Welcome to World War II online - Battleground Europe : Free community contributions to a new User Interface design

Oct. 2009

Please sit back, relax, throw some food to the fishes, and take a hour to discover the content of this blog.

The purpose of this input is to introduce new gameplay concepts that could contribute to a fix of persistent issues highlighted during the last couples of years, with a special focus on the User Interface (UI).
Though it will confuse established players, I believe it will be alot easier for new players to understand.

The blog (creative) layout has been designed to make the reading more comfortable (you can easily pause your reading thanks to feature #IDs) as to make search & discuss easier. Use the labels to select a single part, or use the tree on the right to find a specific feature back.
If you are in a hurry, you may just have an attentive look at the screenshots which should be intuitive to understand. The text is just pointing out drawn features or detailing the context.

All opinions and suggestions are welcome. Please, provide feedback (here) in the official forum . Remind that the whole content is a free gift to Playnet.

Since English isn't my main language, please apologize for the mistakes. I hope you will still enjoy the reading.

ZEB
-Un0fficial gameplay architect, advises concepts since 2002-

1. New UI design introduction




Introduction


   This work contains suggestions to improve the architecture of the User Interface (UI) of Battleground Europe™. Some basics gameplay modifications are introduced as well to extend organizational possibilities.
The objective is to provide ideas to official BE architects who may have been asked to perform a full overpass of the current UI ( released back in v.1.20 on 24th October 2005) for v.1.32 or v.1.33.

Features  presented here are either ideas gathered/selected from community discussions or designed by myself . These try to take into consideration developers’ long-term vision for  the gameplay , while exploiting existing code parts as much as possible or using similar approaches. I leave pictures free of copyrights but please don't forget to mention where it comes from.

   This study only focused on a few menus to introduce the new architecture logic. These are the side HQ screen , the platoon HQ and the brigade HQ which are the main screens used to find action and deploy. 
Some extra attention will be given to new leadership tools and to a new multicrewing procedure as well.
Missing sub-menus either contain no significant changes, or are left to the inspiration of BE architects themselves.

28th february 2008 : 1st version of the new 
UI that caught the team's attention

Current UI design

Let us first remind how the current UI is designed. As we move forwards into the new design, we'll highlight its limitations.



 

 

 

 
posted on 26.10.09

7 comments:

  1. ZebOctober 26, 2009 at 10:59 PM

    Please use this topic for general comments about the blog content.

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  2. monsjoexNovember 9, 2009 at 11:33 PM

    Very good idea's.

    Some screens look a bit busy though, could be confusing for new guys.

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  3. CENovember 9, 2009 at 11:34 PM

    Selecting a platoon or squad mision is awesome...This illl allow so much flexibility to achieveng an overall goal.

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  4. jordihinNovember 10, 2009 at 12:09 AM

    I read some very good ideas in this blog, it will improve the gameplay a lot, but this will look complex for newbies...

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  5. ewalkNovember 10, 2009 at 12:10 AM

    Congratulations for this beautiful interface that you made. It could indeed be difficult for a new player to understand during the first times, but once you got the logic it's absolutely amazing !

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 5, 2009 at 7:44 AM

    I like the ideas and hope they get implimented.
    Any idea if any / all are likely to be seen in the near future?
    Also an idea with people joining missions and waiting to spawn due to ML waiting on number or some other reason you may want to look at keeping troops busy so they dont leave the mission. Have a load room in it with something to keep them occupied. All players joined appear in a room together like matrix with the available weapons for the mission and a rifle range similar to a carnival range with ducks etc and other entertainment eg pinball machine or similar (just and idea and a bit cheesy but you get the idea)

    ReplyDelete
  7. BLOOJune 12, 2010 at 8:37 AM

    Some nice touches. I like the rank epaulets a lot.

    ReplyDelete

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