EVE General Discussion

The new neocom is both easier to use, easier on the eyes, and more customisable for advanced users.
That's the way a UI should be!

Weird I was reading it in an Asian accent.

I don't understand how large font could be taken as an insult. Sometimes I like to lean back in my computer chair - large font allows me read comfortably while being 2-3 feet away from my screen. Sure, sometimes I find myself crouched over my keyboard with my nose touching the screen like some EVE-playing Hunchback of Notre Dame... but I like to think that as I try to improve my posture I do that less and less.

Moral of the story - large font is good for your posture.

Okay now the second try since somehow the forums or the stupid browser ate my previous textwall.

TL;DR: read the damn post

This post will probably bring me some really stupid trolls, whines and hatemails but let me tell you I couldn't care less when people on the internet "shout" at me. So there you have it, go troll somebody else and now the the good stuff.

I don't see better designed and simplified UI's in particular as a bad thing. Of course people always whine or troll with arguments "you are making EVE to easy how dare you". A few examples where I saw this happening:

UI Font change. You can now actually distinguish between certain characters of text on the screen and it's larger. Not being able to distinguish between characters is just bad design from the start. It should not happen but it does from time to time but it is something that eventually needs to go away just because it IS bad design. It is as simple as that. Larger font sizes are something I am a fan of in particular. Why? On some combinations of monitor size, resolution and distance to the screen it can be massive strain on the eyes to read stuff. Add tot hat the fact that not everybody has perfect vision and there is no reason to not have it.

Back in the day when the feature of standing display in chat channels was introduced the same cry outs happened. Let's take a look at how things were before that. You roam through 0.0, mine, PVE, whatever. Somebody pops up in local, you right click it, chose show info and checked the standings tab if he was a "bad guy" or not. If so you added him to your address book so if you met him again you could see the nice green icon in the chat and immediately identify him as a foe. That was nothing more than a damn pain in the ass. It went away with standings being displayed in chat. That had nothing to do with "making EVE easier" whatsoever. It was just adding a feature to make playing a game less of a hassle and make it more like playing instead of working (same goes for POS fuel blocks btw). Oh and I bet that it also reduced some server load. Probably not by huge amounts but still noticeable in the long run.

This is one kind of "simplifying a UI" that I fully endorse. It takes away painstaking tasks that are just stupid / annoying. That's what a good UI should do and HAS to do.

Next on the new neocom i.e. the "windows 7 taskbar style". Haven't tried that much of it no time yet but from what I've seen and heard of it so far I like it. Sure there is still more room for optimization and customization options. The new Taskbar/Starmenu style was one of the best usability enhancements in Windows 7. Once you got used to it and customized it to your liking it looks good, it's more clearly laid out, intuitive and most of all it enhanced my workflow. Absolutely nothing wrong with that so it makes sense to have something like that as the new neocom in EVE. Especially in EVE which is a very complex game with tons of menus and function and stuff. Plus many people already know the Win7 layout and are already used to it so it is easier to get behind for "the new guy". Nothing wrong with that.

With EVE as with Windows 7 I don't see the simplification as an insult to a power user like me just because everything is a little less cluttered and the advanced function, which most people don't need all that often, are packed away (or "hidden") somewhere else. Why is that? Well because they are still there and people who really need them know how to find them. Again it is just something that helps "the new guy" a little at the beginning. There is nothing wrong with that. Another example are all those iOS devices. Although I am not a fan of them a lot of people are and a lot have them. Why is that? Because they are easy to handle, because the iOS UI was designed primarily for idiots but still a lot of power users have fun with them. Not saying I want more idiots, oh hell we already have enough of those in EVE but this game already has a the most steep learning cliff of all MMO's I know so why make it even harder with a totally packed and bulky UI?

Of course than there are the so called "Bitter Vets" that argument something like this: "We had to deal with it so everybody else who comes later has as well". That comes from the fact that gamers in general (but especially long term EVE players) believe they are entitled to something but in reality they are not.

Inappropriate comment removed. -Guard

And now I am off finding a place to hide from the angry lynch mob and bitter vets (not that any of those really would read a textwall like this)

Two for the morning. I see many mistakes of the people with English first language.

I repeat. I see good change for some people. Poor eyes and new player. Yes. The rest for what I am saying, you can see yourself.

OP is correct. I am really worried about CCP's direction. Dumbing down is one of the only things that could kill this game outright.

+1 for customization

I'm not really seeing dumbing down tho

Bigger icons isn't an good example of that since in every case we were also given the option of making them smaller.

Same with the new font, these kinda things were a strain on the eyes.

However the "all or nothing" blink setting of the neocom I can agree is unintuitive, we need a way to disable blink individually.

Also preferred chat blinking:
-Each chat window has its own permanent icon instead of one for all chats
-The neocom icon only blinks if the window is minimized
-The neocom icon only blinks if the window is open but the tab's label is otherwise covered by another window, in which case the blink is helpful in telling me that a chat tab in a window i have open is active when I can't see it

At least the first two :P

Also I want a bottom aligned neocom (I know they are already working on this) and the ability to have the names put back like in the old expanded style.

With this I want to be able to rename command groups as well as give blanket names to a chat window like "Primary Chats" or "Intel" "Randoms".

The naming of the windows can go under a window-scope of options which can include "Use this window for new chats" and "Disable blink for all chats in this window", as well as a list of which chats are in the tab and the ability to reorder them how you want.

This would only apply to multi-chat windows as single chat windows (like Local) would use the default stuff and would still have the chat's name and member number in it when "bar minimized" (the double click kind)

Both side people talk. CCP push with Incarna and CCP will push with this until more people no like. C'est la vie.

80% today
70% next patch
60 ...

Is no so difficult for time of the development to keep old features for more options. More difficile with more time to bring those back.