It didn't scale properly if I understood the devs correctly, and thus couldn't be used with the new font rendering.

We counted 6% objecting the new font,

Hey all

Obviously there are divided opinions on the new font, it being in front of everyone the whole time and a big part of the overall EVE experience. When designing the new font, there were two major paths which we had to choose between. Make it legible, and improve accessibility or make it sci-fi and futuristic, risking usability for asthetics. We chose to go down the usability path.

Now from what we can see, there are very heated opinions on the topic. We did a little quasi-scientific analysis of the forums chatter. There were 1220 posts on the topic at the time of counting, 960 unique characters posting ( with the top 50 posting 31% of the posts ). We counted 6% objecting the new font, 49% somewhat neutral and 45% writing in a positive manner about it.

Looking at that date, we determine than while many people miss the old font and want the new one printed in books in order to be burned Farenheit 451 style, the majority of those writing on the topic like it and are enjoying the improved usability.

Also, the UI scaling is a very separate feature than the font, it was just lucky that we managed to get them both into Crucible. The font and the scaling had been developed by very different people at separate ends of the studio on very different schedules. Being able to launch both of then in Crucible made us pretty happy in terms of providing increased usability, which is something EVE sorely needs improved and we are committed to work on ad infinitum.

Finally, don't pick on Punkturis for implementing the new font or the UI scaling! She did a great job on both and I think EVE is a better product as a result of it!

The only real "fix" at this point would be to introduce fully switchable font typeface with at least a handful of different fonts that players could freely choose (with at least the ability to specify UI font and chat box font separately. Possibly also separate font for the overview).

I personally suspect this is some kind of a person-specific problem, possibly related to eyesight. Some people see the exact same things very differently, reacting in odd ways to visuals/text that look perfectly fine to others. In this case it may be related to kerning - to some people (as I understand it) the new EVE font appears to be spaced inconsistently. I can't see it and I have no problems, but I know people who are very frustrated with it (and some who have, over time, grown accustomed to the new norm)

The only real "fix" at this point would be to introduce fully switchable font typeface with at least a handful of different fonts that players could freely choose (with at least the ability to specify UI font and chat box font separately. Possibly also separate font for the overview).

I am aware that this is probably a non-trivial job, but I suspect that the small (and vocal) minority will never be happy until something like this is done.

(and no, reverting everyone back to the old crappy font... don't even think about it. Most of us are either neutral or happy with the font)

I have this absolutely crazy idea that would of saved so much time and money......

Keep the old font - Fix the ONLY the problem fonts in the old font.


Imagine how much money that would of saved. Perhaps the devs could of used font energy to do more important things for the expansion.

as we can see the new UI is inferior thanks to this.

yes the new font makes the game unplayable

I have to agree with this, but the font is pretty bad.

Supporters: "I can finally read it!"
Detractors: "It's ugly, amateurish, not scifi, wraps poorly, giving headaches and clashes with the EVE art style."

Again why the old font couldn't have been optimized for clarity* rather then scrapping it entirely for a rush job is beyond me.

(* Seriously? People had troubles reading it? Playing since 2005 no problem. If your upset because you need your glasses to read it: thats exactly what your glasses are for. We have poor vision, deal with it.)

sing it loud & proud. amen.

People have been screaming about the EVE font for far longer that 2005. There are links to various thread and even WIKI articles detailing this elsewhere in this thread.

Legibility is the primary purpose of a font in a game like this, everything else is secondary.

And frankly, the only people that need to get their glasses checked are the handful complaining of headaches now. People that apparently never read anything else on the web or in digital document form.

If your current resolution/monitor/preferences in scaling don't work well for you... change them, experiment a little. You'll find something you and the rest of the 6% can live with.

Legibility is the primary purpose of a font in a game like this, everything else is secondary.

So made it possible. Dont you have any programmers?

Contrary to what the public may believe, real life programming is not the same as Hollywood Hacking. It takes time to "made [sic] it possible".

Although I would just like to mention that I think it would be a cool feature to be able to use whatever font we want to with our EVE Client.

Hey all

Obviously there are divided opinions on the new font, it being in front of everyone the whole time and a big part of the overall EVE experience. When designing the new font, there were two major paths which we had to choose between. Make it legible, and improve accessibility or make it sci-fi and futuristic, risking usability for asthetics. We chose to go down the usability path.

Now from what we can see, there are very heated opinions on the topic. We did a little quasi-scientific analysis of the forums chatter. There were 1220 posts on the topic at the time of counting, 960 unique characters posting ( with the top 50 posting 31% of the posts ). We counted 6% objecting the new font, 49% somewhat neutral and 45% writing in a positive manner about it.

Looking at that date, we determine than while many people miss the old font and want the new one printed in books in order to be burned Farenheit 451 style, the majority of those writing on the topic like it and are enjoying the improved usability.

Also, the UI scaling is a very separate feature than the font, it was just lucky that we managed to get them both into Crucible. The font and the scaling had been developed by very different people at separate ends of the studio on very different schedules. Being able to launch both of then in Crucible made us pretty happy in terms of providing increased usability, which is something EVE sorely needs improved and we are committed to work on ad infinitum.

Finally, don't pick on Punkturis for implementing the new font or the UI scaling! She did a great job on both and I think EVE is a better product as a result of it!

In the short term, that's not that easy or cheap. The font has to be licensed and then adjusted to work within the client. That's expensive and time consuming.

Also, just be clear, we are totally aware that some people don't like it, and that's their opinion and we respect that. When it comes to something like a typeface, its there are no moral absolutes or right or wrong. What we're saying is that overall, we and the majority of people providing feedback on it feel that it improves usability. During testing and first implementation, we had pretty much exactly the same discussion and split opinions within the larger dev team, btw.