Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:It should be obvious at this point that players who have an opinion about brighter nebulas oppose them, and some would rather like a darker background for their interface. Being a bittervet, I know that the change will go through, as with everything the Art Deparment gets OK'ed, and players/customers be damned, but at least we said what we oppose and why, so now the ball is on CCP.
It just is tiresome that each time some bloody artist comes up with some bright idea, CCP can't say "no hell no, that would be bad for our customers" and we're reduced to helplessly complain about CCP's artwork hurting our eyes and making our game more difficult to play without an opt-out.
It is so, so tiresome...
Bad interactions between gameplay/UI and art are a concern, and the graphics QA team do look at all art changes with this in mind. However, they're not going to catch everything you might encounter in-game, because not everyone uses their UI the same way, and so it really does help if you report any serious frustrations you encounter in this area.
The best way to do this reporting is through the Bug Reporting tool, which you can get to by hitting F12 and clicking on the button there.
The best bug reports on this type of issue illustrate the problem with a screenshot, because you may be encountering specific combinations of artwork and UI arrangement that don't occur to the QA analyst even after reading your report. Be as specific and visual as possible -- saying "The new nebulas suck because I can't see
UI element" may not be enough information to identify exactly what you're experiencing. Also, it's possible that new graphics or the UI render differently on your machine from others, so a picture can help identify that.
As far as the change to make nebulas brighter: That wasn't simply a change for the look of open space. Nebula brightness also interacts with in-game lighting, and various changes to ship lighting and rendering in our engine benefit from the change as well. If there were unanticipated impacts on gameplay, though, we'd like to hear about it through the bug report system.
I personally am interested in improving our response to feedback on this type of issue, so please keep offering the feedback, here for the minor irritations and in bug reports for the major roadblocks.