Entropia Universe Unreal - Preview of HUD UI

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@Dennis|MindArk

My gameplay uses about 15 different weapons/tools and I have UI icons and hotkeys for all of them. The new interface appears to be constrained to 5 or so. Should players plan to scale back their daily carry? Or can the item bar expand to accommodate more item icons as needed?

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The only thing I see is there are no COORDINATES around the radar for the mining log to read and help miners track their claims.
Please put the coordinate numbers back into the GUI
 
I do understand there is a bit of confusion here on some parts and many of the components you see isn't hooked up to any game logic just yet. We are testing different elements together.
That makes sense, ty for the response :)
 
While I have to say that I'm not a fan and can clearly see where the inspiration for this design comes from borrowing from other games, it is hands down definitely an improvement over the bland and lazy grey box UI design that was previewed last time. I still hope there's room for more originality though to keep EU as its own brand and/or return to its roots.
 
Interesting. I just hope to be able to use current gear (one main weapon) and be able to kill any mob outside of special locations like RDI. Like I can do now, without affecting my return or loot composition and relaxing gameplay.
You will, we are not trying to make current gear obsolete at all! We want to add more choices for the players that fit their playstyle. Some prefer a more passive playstyle and some a much more active one. It is hard for us to create challenging content in the future if we can not turn things up a notch ;).

Hope you guys didn't spend too much time on actually developing this.

EDIT: Usually this kind of decisions are made in design step of the development process, where designers lay out multiple options which are presented and then decided which way to go
We are very far from final and most of what you see is actually not connected to any game logic at all and just an image to get a feeling for it. We are in the design step and appreciate all the feedback. Rather hear what you dislike now early on than later. We all win on this right?

Will players be able to sign-up for a beta access on some test service (e.g. a copy of the original account as a sandpit account)? (I do appreciate it is early days on this stuff of course!)
Too early to say how the alpha/beta signup will work but we intend to have test invites. As we are migrating accounts, we have to do those tests too but the early tests will most likely be test accounts created by us.

Will it however in UE 5 be that style of possibility, along side being able to dodge attacks, and possibly run around? So while a mob might be hellbent on getting to you, you could potentially if being good atdodging, avoid armor decay by dodging attacks, and using, well, movement to get around that?
We intend the combat will be a bit more reactive yes. Timing of abilities, avoiding certain enemy attacks, positioning etc is some of the things that we plan to test to give combat a bit more life. Today you are very limited that also reduces the possibilities to create fun second to second encounters. Worth mentioning is that we are aware that we cannot take this too far so it alienates our current playerbase.

Will there be additional hud UI placement for items and other things? Seems to be a hotbar of 5 items which is not enough. That's more of a question than a design review. But if there are only 5, consider allowing additional random UI placement like we have now. Hard set hotbar location/count is annoying.
This is just a mockup for a default setup. 5 hotbar icons is just a test.

Are we able to put icons anywhere we want in the new UI? We currently can, and I love that everyone has his own unique EU desktop. It's something that not many other games have.
Too early to say what limitations will need to have. Customization is key so expect flexibility for sure.

This is a great to hear :)
  1. Will we still have the ability to run by holding both mouse buttons down and in cursor-mode? (I really like thus current feature and that we can release one of the buttons and continue to run).
  2. Will there still be an auto-run button for long distances?
  3. Will it be possible to use the follow-avatar command in UE5? (This is great when acting as a healer for someone else).
  4. Will we still be able to assign any weapon/tool/item to any key on our keyboard? (I have everything tied to a key so it is just a click away).
Not to promise but I would say yes to all of them right now ;).

sorry for the very much unproductive criticism
Love to hear even that so keep it coming :).

Will we get to keep our hangars, houses, apartments, shops, etc..?
Estates will be a big part in the Unreal version too and your ownership will stay.

I believe the topic is about temporary user interface, not the graphics... ie. radar... icons.. chats... not the graphics.
Unreal will provide almost realistic graphics
You are correct. The rest is very early in the development also. We are primarily figuring out the style and a good looking default HUD UI that is consistent across the board.

I'll chime in from the mining profession, but could we get a preview of what you are thinking for that sometime? This obviously seems pretty hunting focused.
Mining will next in line of the core gameplay systems that we will develop and brings in new UI elements of course. Right now we are very much focus on the 3C (character, control, camera) and the hunting loop.

Just some feedback. The new UI in progress picture looks so bad. What is this apex legends???? I see that alot of clutter has been added and nothing new of use which was expected to be honest after the last UI thread(LINK).
It is a very iterative process and still very early in the development. It is usually much easier to trim down than to add so it is our current approach.

Customizability may be the key here. Looks great so far.
It seems to be the key for sure to make everyone happy in the end. We will build the UI with that in mind from the start.



Thanks for all the feedback!
 
You will, we are not trying to make current gear obsolete at all! We want to add more choices for the players that fit their playstyle. Some prefer a more passive playstyle and some a much more active one. It is hard for us to create challenging content in the future if we can not turn things up a notch ;).
This gives me a vibe that there is gonna be 2 different styles of mob! Traditional style for the passive player, then a more active style of mob, perhaps with a HP bar AND and armor bar, perhaps needing you to cut through the armor with a particular weapon style (melee) before you change to your primary weapon to take down its HP. Just a thought ;)
 
I am not very excited about some items being abstract. Given the very nature of EU, icons of tools/weapons/buffs should be relevant to their economic impact. Meaning, if there's a buff/debuff, its nature and duration should be clear at a glance. Ammo/hp/PED balance should have distinctive looks between them and be anchored in a logic manner. Durability of various items should be easily accessible (currently you only need a click on a shortcut to get all relevant info), and so on. I don't like what I see (from the p.o.v. of personal taste), but as long as is functional and coherent I guess I'll get used to it. Radar does look good.
 
I
I believe it speaks volumes about the current state of development and the game itself when people are asking for options like "let me zoom into the map"
It is 2022 how is this not already in the current version, could be fixed in a day or less yet we have to wait years for new VU for it to even be a possibility.
Id say this should be Very possible with UE5s nanite technology to allow a live realtime map view.
 
Thanks for the lengthy replies already to our comments!
Too early to say how the alpha/beta signup will work but we intend to have test invites. As we are migrating accounts, we have to do those tests too but the early tests will most likely be test accounts created by us.
Please provide many many test accounts well before migrating real accounts! Anyone who wants should be able to try out the new game and give their opinions, and I would expect a specific date for all avatar transfers at once when the time comes.
Your quote makes it sound like a longer process of migrations - please DO NOT do that... (imho that'd be crazy).
 
I don't mind a different look, but then again it shouldn't look like other games out there. I just hope that all the dialogues will have just one theme and the auction house will (after 15+ years) look new.

Others talked about the colours. I can't identify the white-on-yellow stuff what they should be, the icons get lost in the rest of the screen.

And one thing: I guess it's common knowledge that the average EU-user is older than users in other games. So the overall thinking about the design should be that the "elderly" (and those becoming one) shouldn't be left out. This includes font sizes, sizes of clickable stuff (buttons, scrollbars, ...), general contrast stuff, ...
 
Please provide many many test accounts well before migrating real accounts! Anyone who wants should be able to try out the new game and give their opinions, and I would expect a specific date for all avatar transfers at once when the time comes.
Your quote makes it sound like a longer process of migrations - please DO NOT do that... (imho that'd be crazy).
This ^
You will, we are not trying to make current gear obsolete at all! We want to add more choices for the players that fit their playstyle. Some prefer a more passive playstyle and some a much more active one. It is hard for us to create challenging content in the future if we can not turn things up a notch ;).
Great to hear! And I'm glad you guys are aware that you must tread carefully in order to not lose the core playerbase! ;)

For sure I believe the core mechanics of the gameplay for all professions should be beta tested a while before the final version by the players with a free signup (not limited for certain players) so all can take part of it. A full copy of all active accounts in current live servers that signed up for it, a day or so before beta testing begins would do.
It should have capability of in-game poll/message system for feedback, unless you want hundreds of support cases.
Heck you can even make it an event where players can earn prizes (doesn't have to be anything of value can be cosmetic, badges etc) for most bugs reported/or best suggestions from the community that got implemented.

Don't be shy about making the beta test a month even. People need to try everything and really dive into it in order to find most of the sneaky bugs which you guys are notorious for missing (sad but true). You'd be getting free testers and awesome feedback in the process whilst allowing yourselves time for fixing bugs and implementing community suggestions, in the end making our game even better = Win Win!

All of this so we can have a bug free Entropia in UE5! ;)
 
1.)
I see no MAP.
The map is my most important orientation UI tool.
Since 2008 the developers have been asked a billion times to provide a better map with a much deeper zoom function.
Will the new UI come with a detailed map and state of the art map functions?

2.)
Nobody asks for fixed elements.
Everybody asks for scalability, customizability and individualization. Me too, me too, me too.

3.)
To me the new UI looks like all the other mass produced, free-to-play and pay-to-win high speed games designed for stupid youngsters.
The presented UI totally lacks the individual style of PE, that we loved so much in the early years.
Will the new UI try to return a little of the unique PE style, updated and refreshed?

4.)
We want to take combat to the next level but at the same time keep the more relaxed version you currently experience. This is to be able to create content that requires a bit more from the players (like the Lab). Today, we have very few options so we want to open this up a bit for the future. It has been requested quite a lot to make the combat more interesting overall so we are trying to find a good balance here.
I already lost several soc mates, who spent their remaining concious time in PE instead of staring at their walls, before the Grim Reaper scythed them down.
An alarmingly high proportion of the players take PE as a sanctuary from their daily discomfort and as a place for social contacts, because they suffer from one or the other disability, are aged and not 18 years old anymore, are handicapped, or have slowed down reflexes and reactions.

Will the "next level combat" be rewarded with monetary advantages, which the above mentioned players will not be able to access with the "relaxed" playstyle?


Thank you for sharing your work in progress.
 
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Since this is strictly about the UI, that's what I'll focus on. I've seen some others comment on gameplay, features, etc. but those are for other threads.

1. Overall Look
I get that this is basically what you are playing with, from the "out of the box" items, just to see what catches your fancy and might feel useful to the new layout. With that in mind, I'm not even going to bother critiquing it.
Keep in mind though that "update", doesn't really mean 'change', it means 'improve'. In that spirit, might I suggest you start by essentially rebuilding the current UI, but in UE5 format. And I mean with as little change as possible. I think this make things easier to begin with since color pallets, etc. are already determined, and we as players are already used to them. Less having to "retrain" us old folks.

TBH, I think we'd be happy with just that for the first live role out. (except for those negative folks that will scream "ha that's just the old look. That sucks ", but would honestly just bad mouth whatever you do anyway.)

Once you have the "current" look in UE5 format, then you can look into UI improvements for future updates.

2. Standardization
This is the biggest alteration I would request. During this UE5 process, I think the best improvement you can do is condense the current UI formats into a single "look". ATM, so much of the current UI (especially with interfacing different menus or game features) have such varied looks, due to them being made years apart by different teams without continuity. This is a great time to fix that.

3. Customization
We already have color and placement options, and I can't imagine this being a problem in this new engine, so I'm not worried about that. I'm sure you'll do fine.

4. Map
The current map is a result of the limitations of just using a pic atm. But UE5's major features are already built for just this sort of mega-scroll in/out ability folks ask for, so this is also something I expect we'll be happy with.


That's really about it. I look forward to the new worlds.
 
just don't forget to leave in all of the keyboard commands we have now like z and c to turn, r for autorun, etc. Also be sure to leave in ability to jump from third person to fps.

Also it may be a weird request, but I'd like the windowed mode to be where you can click the edge and resize it unlike what we can do with current game engine. There's an app that fakes that sort of thing that I used to use but it is mostly not working at the moment since that messes up some pixels here and there.

Bring back select next so we can pick stuff in estates that are stuck in walls...

don't make stupidly small icons for shopkeepers or inventory for things like tomtebloss that makes it impossible to select them unless you select something else along with it since it's pixels are too small to actually select.
 
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Some of this may have already been addressed, I haven't read all 4 pages so far... But I think you just want to see first impressions of the design and feel of the Interface elements, so here are mine:

#1. It's very VERY clean, almost TOO clean. Most of the lines are very thin and most of the panels are too translucent; I'm concerned that some of these elements will become too difficult to make out or read if the background colors too closely approximate that of the interface elements. I would hope for options to make all these interface elements bolder and the ability to somehow increase the contrast between interface elements and background if seeing them becomes an issue. Also, and this is an absolute must, there has to be an options to increase text size in ALL interface elements.

#2. I see that the main HUD for combat activities, with health bar, energy/shields and other things, has been appropriately placed at the bottom of the screen, in the center. This reminds me of the Ship HUD in EVE Online. I would like to point out that in EVE Online, this HUD can be moved to the side or to the top of the screen, and I believe it can also be removed completely. I hope that this will also be the case in Entropia. These days I almost never hunt and I know that I'm not the only one, so no point in having this HUD ever present; it's just one more thing on the screen I have no use for. And if I do go hunting, I think I might move this HUD to the top of my screen instead of the bottom, or to the right side where it's always been located before.

Thanks for sharing,

Legends
 
I would add:

#3. I would prefer the "current/max" numbers to be within the progress bars themselves, to save space. Progress bars should be thicker imo, and then putting the number inside becomes easy.

#4. For energy/shields, I would hope to have a visual cue on my avatar itself, if I so choose. For example, if my shields/energy are fine, 80% or above, give me a faint green glow, between 50-80%, a faint yellow glow, 25-50% orange, below 25%, red.

Anything that can be incorporated into the game visuals themselves should be, rather then added on a HUD, more immerssive that way.
 
Cal me an old fashioned dinosaur but I really like the HUD that I am already used to. Give us more customisation in regards to window sizes, increase the icon size of the buffs, Draggable hp bars and better text scaling and we will have a pretty sweet HUD.
 
feels a little too messy... abit "childish" theme.
personally I prefer a more modern and stylish design
Its aight but i agree heavy with the childish part. The customizable part is the only thing holding this thing together imo. And I dont think we ever needed a hot bar.
 
Looks absolutely awful, has nothing to do with Entropia style. Go to Twitch and look at some of the "shooter" games (Valorant, Apex,...), this seem like a poor copy of those games Hud's. I understand the need to change the game engine but the decision to also change the style of the game and the Hud and graphics is totally wrong.
 
Looks fresh and "up to date", love it.
 
The only thing I see is there are no COORDINATES around the radar for the mining log to read and help miners track their claims.
Please put the coordinate numbers back into the GUI
It would be great if MA made an ingame tool or mechanism for that. This would be way better that us having to use a 3rd party program for mining.
 
Maybe customizable toolbars in the HUD, that have auto hide options... and in same time each element of it to have its own option to be always visible. In this case once the toolbar is hiden, you will see what you need of it, but also you can just move the mouse cursor for some that is not so important in most cases, but is there. This might keep a common interface style, but also it will give a lot of freedom for personal customization.
 
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