Skyrim - Inside Skyrim's Menu System Overhaul

Dhruin

Dhruin

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GameInformer previews the new menu system in Skyrim in their latest article. Apparently Apple's UI philosophy was used as inspiration and, unsurprisingly, it also sounds designed specifically for a gamepad:
Rather than refine the pre-existing menu system from Oblivion or Fallout 3, Bethesda decided to toss them on the scrap heap and develop a new, streamlined interface. Searching for inspiration, the team kept coming back to Apple, and for good reason. Over the last decade the company has revolutionized how consumers interact with software and hardware moreso than any other tech outfit.
”You know in iTunes when you look at all your music you get to flip through it and look at the covers and it becomes tangible?” game director Todd Howard asks. “One of our goals was 'What if Apple made a fantasy game? How would this look?' It's very good at getting through lots of data quickly, which is always a struggle with our stuff.”
Like in Oblivion, pressing the B or circle button opens up the menu system. Instead of returning you to the last page you visited as it did in Oblivion, Bethesda now presents you with a simple compass interface that offers four options.
Click to expand...
More information.
 
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So once again they spit in the face of PC Gamers.

When Oblivion was released it didn't take long for a modder to make a proper PC UI, so why can't Bethesda? If a single modder can do it they should be able to make one aswell.

The UI is one of the things you see and use every single minute of gameplay, so it's damn important. Oblivion's UI was an insult to PC players.
 
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It looks like they are either hiding the Attributes or are removing them since there is no place to put them. If they remove attributes then that would suck and I won't care much for the game.

PS. I hope they remove that whole crap about getting perks changing the stars. You didn't create this reality and you don't have the power to change the fabric of reality so changing the stars is stupid.
 
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That screenshot of the interface looks awful. Glad there will be mod tools so that a decent Pc interface can be made like it was done for Oblivion.
 
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I'll reserve bitching to when they actually show the PC interface. Nothing wrong with them trying to make a proper console interface... On the consoles.
 
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God, I can't imagine the atrocity this menu system will be on the PC. Not just that, but as a whole I predict it will be "streamlined" to the point where doing something will actually take more steps for someone who knows what they are doing.

Old PC interface: hit spell hotkey, click spell, exit.

Let's see this new "easy" interface beat that. I bet it won't.
 
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GhanBuriGhan said:
I'll reserve bitching to when they actually show the PC interface. Nothing wrong with them trying to make a proper console interface… On the consoles.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that GBG. Bethsoft listens to a lot of criticism, but they've been phenomenally tone deaf to complaints on this subject. I give them a pass on a lot of stuff, but not on this one. I predict further fix-it work by Darn.

Pure speculation: Most of the team listen to past complaints as well as their own muse, some for the better, occasionally for the worse. I think that the UI designers, programmers, and artists march to the beat of their own drum. They just plain know better than us PC players.
 
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"It's very good at getting through lots of data quickly, which is always a struggle with our stuff.”

Ok, I don't follow that at all. The pictures I've seen seem to show less information at once than ever. Surely that means it'll take longer to see all the data you want.
 
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Bedwyr said:
Good luck with that GBG. Bethsoft listens to a lot of criticism, but they've been phenomenally tone deaf to complaints on this subject. I give them a pass on a lot of stuff, but not on this one. I predict further fix-it work by Darn.

Pure speculation: Most of the team listen to past complaints as well as their own muse, some for the better, occasionally for the worse. I think that the UI designers, programmers, and artists march to the beat of their own drum. They just plain know better than us PC players.
Click to expand...

I'm not giving them a pass, but I like to wait until I have the facts, very simple. The complaints have been made often and loud enough - if they don't listen, there aren't any excuses.
 
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Honestly, if there's one thing no one should ever have to do any kind of research for anymore - it's a good UI system. Countless games have excellent UIs - and you need only open your eyes and look.

I have no idea why so many developers STILL struggle with something so utterly simple, but I guess it's a way of innovating that won't turn away too many people.

But please…. Just make a great game before you go crazy with the UI.

Apple UIs are fine, but are they really needed for a CRPG?
 
DoctorNarrative said:
Old PC interface: hit spell hotkey, click spell, exit.

Let's see this new "easy" interface beat that. I bet it won't.
Click to expand...

Your old PC interface is quite easy to beat in fact:
Hit spell hotkey keyboard and you cast the spell, that's it, one click, one action. Your standards perhaps need some revamping and I suppose you never played Torchlight. :p
 
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Bedwyr said:
…
Pure speculation: Most of the team listen to past complaints as well as their own muse, some for the better, occasionally for the worse. I think that the UI designers, programmers, and artists march to the beat of their own drum. They just plain know better than us PC players.
Click to expand...
If you always listen players all would be static, all the same they are used to use, that's it.

With this approach, Torchlight would have used the old bad D2 system, selection and click, not a good thing. Sure populis voice has its wise part, but I don't think you can move forward with populis voice.
 
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slak said:
So once again they spit in the face of PC Gamers.

When Oblivion was released it didn't take long for a modder to make a proper PC UI, so why can't Bethesda? If a single modder can do it they should be able to make one aswell.

The UI is one of the things you see and use every single minute of gameplay, so it's damn important. Oblivion's UI was an insult to PC players.
Click to expand...
I remember the game was a crap but I don't remember anything about the UI nor anything special about it. I wonder what was so wrong about it?
 
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DArtagnan said:
Honestly, if there's one thing no one should ever have to do any kind of research for anymore - it's a good UI system. Countless games have excellent UIs - and you need only open your eyes and look.

I have no idea why so many developers STILL struggle with something so utterly simple, but I guess it's a way of innovating that won't turn away too many people.

But please…. Just make a great game before you go crazy with the UI.

Apple UIs are fine, but are they really needed for a CRPG?
Click to expand...

Agreed..

When devs decide to become creative with the game UI, it never ends well. I predict that we'll have to download once again Darnfield UI for skyrim...

I pray that benthesa develops two different UI, one of consoles and the other one for PC.
 
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It looks good to me. I really hope they scrap most of the ancient, tired cliché of yellowed parchment and sepia toned ink in video adventure games.

And the level of complaints and self-centered outrage around here is extremely amusing to me. "Spit in the face..."? Hahahaha. You guys are too much.
 
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Dasale said:
With this approach, Torchlight would have used the old bad D2 system, selection and click, not a good thing. Sure populis voice has its wise part, but I don't think you can move forward with populis voice.
Click to expand...


That's the key, wise judgment. You can't cast a blanket pronouncement that either listening to your customers or following your muse is The Right Way To Go. Doesn't work that way and that's why I said that I believe most of the team does a good job of perceiving customer opinions about things that need to be changed.

In the case of PC interface, they have been willfully deaf. I'll walk back my opinion a bit though. The reason they keep putting out shoddy UI work has three possibilities:

1. The designers are "arteests" and know better than the users who cry (very loudly) that their designs are poorly implemented for people sitting 3-5 feet from a monitor.

2. The designers do an excellent job designing console interfaces and the producers refuse to devote the proper resources to making sure the PC interface is well optimized.

3. Some combination of the two.


The feel of the pipboy interface was less problematical than Oblivion, but it still suffered from a great deal of "button" syndrome and over-large item displays. That UI modders so quickly made improvements tells me there has to be some kind of blind structural spot at Bethesda and #3 is my favorite culprit.
 
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Like Ghanburighan I'll wait until I see what we get before I form an opnion. That being said, I really can't understand the what's the big deal. A spit in the face? It's an interface which can be good or not so good, nothing more, nothing less. As long as it's working. There are far more important issues in a game. I didn't like the UI of Gothic 1, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying it due to the other qualities of the game.

And FWIW, I really can't understand what was so horrible with the Oblivion interface. The fonts were too big, and maybe I had to use a mouse click or two extra for some commands. But really, I couldn't care less. There were other issues with the game that was much more important than the UI.

But I agree with Dartagnan - developing new fancy UI's for every new game isn't necessary. Nothing wrong with copying things that work well.

EDIT: There may of course be different views about exactly what woks well.
 
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Bedwyr said:
…
1. The designers are "arteests" and know better than the users who cry (very loudly) that their designs are poorly implemented for people sitting 3-5 feet from a monitor.
…
The feel of the pipboy interface was less problematical than Oblivion, but it still suffered from a great deal of "button" syndrome and over-large item displays. That UI modders so quickly made improvements tells me there has to be some kind of blind structural spot at Bethesda and #3 is my favorite culprit.
Click to expand...

Actually, the huge majority of users don't say anything. I would think that even among people who call them selves hardcore gamers, it's just a minority that is verbal about what they think. One can only speculate why, but one interpretation is that most players aren't particularly troubled by it (I am talking about PC players)
 
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A subject near and dear to my heart. Oblivion's UI was terrible out of the box. I think I played 1/2 a day before only seeing 6 things in my inventory annoyed me enough to mod it. Within a week I posted my first mod to expand the inventory screen and containers (ref) though others eventually did a better job in overhauling the UI.

They were using like 30pt fonts and just did not need to. I was more than happy to use a 10 pt font though I think most people still want something bigger than that. This new UI looks like we have to scroll left and right to view all of the skills. While flashy, it is probably not really functional on the PC. For the console, I will admit that the side scrolling menu might work better than vertical though I would still prefer to not scroll in general if all the data can fit on a single screen.
 
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