Media Release

[Gawain]

right on. someone pulling the "opinion" card is not mature enough to make any decisions alone.
however, this game would be way better of if mic/spekkio had the last word on everything.
now start hating me again and forget about the stupid hud <3

[frvge]

I disagree with a Navy officer making decisions in cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction and overall design. Goodkebab gets the final say as Art Director in which he will probably take all brought up points into account. He might talk it over with MacBryce, Usability Assistant.

All your and our own ideas about if it's good or not, are just that: ideas.

Also, some art that blocks the viewport isn't necessarily 'bad' if it adds to immersion (already confirmed by multiple people's reactions here and on ModDB who totally love the concept). Try googling multi-objective optimization. We focus mostly on the usability, without discarding some visual aesthetics.

[Gawain]

i guess "ideas" are just another word for "opinion"...
if you wanna go for immersion, putting some fat hud between the player and the environment is definitely not the way to go.
you really have to ask yourself if you wanna appeal to some casual console kids that enjoy gimmicky stuff like this or on hardcore pc players who get annoyed by useless shit cluttering up screenspace after 5 games.
right now you try to serve both kinds of player types, and unless you got big ressources at hand like infinity ward or blizzard, all that'll come out is something mediocre or something that get's never finished.

[frvge]

I disagree that having a nice visual HUD (it's 2 lines of like 2 pixel wide color with a lot of transparency) means 'catering to console kids'. We can probably implement a switch... but IMO it's a waste of time.

[I <3 U]

scope is too small.
i like the gadgets thing in the bottom, that's cool.
don't like the SD idea though tbh, you have to move your eyes to much from the riticule.
the compass thing i think should be removed completely, even on the camnet.
splitting up the hacking bar seemed like a cool idea.
keep the camnet hud as simple as you can.

it would be cool if you had an option to toggle which aspects of the hud you always wanted on / off / hidden until used or whatever. that way everyones happy :).

[Farley4Fan]

I think the sound detector could end up working pretty naturally.  If the flashes are easy to notice, you won't even have to look at them.  You can just look at your screen and hopefully, in time, you will know instantly what it means.  Your peripheral vision will see it when looking at the environment, so instead of looking at the direct center of the screen (aiming reticle) and getting tunnel vision, you will be able to play and not have to look anywhere specifically (aiming reticle).

But that's just speculation on how I think it could work.  It might not but we'll see.  Maybe you could include an option to make it old fashioned as well.

[tigaer]

I think the sound detector could end up working pretty naturally.  If the flashes are easy to notice, you won't even have to look at them.  You can just look at your screen and hopefully, in time, you will know instantly what it means.  Your peripheral vision will see it when looking at the environment, so instead of looking at the direct center of the screen (aiming reticle) and getting tunnel vision, you will be able to play and not have to look anywhere specifically (aiming reticle).

But that's just speculation on how I think it could work.  It might not but we'll see.  Maybe you could include an option to make it old fashioned as well.

Exactly how I designed it. I hated the old SD because you had to stare at the center of your screen while chasing a spy. We'll see how it plays out during playtesting though.

[Gawain]

this sounds like a nice idea at first glance, but how will you show all directions? or does the sound detector work different now?

[Farley4Fan]

If you look very closely there are bars on the middle of each side of the screen - these will indicate left, right, front, back.  Then, there are the 2 lines on the top and bottom - those will indicate above and below.

I think it will either work very nicely or end up becoming kind of annoying.  It depends on how subtle/bright the flashes are - and the levels of brightness will need to be tested.

It has potential to be pretty beneficial and immersive, however, it also (in my opinion) has the potential to suck.

[tigaer]

this sounds like a nice idea at first glance, but how will you show all directions? or does the sound detector work different now?

What do you mean? It shows top, bottom, left and right by the bars (one is slighty visable above the compass), aswell as telling you if the sound is above or below by a flashing glow above/below the curved lines. It works exactly like the old SD, just has more awesome.

Farly,
Everything has the potentional to suck. You guys need to trust that we know what we're doing. We're not going to add in stupid shit and make it distracting and hard to play, if things are a problem and hinder gameplay, and if it can't be fixed, it's gonna get cut. Don't act like we're not going to be testing the hell out of everything and just leave stuff that hinders gameplay in. We're not some idiots making PS, we're all SC vets too.

[Farley4Fan]

I know I was saying that it needs (Rocket, you ready?) testing.  Anything could happen, right?

[Westfall]

this sounds like a nice idea at first glance, but how will you show all directions? or does the sound detector work different now?

What do you mean? It shows top, bottom, left and right by the bars (one is slighty visable above the compass), aswell as telling you if the sound is above or below by a flashing glow above/below the curved lines. It works exactly like the old SD, just has more awesome.

I asked this on the last page, but it was neglected. So if it beams to the left or right they are on your floor? Will it still beam left or right and beam the top if they are above you? I find it aesthetically displeasing to have the beams above, below and to the sides. Its more distracting than helpful. Will there be an option to get it back to the aimer?? Or do I have to deal with being distracted always by the colored lines around me??

[tigaer]

I thought it was common sense when I said it'll act exactly like the SD. Meaning, if it's on your floor it won't show any idication other than the directional ones. The directional and above/below indicators are two totally different pieces, the directional ones are shown in bars, while the above/below indicators are shown in a blinking glow at the top/bottom.

[Spekkio]

I disagree with a Navy officer making decisions in cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction and overall design. Goodkebab gets the final say as Art Director in which he will probably take all brought up points into account. He might talk it over with MacBryce, Usability Assistant.

Wtf are you talking about? I'm not making any decisions about human psychology or interaction; I merely said that I view my whole screen when I play games, and I'm sure I'm not unique in that regard. I particularly don't want to have to adjust my mouse to work around useless visual items on the HUD to look for spies because Tigaer wants to have a come to Jesus moment about how FPS HUDs should be curved and include nautical compasses in order to be more "immersive."

By the same token, Tigaer, as a graphics artist, has no credibility in saying that "most players just look at 60% of the screen anyway." That's horseshit as far as I'm concerned.

[frvge]

@spekkio, we will most likely make the whole curve-effect toggleable (but probably on by default). No promises at this stage. I think thatll solve your issues.