai wrote:
ATM the news item (CCP Guard with DevBlog 1 of 2) is to big. It's also hides the ship/system/station info. Can you maybe display it on the side or something?


The sizes of the ads themselves need to be adjusted. We are in process of doing that just now.
Fraucha Tanakoh
Perkone
Caldari State
#34 - 2013-11-11 20:22:21 UTC
TigerXtrm wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
wizardz wrote:
Makoto Priano wrote:
Awesome!

So-- when will we be able to go back to the character selection screen from in-game? ;)

this!

No. We would love to be able to do that, but that is not at all a "character selection screen" issue.
Once a connection has been made, both the server code and client code make a lot of assumptions that the characterID will not change, and it's very far from trivial to change that (otherwise we probably would have done that a long time ago)


Alright, but is this issue something you guys are keeping in mind as you are rewriting mentioned code? It would indeed be nice to have a proper log off button that takes you back to the character selection screen.



Interesting that you can't implement this. Blizzard (WoW) has been doing just that for 9 years. 10 characters per server, a one key exit to the character selection screen and back in game with a different character AND selecting new servers to boot if you so desire. I am sure YOU have seen it as many others here have used it at one time or another, and it is not like WoW's characters and amount of crap they have tied to each character including where they last logged off is any less than EvE's ... well I guess you can see why we wonder why you haven't implemented a similar system over just ONE server with far less characters.
ArmEagle Kusoni
Knights of Nii
The 20 Minuters
#35 - 2013-11-11 20:32:39 UTC
Xaarous wrote:
Regarding character selection: The way I'd like to see this done is to give users a command-line option to the launcher that lets you pass in the account name to be pre-populated. Then, if I want to manage 3 characters (and I do Big smile), I can have 3 *shortcuts*. That still saves clicks vs. using the switch-account feature.

THIS! Ten times this!

The current account selection of the launcher is a step back from what we had before if you want to select a different account. The character selection dropdown is not hotkey-friendly. Before I had two game installs, one for either account (still easy with just two accounts).

Quote:
At that point, it'd also be nice to have the launcher close on play (maybe a checkbox next to the auto-play checkbox?).

Well, I usually keep the launcher open, in case I want to switch character. Then I just close the game and restart it from the launcher. But if I'd have a commandline option to select account, that's a small extra step.
TigerXtrm
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#36 - 2013-11-11 20:33:03 UTC
Fraucha Tanakoh wrote:
TigerXtrm wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
wizardz wrote:
Makoto Priano wrote:
Awesome!

So-- when will we be able to go back to the character selection screen from in-game? ;)

this!

No. We would love to be able to do that, but that is not at all a "character selection screen" issue.
Once a connection has been made, both the server code and client code make a lot of assumptions that the characterID will not change, and it's very far from trivial to change that (otherwise we probably would have done that a long time ago)


Alright, but is this issue something you guys are keeping in mind as you are rewriting mentioned code? It would indeed be nice to have a proper log off button that takes you back to the character selection screen.



Interesting that you can't implement this. Blizzard (WoW) has been doing just that for 9 years. 10 characters per server, a one key exit to the character selection screen and back in game with a different character AND selecting new servers to boot if you so desire. I am sure YOU have seen it as many others here have used it at one time or another, and it is not like WoW's characters and amount of crap they have tied to each character including where they last logged off is any less than EvE's ... well I guess you can see why we wonder why you haven't implemented a similar system over just ONE server with far less characters.


What about "whole fucktons of code would have to be re-written" do you not understand? WoW was probably written with the functionality in mind and EVE wasn't. Design flaw on CCP's part back in 2003 maybe, but like Karkur said, not something that is easily fixed now without taking the code throughout the entire game apart.

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ArmEagle Kusoni
Knights of Nii
The 20 Minuters
#37 - 2013-11-11 20:34:29 UTC
Salpun wrote:
Looks good, works good.

An option to lock the location would be nice becouse it goes by past log in time I have logged in the same character a couple times when trying to switch.


Indeed. Many people are very spatially oriented. I'd really like to have the option to keep the order of accounts the same.
Byrrssa Crendraven
Anti - Social
#38 - 2013-11-11 20:35:12 UTC
CCP Fear,

Just a quick note - There was no link to this forum in your blog.

Also, I love the selection screen and would also like to see the logoff back to the character selection screen.
Freelancer117
So you want to be a Hero
#39 - 2013-11-11 20:38:26 UTC
Please add 4 character slots into the new selection screen (seen it on a presentation during Eve Vegas 2013)
I need more alts and less accounts, plus with the new alt training for plex it will make me a happy Freelancer Cool

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ArmEagle Kusoni
Knights of Nii
The 20 Minuters
#40 - 2013-11-11 20:40:06 UTC
TigerXtrm wrote:
Fraucha Tanakoh wrote:
TigerXtrm wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
Makoto Priano wrote:
Awesome!

So-- when will we be able to go back to the character selection screen from in-game? ;)


No. We would love to be able to do that, but that is not at all a "character selection screen" issue.
Once a connection has been made, both the server code and client code make a lot of assumptions that the characterID will not change, and it's very far from trivial to change that (otherwise we probably would have done that a long time ago)


Alright, but is this issue something you guys are keeping in mind as you are rewriting mentioned code? It would indeed be nice to have a proper log off button that takes you back to the character selection screen.



Interesting that you can't implement this. Blizzard (WoW) has been doing just that for 9 years. 10 characters per server, a one key exit to the character selection screen and back in game with a different character AND selecting new servers to boot if you so desire. I am sure YOU have seen it as many others here have used it at one time or another, and it is not like WoW's characters and amount of crap they have tied to each character including where they last logged off is any less than EvE's ... well I guess you can see why we wonder why you haven't implemented a similar system over just ONE server with far less characters.


What about "whole fucktons of code would have to be re-written" do you not understand? WoW was probably written with the functionality in mind and EVE wasn't. Design flaw on CCP's part back in 2003 maybe, but like Karkur said, not something that is easily fixed now without taking the code throughout the entire game apart.



But it's a matter of implementation. Instead of a simple 'quit' functionality, you add a bit to create a 'restart' functionality. That closes the client and restarts it to get to the character selection.

Especially with multiple accounts and a single launcher (with account selection), it would be nice to restart the client for the current account without having to go through the launcher. That can save an extra login action.

And perhaps if you look at it from that angle, you can even find a place to go back to in the initialisation of the game client, so you don't have to actually restart it completely.