Isabella Thresher
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Posted - 2010.05.26 16:48:00 -
[1]
hyya,
as much as i love eve (3 accounts, on several hours daily) i have not many good things to say about the gui. 90% of everything is dona via right-click-context-menus, followed by screens with dropdown lists and excel-style tables. you constantly have at least 5-8 windows open, and most things you do, especially industrial-oriented things, are solved so horribly complicated, making you wonder why you don't "fix" the gui asap?
just one simple example: manufacturing
instead of the right-click-select-manufacturingslotandlocation-checkmineralsbeforehand-orgy, why not
- have a draggable area on the screen where you simply drag&drop the BP you want to manufacture on
- after dragging the BP to this area have the interface change to "production mode", where you immediately see all available & usable manufacturing locations (pos assembly arrays, stations), not with dropdown lists, but with easy-to-select big logos, icons or image buttons
- have incompatible locations greyed out or removed completely so they don't even show up
- show all needed materials both in personal / corp hangar on the same page, again with icons
- allow easy adjustments for amount of runs, imediately updating material requirements and prod. time etc
- and most importantly: require for just 1 click after the DnDrop action to actually build the item because the only compatible manufacturing location for the ammunition bpo is already pre-selected.....
other examples are invention, research or selling in the market. yes, selling in the market!
currently i right-click the item and choose "view market details" to see what the average price is
then i right-click the item and choose "sell"
then i go to advanced mode, because i want to put in my own price
then i enter my desired price and actually put up the order
this could be eased so much by, again, having a draggable location in the station window for "sell item":
- drag&drop the item to this location on the screen
- game enters "sales" mode, automatically showing current prices and suggesting a sell (maybe even a buy) price upon predefined settings (e.g. make best offer, make average offer, make offer based on item mineral price etc)
- have two buttons on the bottom of the screen: "sell now" (for best offer available) and "put up sell order" (with above settings)
repair would be another good example: drag&drop the item to the "repair" area of the screen and confirm the price. easy cheasy.
to sum things up:
- more drag&drop
- less multiple windows
- consolidate multiple steps to 1 or max. 2 steps
this is IMO one of the most important things for the next version of this game.
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