In Game Status Lines

[Balthagor]

So from another conversation here the design of the SR2010 status lines came up again. These where located in the bottom right of the map, just above the GUI and provided players a feed of information about what was going on. It became, however, an unwieldy beast with more information that was useful and was therefore dropped during the development of Supreme Ruler 2020. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on such systems, the benefits and pitfalls.

One suggestion has been made to make a "console" system using hotkey <~> that could contain line after line of information (minister queued unit, unit killed, region falls, war declared) but would it be navigable with so much information? Would anyone use it? And making the content of any such status lines customizable involves adding an associated interface that would likely only get used by the most advanced of users and intimidate the more average users.

So, what do you think?

[SoB]

put in the more i get know about the gam the beter more info is good

[Draken]

I like the console idea for the status lines... With, perhaps, the ability to filter out events?...

[Ruges]

The way we get Emails now is a good way to get news. What I would sugest is exspanding that format.

If you have it set to a lower resolution the email and map are in the same spot seperated by a tab. (so you can click on the tab to either select map, or email). To exspand that I would sugest puting in two more tabs like the email tab is currently. (so you would have the map tab, and 3 email tabs). Each tab would be customizable for what info you would recieve. (the choices would be what ever BG decides it can give the player)

All the stuff we currently have, But I would include options for:

Own region news economy, (stuff like shortages, new buildings,)
Own region news military, (War decs, new military buildings, Local and nieghbor Defcon change/satilited launches)
Own region news diplomacy (new trade offers, offers accepted, refused, counterd, old trades canceled, not fulfilled)
World region news economy, (stuff like shortages, new buildings)
World region news military, (War decs, new military buildings, Defcon Changes, Satilite launches)
World region news diplomacy (new trade offers, offers accepted, refused, counterd, old trades canceled, not fulfilled)
Research Tech level increase region
Research Tech level increase world
Research complete region
Research complete world
Unit loss region
Unit loss world
Unit loss ally
Unit loss enemy
Region fall
Of course the differnt random events too
Maybe even unit supply issues (only triggered after 1 week of unit out of supply)
And what ever else that I am not thinking of right now that should be on the list.

But all those would be options for each window. The player would then choose which ones he wanted active for each window (all none, or selected ones) Understand what I am saying? I could probly make a picture of what I am invisioning if it would help.

[MaxRiga]

http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 43&t=13044

[Balthagor]

So far each of these has problems;

SoB: we have to have some limits on the qty of information or we'll create overload in the player
Draken: a filter system would require GUI and add complexity. Console alone is of course possible.
Ruges: That's a lot more GUI and a bunch more complex, plus all the new emails massively increases localization which is already a problem for us.
Max: Your system is essetially Uber-status lines, the visual impact would be worse than the existing status lines.

Feel free to expand on your ideas or propose others, this is more of a long term question.

[MaxRiga]

well, my idea is simple - sr2020 is not super 3d graphic game. The idea of sr2020 is not to play beautiful battles but geo-pilitical strategy. Since u play strategy u must be updated with most important information and the wide screen of world map is not so important in this case. In this case Interface of the game should be more for information but not world map. In fact, if there wouldn't be such hectic mess of 2000 units but regular army groups ( like in other games ), the wide world map wouldn't be needed either.

[Ruges]

I dont see how it would be that much more GUI. Here is a rough picture of what I mean.
In the circle you see there are now 3 email tabs. each email will show its own email depending on the settings you choose. You can only view one tab at a time. (allot like it now when switching between the email and the map tab).

In this picture you see a good way to implement a way so the player can decide what each email tab shows. Very custumizable.


The good thing about doing it this way is allot of the old code can just be copied and modified for the new GUI.

[tkobo]

If this is for a next title ,im all for it.If your talking about a possible update to GC,im against it.

Why not add an email section to each minister ?And have emails go to the minister that has the most ties to the email ?Where we can go and look at the window they collect in.

This would spread them out so you didnt have information overload,IE all of it stacked in one spot.And it would make getting the data easier as we'd know where to look for that specific catagory.

So this way, the military advisor would have all emails about military issues like lost units,units under attack,killed enemy units, etc.. collect in a new email/ communications window added to his section.
With diplomatic emails sent to that advisers new window,etc....

[Balthagor]

@ruges; each of those e-mail tabs is GUI section, all those menu options are GUI, it's just player perception. I'm not ruling it out, just listing concerns.

[Red Dawn]

I'm all for In Game status lines and definately would like to see it implemented. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Even something in the form of an email would be ideal. Or alternatively if you go into the diplomacy section there is a news feed. why not expand upon that and incorporate a similar feature in the military or operations section. General info about unit losses and location with being able to physically go to that location on the game map will suit me just fine.

[Balthagor]

So if we said that we want no more than 5 kinds of notifications to appear in status, what would you pick?

[Ruges]

what are our options to choose from? and how would they show?

[Balthagor]

pretend any options and we've found "the perfect place". I'm more trying to understand what feedback we're not managing to convey that is making ppl think a status line on screen would solve. It's a bit brainstorming...

[warriorsoflight]

could you put an option for the world economy. For example, how much oil is in the world, whats the total amount produced and consumed. this will give you a good ideal of how much you could build your economy on the resources within your empire