Uranium - 235 Uranium - 235

"Information Overload" is unbearable - A complaint and solution in one!

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"Information Overload" is unbearable - A complaint and solution in one!

from GalCiv2 Forums
One of the most irritating, annoying parts of this game is that at the end of nearly every turn, I have a horde of pop-up dialogs to click through. There's always one bit on each, and I've had over 8 'click actions' between turns just to get to the next turn.

Amongst other things, I'm informed of such trivially useless bits of information, like that a mining starbase belonging to the Korx just defected to the Torians (this happens at LEAST once a turn by the midgame). Let me be frank - it's not MY starbase, I have absolutely NO reason to care.

Another annoying screen are the 'war' and 'truce' espionage popups, like "Our agents have reported that X is paying tribute to Y", or "Our agents in the Y government have reported they have declared war on X."

First of all, I don't need a special popup about my AGENTS telling me who declared war and who slept with whomevers mother. I'll get that information on the news screen anyway. Secondly, if I have no espionage, why am I getting these reports?

Another thing are anomaly reports. Turning them off leaves you TOO blind, as you have no idea where your flagship ran off to, if it's still working, or if it's stuck. However, leaving them on bombards me with worthless discoveries (1bc, for example) and most infuriatingly, it centers my screen on the flagship every time (which should definitely be fixed).

It sometimes takes longer to get through the endless wave of popups than it does to perform actions on my turns. With all the endless dialog boxes popping up unnecessarily, I feel like I'm using windows Vista with user control still enabled.

However, about the information overload, I propose this - the greatest idea ever for this game.

Each section can be expanded or collapsed (and if there is no information, it's not even there). Economic Situation contains all those pop-ups about new trade routes, canceled trade routes (that'd be headline news, actually), and mining starbase reports.

Colony news can contain minor information, like if a planet has an overpopulation problem, a report will show up in there letting you know, as it's easy to miss something like that.

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Furthermore, I don't want to, nor SHOULD I be told, that Race X is going to war with Race Y because the Drath paid them off. Let there be some mystery to the galaxy.

1) Unless I am friendly with a race, it sort of kills immersion a bit that they tell me every part of their political game.
2) When I haven't even DISCOVERED a race, I get popups from them about who they're going to war with.
3) Espionage should dictate all this as well. If I have no espionage invested in the Drengin, I should never know who is paying them tribute, and how much. I shouldn't know about the wars they are in either. I shouldn't know about their mining bases or their planets flipping.

Honestly, I don't think we should be able to see anything on the 'reports' screen either. We should be able to see who has wars going on the Treaty screen, but not their treaties or trade, not without some espionage invested.
44,611 views 69 replies
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Uranium-235. Just click on the "x" underneath the action items. They disappear, and there is only one click. When you do see an item that is useful (helps me on huge or massive maps to locate planets), then you can "use it" (click on it and it will locate the item of action if it is that type of message), and then "x" the rest. Simple, huh?

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Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Uranium-235. Just click on the "x" underneath the action items. They disappear, and there is only one click. When you do see an item that is useful (helps me on huge or massive maps to locate planets), then you can "use it" (click on it and it will locate the item of action if it is that type of message), and then "x" the rest. Simple, huh?
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That doesn't really have anything to do with the popups... yeah you can use it in lieu of the GNN screen we have NOW, but it's not like there's any icons for anomaly discoveries or mining base noise or 'espionage' reports.
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*cough* bump
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If I may be frank for a moment, I don't think there is any reason to bump this thread. While your suggestions are for the better (somewhat. I would argue that truly major events demand a specialized pop-up, like researching a tech), I'm fairly certain they're falling on deaf ears.

It's ironic in a way; StarDock is, fundamentally, a company built around UI enhancements. Yet, their own game has perhaps the most infuriating UI for a 4x since the original Civilization. And it goes well beyond the issue you cite (though it is a substantial part of the problem).

But this UI has been there through 2 years worth of patches, feature enhancements, and an expansion. And the forthcoming expansion does not appear to address them either. And it isn't like these UI gaffs haven't been the subject of discussion on these forums either.

The simple and unpleasant fact is this: StarDock is not interested in spending time and/or effort on improving the UI for this game.
Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not that keen on the idea. Sure, it would be an idea to squeeze all the data into a single "sitrep" (MOO3 did something right!!?) but I don't like the idea of making the info expandable. It still involves too many clicks if you ask me. If you've been to the Sims 2 forums you'll know what I mean. It would be much better to put all the reports in one window, but just list them with a scroll bar so we can whizz down and keep our eye out for anything relevant.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*cough* bumpIf I may be frank for a moment, I don't think there is any reason to bump this thread. While your suggestions are for the better (somewhat. I would argue that truly major events demand a specialized pop-up, like researching a tech), I'm fairly certain they're falling on deaf ears.It's ironic in a way; StarDock is, fundamentally, a company built around UI enhancements. Yet, their own game has perhaps the most infuriating UI for a 4x since the original Civilization. And it goes well beyond the issue you cite (though it is a substantial part of the problem).But this UI has been there through 2 years worth of patches, feature enhancements, and an expansion. And the forthcoming expansion does not appear to address them either. And it isn't like these UI gaffs haven't been the subject of discussion on these forums either.The simple and unpleasant fact is this: StarDock is not interested in spending time and/or effort on improving the UI for this game.
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I agree with that assessment. The UI feels very much like an ad-hoc design by a programmer, and not something carefully planned by an expert human-computer interface designer. Maybe it's a result of incremental growth of the game from simpler beginnings, or maybe Stardock is just too small a company to have a dedicated, expert UI designer as well as programmers and graphics staff.

I wouldn't say they haven't done anything to improve things. The new TA expansion does improve the information content in the tech tree view. But there are still gaps and inconsistencies all over the place... for example, the way a right-click to see more info on a tech, will also SELECT that tech. That's maddening when you want to continue research on a different tech, and you're just browsing the tree for strategic planning. It's internally inconsistent in the game (in the contact/trade window "right click" gives info on a tech, and "left click" selects it), and it also violates normal conventions for Windows UI design. It's very rare to have a mouse right-click perform a selection, especially when it duplicates what the left click does.

I've pointed that out several times here, and others have pointed it out, and yet it's still there in the latest TA beta. You wouldn't think this would take massive programming hours to fix, but these little UI glitches just don't seem to be a priority.

Oh well, the game is still very enjoyable, but it could be better. At this late date in the TA development cycle, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see any further UI improvements. The devs seem intent on tightening up the AI (which is important) and race balancing (also important), and that will be it. I do hope Stardock will either hire a UI expert for the upcoming fantasy TBS and then GalCiv3, or at least spend a little more time thinking about and improving these UI elements.
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You wouldn't think this would take massive programming hours to fix
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Having done Windows UI programming before (not that GC2 uses Windows for its GUI, nor that GC2's GUI system is anywhere near as terrible as Win32), I can say that the difficulty of UI coding should never be underestimated.
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the difficulty of UI coding should never be underestimated
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As someone who's spent a fair amount of time around coders, and done a fair amount of "professional" feedback re UI stuff, I share this opinion. I've had friends nearly cry in frustration when I complain about something they also hate but can't code around (often b/c of Visual Studio, which I understand is Stardock's dev toolset).

To help keep up my curmudgeon rep, I'll also add that there is some evil consipiracy against keyboards. The game has dialogs, so why doesn't it have ALT+Underlined_Letter options for selecting options like "Upgrade all ships of this type?" Why can't PAGE DOWN and PAGE UP work consistently to scroll a list that has focus? Whinge, whinge, whinge...
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
often b/c of Visual Studio, which I understand is Stardock's dev toolset
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Aside: Visual Studio is a combination of things. In this case, let us examine two of them: the C++ compiler and the APIs for writing Windows GUI code.

The C++ compiler is one of the better C++ compilers out there. It's improved lots with regard to standards conformance since the VS 6.0 era. And it's great for generating performance-critical code; it even does global optimizations.

The Windows GUI stuff is... pain. Microsoft can write good code when they want to, but they are absolutely terrible at making decent APIs. The thing about them is that they're totally inconsistent about things. Some parts of an API will be good, well-thought out. Others will look like they let some monkeys throw feces at the computer and put it into API form.

But, StarDock is not using the Windows API for their GUI work, so that's not their problem. It's mostly that they're not good at designing GUIs.
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A developer saying 'haha you wish' would be even better than the stony silence thus far :( Though it'd be rather inferior to 'holy crap you're awesome. Even though you have no employable skills, here's a paycheck to sit around and yell at us to do things that would totally kick ass!'

I don't like the idea of making the info expandable. It still involves too many clicks if you ask me.
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The idea to me is user-friendliness. If you don't give a flip about what your survey ships find, you can shrink that crap and never see it again. If you don't care about mining base noise, just shrink that too.

How you can find a couple clicks (or simply leave the whole thing in one big window) 'too many clicks' compared to, as I pointed out in the first post, the two dozen clicks it usuall takes to wrap up ONE turn... oy.
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

"Ha ha you wish."

I look forward to your spread sheet based space strategy game, Uranium.

In the meantime, I like my games to feel like games even if that means there are animated robots and dialogs from aliens telling you things that aren't crucial to playing the game.

In games, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a "good UI". There are a lot of elements to factor in besides delivering the most "efficient" experience.  If efficiency were our goal, we would have just made GalCiv a Windows .NET app with standard Windows controls.

 

Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmmm... sugar or vinegar?

Anyway, UI is incredibly difficult. Add to that thousands (it's thousands, right?) of hours spent adding in options, features, and content that the fans ask and beg for. At this point there are tons of extra features in this game and all of them are included in the UI, and many have options to go with them we asked for. SD could probably have spent all that time just designing the UI and still have folks tear it apart.

I agree the UI could be a bit more polished, but I'm for a game thats fun to play and has the content and features I asked for.

I would like to take a moment to thank the folks at SD for their hard work adding all those juicy features we've been wanting (Terror Stars anyone?). I guess we forget that this was the first game this used-to-be independent company published themselves and it is still awesome.
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmmm... sugar or vinegar?
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That gets to me every time I see someone post it. Sure, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But you catch even more with bullshit. Let's not be encouraging that, okay?
Reply #65 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Ha ha you wish."

I look forward to your spread sheet based space strategy game, Uranium.
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Maybe I'm just a simple, dense end-user, but what the hell is THAT supposed to mean? What does combining a plethora of similar-looking popups into one box have to do with... formulaic number-crunching? You lost me on this one.
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In games, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a "good UI".
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Personally, I think that's a cop-out. It basically denies the possibility of objective criticism and just says, "Well, we think it's great, so there."

A good UI is one that is invisible and unnoticeable. It's one that provides exactly and only the information that you want at that moment, and provides you the interface to quickly enter the commands that you would like to.

I'm a programmer; I can understand arguments like, "we didn't have time to make it better" or "it seemed reasonably effective to us, but perhaps in hindsight, we can see where you're coming from." Or even, "I don't understand the criticism." But simply saying what amounts to, "We made it the way we did, so nuts to anyone who thinks its wrong" is... disconcerting.

I know GalCiv II is your baby, Brad, but you should be a bit more accepting of criticism rather than rejecting it wholesale.

There are a lot of elements to factor in besides delivering the most "efficient" experience. If efficiency were our goal, we would have just made GalCiv a Windows .NET app with standard Windows controls.
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That's a false dichotomy. There is a lot of room between "glitz and glammer overriding useability" and "spartan, utilitarian, and boring". Blizzard knows well this balance, and is very good at designing UIs that are both pretty, and useful.

Take the robot screen. The main issue isn't the screen itself or the movie that it plays. The main issue is that it takes non-trivial time to be displayed.
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
basically denies the possibility of objective criticism
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I'll basically deny that for you, with verve. I'm on record around here critting the game UI on a wide range of points, and I even hoped to see something useful come from U235's very feisty OP above.

But, there is no such thing as "objective criticism." To critique, you must have a point of view. So-called objectivity is a distraction from the more important business of increasing your awareness of your own assumptions and comparing that knowledge with what you know about the assumptions of your intended audience.

There're probably some Sun Tzu or Steven Segal lines about knowing your enemy and whatnot, but I'm still a formal pacifist and have given up on fighting my postmodernist tendencies.

p.s. I've been classically lazy and not read beyond the quote in this reply. Apologies.
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But, there is no such thing as "objective criticism."
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When I speak of objective criticism, what I mean is criticism based on a specific standard of measurement.

Like I suggested, a UI should provide the information that the user wants and allow the user to change the information that the user desires to as efficiently as possible. You can argue against this standard (though I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on there, since the UI is the mechanism by which you play the game. Making that harder is merely fake difficulty or being obstructive), but the criticism based on that standard is objective.

It isn't "I hate the UI" or something useless like that; it's a reasoned argument based on a measurable set of criteria and evidence.
Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alfonse, please don't get me wrong. Your posts are often very interesting and informative to me. I just have an unrecovered postmodernist problem with the using "objective" as an adjective.

Also, do you have a publication or organization in mind when you invoke standards here? I read very little game biz news, so the only standards orgs I hear much about are ISO, ITIL, and the like, and I don't believe they cover game design principles (I'm no expert, though).