Nice game, ugly interface and some improvements

Hello devs

I just started to play Entropia Universe starting with Planet Calypso. My first impression was: "Cool graphics but so old galme!".
And indeed I yet think that the graphic is excellent but the UI needs really a total restyle.
I mean, with my NVIDIA GTX560 I play the game at full resolution and some popup windows are really really small and can't be resized. In example MAP is too small, and can't be zoomed enough to decently see the spots on it.
Loot windows is horrible!! With those bones on the frame... seems kinda outdated, isn't?
Same for other windows, there is not a homogeneous style, seems you took textures here and there and mixed together to create the UI.
With a little effort in restyling you can really improve the look of the game, in example you can change the windows with holographic windows, with some alpha layers, neon-like look. Much more futuristic and kinda cyberpunk.

And about the weapons... please make them shot like real weapons, with quick bullets, fast shooting. You can reduce the bullet damage but allow weapons to shoot much faster.
And please add some gore effects, I shoot to enemies and they are pretty happy, no blood, no pain, they stay there smiling and waiting my bullets. Also my avatar seems quiet and happy to receive hurts. Some blood? A better animation?

And talking about animations, this is the worst thing i seen in the game. Standing animations are unexistant, the NPC and also my avatar stay there like a statue, in a very ridiculous pose. And running... oh my god... never seen worst running animation. You could add a two stage running, one slow normal running and one with sprint.

I don't think those things are really complicate to add to the game and really they can improve the look of the game and attract much more new users.

And add more missions, more rewards for the missions, better armors, cybersuits, something to wear after a short time because it is not nice to run around in pajama... expecially yellow pajama...

Sorry for the bad english, i am italian, and good work for the great game.

Boy you wouldn't have liked it 6 months ago then.

UI has only recently been overhauled and greatly improved!


Gore was removed from the game over 5 years ago to comply with some countries laws (I think Germany has some laws regarding blood in videogames)

Wouldn't BLP or swords mean gore and lasers mean cauterized wounds ?

I'd like a little blood and guts on my sword...

I agree, the UI should be well improved, the big difference between styles of windows are quite recent, it was all more odd but similar in past, than MA begun to change this and that, all in own style, a proper design road seems to miss... MA choose one and go for that in all areas of the game.

Before criticizing something you should take time to learn about it.

In example MAP is too small, and can't be zoomed enough to decently see the spots on it.

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Map can be resized. There are 3 sizes. Small, medium, and large.

Loot windows is horrible!! With those bones on the frame... seems kinda outdated, isn't

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Loot window can be disabled in options so you see a ticker on your HUD. The old school window is something from the original graphics of the game.

And about the weapons... please make them shot like real weapons, with quick bullets, fast shooting. You can reduce the bullet damage but allow weapons to shoot much faster.

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There are many fast shooting weapons - mostly pistols. Some pistols shoot over 60 shoots per minute.

Standing animations are unexistant, the NPC and also my avatar stay there like a statue, in a very ridiculous pose.

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You can change the standing animations in the Action Library.

And running... oh my god... never seen worst running animation. You could add a two stage running, one slow normal running and one with sprint.

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Running is an issue.

And add more missions, more rewards for the missions, better armors, cybersuits, something to wear after a short time because it is not nice to run around in pajama

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There are plenty of missions. Let me know when you've finished all of them. Some rewards include tokens to buy armor.

... expecially yellow pajama...

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Check your gamma. They're orange.

In addition to what Thoreau has said above, when you've finished all of Calypso's missions, there are missions on all the other planets out there - you wont run short of missions (ever)

Before criticizing something you should take time to learn about it.

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I agree and indeed I wrote that I just started the game and these are my first impressions.

Map can be resized. There are 3 sizes. Small, medium, and large.

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I mean the inner map, not just the window. I zoomed it using the + button but it is always too small to see the spots on the map where i should go. Probably I use a too high resolution. But ok, this is a minor problem.

Loot window can be disabled in options so you see a ticker on your HUD. The old school window is something from the original graphics of the game.

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Thank you I realized I can disable loot window 5 mins after having posted the message in forum. Anyway new users doesn't know that and can have a bad idea about the game, so probably to change those windows can be a good idea, isn't?

There are many fast shooting weapons - mostly pistols. Some pistols shoot over 60 shoots per minute.

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I hope to find some of those weapons.

You can change the standing animations in the Action Library.

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I will try, thank you. But I was talking about NPC animations as well. Not very realistic to see all those paralyzed people all around, while in other games they freely move, go around, are animated like real persons. Entropia seems more a virtual world platform than merely a game so just for this should be very easy for the developers to change almost everything in-world.

Running is an issue.

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Indeed

There are plenty of missions. Let me know when you've finished all of them. Some rewards include tokens to buy armor.

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I know there are plenty of missions but here progress seems very slow and, at least until now, very hard to loot weapons or armors or clothes or even to get them as rewards. But again i am a noob yet, probably I am wrong. But other players inworld told me that too.

Check your gamma. They're orange.

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Oh yes, orange, this is totally different, much better, sorry.

Let me give you an adivce! DONT START PLAY THIS GAME!


GL

p1kk0 said:

Let me give you an adivce! DONT START PLAY THIS GAME!


GL

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best. advice. ever.

this game isnt about graphics and awsome. its about money.

Yes this game is about money for a lot of people but that's only the most obvious reason to stay here. EU is all about challenge, most people like it because its HARD to thrive here and bad decisions cost you real money. That hold true on all levels , even a maxed level 100 avatar can screw up and lose his underpants in the process. It will never be easy, it will always be a struggle to avoid taking up heavy losses. Player who choose to stay here are feed up with everything being thrown at them like in other games. And yes, EU is some kind of social platform years ago the company running this game actively advertised their product with the "Entropia is not a game" slogan.

By the way @TE
I really like your ideas about new neon frames and another UI overhaul. Its not necessary but would be a nice to have.

Hello GammafLux,

Welcome to Entropia
The learningcurve of this game is pretty big, but its totally worth it!

I hope you will enjoy it, All the best!

About the drops and mission rewards for new players:

About weapons:
Puny got a fair drop rate of puny weapons for newcomers, not that hard to loot some Rubio or other lowisch weapons. All of that puny weapons can be bought for 1 PED BO at auction or for even less if you just ask in local chat.

About Armors:
Do the missions around Half moon bay, rewards with CDF armor (newbie armor).
Low armors like Pixi drop from several mobs, and yes not easy to get them all on your own by hunting, but it should not be easy. BTW the longer you are around the harder it gets to find armor parts that fit to your level, some are nearly impossible to loot (Sentinel, Suprem and a lot other high end armors). To much drops would devalue this armors, what wouldn´t make sense if it drops that much that people dump it into TT just because there is no more buyer for it.

About clothes:
Talk to a technican anywhere at planet caly and buy the basic tailoring BPs (Basic Pattern Pants and Shirt). Then craft one of each, repair it to full TT. Buy some textures and paint cans and find a texturer/colorer with enough skill to asign the textures/colors you like. Voila, induvidalized look. Clothes have been removed from loot long time ago, some things are still around and can be bought from other players.
Beside that there is a few mission rewards with clothes: Starter Cap at old swamp camp, Polar clothes from hunt the thing missions (RT), don´t know about other planets missions. Additionally you get some parts cristmas cloth every year.
Can´t say its hard to get some clothes different to the orange OJ.

About blood and gore:
Already said above, legal issues in some country. Removed!

About map:
Yes, could have an overwork.

About Loot window:
No please let my old style loot window, always reminds me of good old times when I started.
If you don´t like it, just disable it. Some people here want that loot window, I am one of them.
What I would like to see is loot optional displayed to chat window (like team loots), so that we could track exact loots by using the chatlog file.

Animations:
Can´t care less, don´t need animations.

Moving NPCs:
Not really needed and would cause server load / more lag. We already have enough lag.
Beside that it would be a pain, if mission brokers would walk around and you would have to search them again and again.

Gammaflux said:

... here progress seems very slow

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Yes, it's by design. This game is meant to last for decades not months.
Yes, there's many games out there with much better animations and UI. Then again, when those gmes are long gone and forgotten this one's still here.

Hey m8 welcome to EU. Feel free to add me ingame, as I don't mind helping new players get a handle on the basics.

I agree with the map, it'd be nice to zoom farther, so we could better define terrain features when trying to remember a spawn area, mission broker, poi...

For me, the fun is greatly reduced in the chat interface. Even when I enlarge the font to extra large, it's still too small. And my first pm received will be extra large, then once I reply...all chat is converted to small and gives me a headache to read.

First of all, welcome to entropia universe. You will see a whole new part and kind of "mmo" here, with integrated RCE - but im sure you will read some stuff, also goni gave allready a good introduction.

Thank you for your feedback, i guess would be more appropriate. Honestly, thoreau your right when you say the game has many features to change/customize appearance. Anyway it must be admitted that the game is looking static in some aspects. Imgagine an improved -nonstatic- environment, a variety of e.g. mob animations/normal behavior, mixed with the action library stuff.... that would be a huge improvement....then it would be not looking static, but rather dynamically

...a coherent/consistent UI/UX would also be impressive. Dont get me wrong, the UI is okay, i like the way it enables you to play the way you wish to (first person, auto move/targeting/shooting and so on) but improvements would be pleasent.

thoreau said:

Check your gamma. They're orange.

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This reply really made me spill my morning tea

Now, please stop toying with the poor n00b, he has a few valid points in his observations and I appreciate him taking the time to share.

/Slupor

Gammaflux said:

/snip

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My apologies to the OP for my snarky response.

If you find yourself on Calypso and in a dangerous location look up Sunnata Thoreau Annata and I'll provide free safe passage out and fly you to your destination.

Regarding the UI, yes it is inconsistent because it parts emerged from the history of adding fetatures with their correspondent part in the UI without a consistent styleguide for a good decade.

The good news is the developers are well aware and it is on their roadmap:

Bertha Bot said:

State of the Universe Address 2015

...snip...

2015 Roadmap
...snip...

EU Client
The effort to overhaul and modernize the various user interfaces of the Entropia Universe client will continue in 2015. This is an ongoing project with the goal of unifying and streamlining the many existing user interface elements to improve usability and aesthetics.

...snip...



Originally Posted Here

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The main reason the games graphics don't feel coherent is because this game has been around since 2001.
Some things like the loot window have only been updated once (in 2004 I believe). It looks a bit dated.
If you check out billy's afterworld, you can see the spaceship designs throughout the years. Some of the graphics are really old. And for some of us, thAt's just fine, because it reminds us of the old game we used to play. (project entropia). Because the universe is soo massive it's really a lot of work keeping it all new and updated. And replacing old things feels like ripping part of our home we knew for so long out of our hearts. So it's a mix of old stuff and new.
I do agree with the animation, but we have had an overhaul 3 times now for animations and apparently this is the best the creators can do.

p1kk0 said:

Let me give you an adivce! DONT START PLAY THIS GAME!


GL

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Too late, he stayed long enough to post about what he thinks is wrong. In 6 months he will just complain about the same stuff the rest of us do or rage quit.

Gammaflux said:

or clothes or even to get them as rewards

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´
Long time ago, you could buy clothes from an NPC, and it was in loots, but nowdays, generally, clothes are for the very most part crafted, and the easiest way to look for new clothes is in auction (or shops, or look around). Ocassionally, some piece of clothing has been given away as holiday gift.

On Arkadia, thers is a military chain mission, if you do it you will get a few pieces of green clothes. Non-arcadia born avatars nowdays have to turn in 10k of sweat to begin with that mission chain (to get an arcadia passport).

Another option is to look at the basic clothes blueprint at technichan, and either try to craft the clothes for you or you craft them yourself after getting materials. Those basic pattern clothes are colourable, so someone with enough skills to use the paint you want could color them for you.