UI in wargame

[thewood]

I saw this on another foruma and thought it was indirectly related to CM:

http://tleaves.com/2010/12/31/a-battle-lost-through-attrition/

I alwyas think about CMSF's interface released in 2007 and still not using almost any standard interface conventions. Its not even consistent. Enter works sometimes, but others for example.

I can forgive CM1 a little because it was still relatively early in the Windows era, but a game in 2007 should have some basic file management and menu conventions that 90% of the world is familiar with.

 

[Redwolf]

Actually after TacOps I think that CMx1 had the most efficient interface of any wargame.

The usual operational and/or hex wargame interface is in fact atrocious. For me it's extra bad since I can't memorize icons, so a game like ATF/AATF is out for me

Of course that isn't an excuse for CMx1's lame interaction with on-disk resources. It comes back to wargame developers just not trusting existing software tools, including GUI elements. Too much hair to learn, too hard to customize.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The map editor is a broken joke. But putting that aside, the in-game 3D world tools are the best interface I've ever seen - I'm talking about CMX1. Perhaps it is only because I've become so accustomed to them, so I freely admit some bias. But the right-click menu, the camera controls, the ability to use the arrow keys to "drive" or creep along the ground - it all meshed perfectly as far as I was concerned. Only one thing stood out - a minor point that was easily fixed by switching two BMPs - and that was displaying a "pause" button when you wanted to "play" and vice versa. (And yes, Moon fought anyone who pointed that out on the forum, IIRC.)

I'm not saying it was intuitive out of the box, since I tried the demo, had no clue, and deleted it for a few months before trying again, but it didn't take long to learn it once I actually RTFM.

CMX2 improved a lot with the space bar menu, and I still find the camera controls easier to use than Panzer Command, though I am getting better with practice.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Ok, having now scanned the article, I can add a bit more. The menu bars that come up in the right click menu were also well organized in CMX1, and I liked the color-coding and icons and the fact the names of the orders were spelled out. The author of that piece has a great point about the use of icons (and by extension, reliance on mouseovers just to know what damn command you're trying to find) in on-screen menus. The rightclick menu in CMX1 was very easy to navigate. (My ASL-mod made it a bit easier by color-coding according to vehicle-related, infantry-related, terrain-related, combat-related, etc., per the ASL rulebook chapter, but I digress). I was a bit disappointed the space-bar menu never went that far when it was first introduced back into the game. I can see how Steve tried to organize the tabs and colours on the hotkeys, but it was like German waffenfarbe in World War II - way too over-engineered and complicated.

The unit data and "kill" screens seemed very well laid out too. I never used the CMX2 ones enough to be able to judge, but I've seen a couple of guys on the CM:BN forum wishing for the death of the "green icons" and I have to say, I kind of agree. I found the status screens unintuitive and PanzerCommand's scrollable event menu and mini-map, plus layout of icons representing every squad and vehicle in the OOB at a glance, seemed far more useful.

 

[Rule_303]

The original Blizzard games (Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo) still set the gold standard by which game interfaces should be measured, IMHO. The reason the population of Korea can play SC at such bizarre speeds is in part because the interface was so brilliant and intuitive -- I mean, IPhone no-instruction-required brilliant.

Frankly, given the large number of units that usually need controlling in CM -- both x1 and x2 -- and given that the focus of the game is SUPPOSED to be on the company or battalion commander, you ought to be able to issue the 80% of commands most frequently used by the units with no more than an average of 3 clicks of the mouse and no keyboard needed at all (spacebar included!)

That includes interim waypoints, which we've all gotten used to in CM but are frankly substandard. The unit ought to be able to find a reasonable (i.e. mimic the choices a real world unit would make) path on its own without this level of micro.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Forgot to mention - thanks to thewood for finding and linking to such an interesting and well-written article.

 

[thewood]

I actually scarfed from a Don Maddox thread on TOAW.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I actually scarfed from a Don Maddox thread on TOAW.

Ah, this one:

http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?97709-Gary-Grigsby-s-War-in-the-East-vs.-TOAW

Seems like a lot of confrontation and not much productive discussion there. I won't bother weighing in, but I did leave this on the blog that you linked to:

Excellent article. This is not confined to operational level wargames by any means; we had a nice discussion of this today in the Combat Mission (forum - oops) of the gamesquad forums. I’ve not seen the “problem” presented in such clear terms before, though. Very well written. I had not put my finger on why I felt so turned off by operational level games before; I now realize that I don’t like using mouse-over tool-tips to learn unintuitive menu icons. Steel Panthers had a similar system to that described here, but perhaps I was more familiar with what “typical” menu commands might be – or I was just younger and had more time to waste learning new tricks. No excuse now to not have fully fleshed out UIs. I particularly liked Combat Mission’s right-click menu bar, with color-coded menu choices and actual WORDS married to the icons. It was clean and worked well – no appreciable learning curve to the UI, just the game itself.

Thanks for an entertaining piece.

It's still awaiting moderation.

I thought maybe I'd expand a bit in my own blog, but quickly realized Steel Panthers never supported screenshots without third party software intervention! So I found something better to do. :laugh:

 

[junk2drive]

I have UOSU and SPWAW. What do you want a shot of?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I have UOSU and SPWAW. What do you want a shot of?

I'm good, thanks. I'm happy not to have an excuse to spend any time on distractions, but I appreciate the offer! I take it as a sign from above to get back to work on stuff that matters! Rep given!

 

[Redwolf]

I thought maybe I'd expand a bit in my own blog, but quickly realized Steel Panthers never supported screenshots without third party software intervention! So I found something better to do. :laugh:

Neither does CM.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Neither does CM.

Prt Scrn works perfectly in CM - however, if you try it in Steel Panthers, this is what you get:View attachment 32321

 

[Redwolf]

Oh. And I thought relying on the clipboard is lame.

 

[junk2drive]

With SP I think it has to do with 8 bit graphics that post DOS systems don't like.

Most games nowadays give you a hotkey to send a bmp to a folder in the game or folder of choice. BBC BA even gives you the choice of tga, jpeg, or png.