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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.03.26 04:20:00 -
[1]
Hey.
It's finally started annoying me enough to post about it. I like to do a lot of things at once in eve, I will always have several windows going and will be doing several things at the same time. Eve, however, much like the majority of programs, is designed with the assumption that the user is only ever doing a single thing at a time. This causes me no end of annoyance. I'll explain why it's annoying and suggest ways to possibly correct the user interface to remove this problem.
Problem #1 - Undocking: Say I'm chatting away to a friend in corp chat and I need to undock. I undock and the entire screen goes black for a good 20-30 seconds. I can continue to type and the chat window is definitely there and recieves text but I can't see it. I can't see anything, all because I'm undocking my ship. It's annoying and it's not required.
Possible solution: Make the chat windows and left hand sidebar display on top of the fading screen. When the screen has faded, close inappropriate windows as the game currently does. Only chat windows and the left hand bar, everything else would fade to black as normal but I could keep chatting to people as I undock. If possible, the market and other windows that are allowed to be open when undocked should also remain above the black fade.
Problem #2 - Shifting focus: This is the single biggest cause of me shouting "NO!" and "STOP DOING THAT!". Under no circumstances, EVER should a program switch your mouse or keyboard focus from one object to another unless you expressly ordered it to do so by moving the mouse, clicking or some other interactive mode. Eve is terrible for this and I'll give a few examples:
I keep local channel separated from the main panel and keep it on the topleft of the screen. If I'm typing a sentence in a chat channel when I dock, half the sentence ends up in local because half way through the docking sequence keyboard focus switches to local. Or say I'm typing something in the market search window or character search while I dock, it appears in local channel.
Say I convo someone but they aren't at their computer. That's fine, they'll see the window when they get back and click accept. When they click ok, regardless of what I am doing or whether or not I am typing, my game will stall for a moment and open their window right on top of what I'm doing, causing the focus to shift. And that's not the worst bit. Sometimes the focus DOESN'T shift when a chat window opens and I'm sitting typing in another channel that's on a different tab of the current stack.
In the same vein, sometimes I'm sitting chatting and a convo invite window pops up right when I'm hitting enter. I find myself in a convo unexpectedly, not a big issue, but what happens when it's a gang invite? People were using this not too long ago to pirate in highsec. They'd sit outside jita ganging haulers repeatedly in the hope that they would be typing and hit enter or be stupid enough to accept, then people at war with the gang leader pop the hauler.
Possible solution: Keyboard focus should never change unless as a direct response to something the user does. Simple as that. Windows which pop up in front of the user should not grab the focus unless the user directly (as in immediately beforehand) pressed a button which caused the window to appear.
In the case of convos, I suggest that if they are set to appear on the same stack as is currently being used, make them appear as normal and grab focus. However, if they are to appear on another stack or on their own stack, they should not grab the focus. This stops a window that doesn't directly cover up the one you're using from grabbing the focus mid-sentence without making that annoying thing happen where a nonvisible window has the focus.
There are more, which I'll get around to posting eventually.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.03.26 05:15:00 -
[2]
Problem #3 - Progress Indicators: Whenever you log in, dock, undock or do any od a myriad of tasks like checking a contract, a small progress indicator pops up Progress Indicators in programs are designed to let you know that while the program may appear to be unresponsive, it is actually doing something that might take a little time. In eve, they have the unfortunate side-effect of interrupting what you're doing and forcing you to wait until they are completed. While you can make them disappear by hitting escape, the fact remains that while a progress bar is on the screen, you can't do anything. It steals the mouse focus and disables all mouse functionality. It steals keyboard focus and then gives it back once it's done. It doesn't need to do those things to perform its purpose - to indicate loading.
Possible Solution: Make loading indicators completely transparant to I/O.
Problem #4 - When Jumping..: Whenever you jump from one system to another, the mousefocus is stolen by an invisible upper layer momentarilly while the game changes systems and the keyboard focus switches to local. This has some unfortunate side-effects. I can't type while jumping, jumping interrupts my market dealings for 5 seconds and most annoyingly, it's often too late to stop the autopilot if I see that I need to upon entering a system because it starts to warp before I can even use the mouse again.
Possible solution: I don't know what possible reason there is for stopping people using the mouse while jumping so I assume it's not intentional and is simply left over from when jumping used to be a fade-to-black affair (or am I remembering that incorrectly?). Please find a way to smooth out jumping, it would make eve so much more pleasant to play. While I'm on the subject, the visuals of jumping are disappointing. Your ship fittings disappear and re-apear after the jump, the background changes juttedly and the game stalls for a moment as the new grid loads and appears all at once. Instead, why not have something a tad smoother and graphically friendlier? I'm not suggesting we go back to the old fade to black when jumping thing but surely there could be a simple fade of some kind between the old background and the new one, assuming the slight stalling issue can be sorted out (perhaps by preloading the other side of the stargate?).
Problem #5 - Stuff jumping around all over the overview: The overview updates about once per second and rearranges itself accordingly. Unfortunately, if there's a lot of activity, this can make actually clicking on something impossible. Try selecting a stargate in jita, for example. It's been a minor annoyance of mine since the overview came out.
Possible Solution: I believe the overview item that you have the mouse over should not move. If the overview updates, the item you have the mouse over should remain where it is for that update. It's a simple fix and would save so much grief. If it would cause any problems, make it optional and default it to off.
Problem #6 - Someone jumping into the system resets mouseover: Whenever anyone jumps into or out of the system (whenever the local user list changes), the chat mouseover data is lost. For example, if I move the mouse over a link and then someone jumps in, the link deselects. I'll have to test whether or not this makes the link unclickable until you move the mouse again but I think it does. Try clicking links in jita local, where the local list changes every second at peak times.
Possible Solution: Obvious.
Problem #7 - There should be a number 7: I'm sure there is one. If it comes to me, I'll post it.
Possible Solution: I'll probably suggest a solution for it once I remember it.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Par'Gellen
Gallente Low Grade Ore
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Posted - 2007.03.26 07:28:00 -
[3]
I am in full agreement. My personal favorite irritation is the use of blocking calls when they aren't needed (entire client freezes and stutters as it's communicating with the server). This is not a good practice when coding TCP/IP or UDP communications unless you have no user interface at all. Otherwise it's simply annoying to anyone trying to use it. ---
CCP : Save my mousewheel! |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.03.26 08:23:00 -
[4]
Originally by: Par'Gellen My personal favorite irritation is the use of blocking calls when they aren't needed (entire client freezes and stutters as it's communicating with the server).
This is my pet peeve with games these days. This, not using threading and buffering to split IO from the main game loop and stalling a game while loading textures and models are starting to **** me off in games. If the client cannot continue without some information, sure, lock the portion of the game that relies on it until that information arrives. Don't lock the entire game up, disabling my chat channels and making the game feel unresponsive, just because there's a texture that hasn't loaded yet or because you're downloading what's on the grid you just warped into.
The other problem, I just remembered. Explosions. I am getting sick of seeing my entire screen flash when an explosion occurs on the same grid as me. This giant flash obscures my vision for a split second every time an npc gets blown up and I know why. They're making explosions (which take WAY too much CPU to calculate btw) spawn on the camera and then moving them to their proper location. So for a split second, the explosion is right in front of you and it's god damn annoying when something is exploding every second and you have to put up with that. It even happens when I'm 100km away from whatever exploded and looking in the opposite direction. If you want to get annoyed by this, go to Deltole, go to the comet complex and go to the serpentis survey site while people are killing everything. God damn that's annoying as hell.
Possible fix? This is a programming mistake. Don't display an explosion until it's in the position it's supposed to be.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.01 20:16:00 -
[5]
I'm surprised there aren't more vocal people annoyed by these things. Eve stutters and interrupts users, even on broadband and with a great computer. Granted, they aren't game-breaking issues, but they're the kind of problems that erode your resistance and start to really **** you off after a few years.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyana
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Posted - 2007.04.01 21:41:00 -
[6]
Mega-signed.
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Frecator Dementa
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Posted - 2007.04.02 13:45:00 -
[7]
uber-signed
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SN3263827
The Black Rabbits Fatal Persuasion
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Posted - 2007.04.02 14:15:00 -
[8]
Signed, except maybe the overview sorting thing, but since you've admitted it should be optional I'll give you free support for that too ;)
My niggle is part of problem #2. More specifically, the calculator. I have never in my life known an application to NOT have focus when you start it up. I can't believe you have to actually click in the calculator to give it focus after opening it. The number of times I've been working out stacking penalties or somesuch and typed "0.87*0.7" or whatever in local/corpchat/jointops I couldn't count. _____________________________________________
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.02 19:44:00 -
[9]
Originally by: SN3263827 Signed, except maybe the overview sorting thing, but since you've admitted it should be optional I'll give you free support for that too ;)
My niggle is part of problem #2. More specifically, the calculator. I have never in my life known an application to NOT have focus when you start it up. I can't believe you have to actually click in the calculator to give it focus after opening it. The number of times I've been working out stacking penalties or somesuch and typed "0.87*0.7" or whatever in local/corpchat/jointops I couldn't count.
The issue for me is that there's no standardised way to decide if something should take focus when it appears. Things either do or don't take the keyboard or mouse focus when they open, regardless of other variables. If I click a button to do something like open a contract, it may take up to 20 seconds and even under good conditions it can take up to 10. So I click this button and I start typing something in a chat channel while I wait but right in the middle of me typing, the window appears and steals the focus.
A window you open should obtain the focus if and only if the command to open it was given immediately prior to the window appearing. For example, the calculator. As you said, the calculator appears instantly when the button is pressed but it doesn't take the focus and it should. However, for things which can take several seconds to occur, they should not take the focus as the user has likely begun another process while they wait. Worst of all are the things that have loading indicators to show they're opening and may take a few seconds. These things not only steal the focus on completing the opening process when they shouldn't, the loading indicators also steal it in an attempt to prevent you from actually doing anything while it loads.
Another pet peeve of mine is the "show info" thing. I'm sure it saves on bandwidth on ccp's side to render every single portrait on the local computer but couldn't there be an option to disable it? I'm sick of right clicking on someone and selecting "show info" to see what corp they're in and having my client lock up for 20 seconds while it renders a portrait I don't even want to see. A simple solution for this issue is to make the portrait only ever render if you click on it, EVEN in the "show info" window. Many people want to check info on people without rendering their portraits and currently this is not possible.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
John McDuff
Caldari Jovian Labs The Foundation.
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Posted - 2007.04.02 21:13:00 -
[10]
SIGNED on most of it
The focus problems are driving me nuts, especially the calculator thing mentioned before - i actually use my work calculator on my desk next to my keyboard, which is way to complicated tbh. Why not make it a chat command while we're at it... '/calc' or something.
the interface itself could do with some skins to choose from. Don't get me wrong this one was cool the first time i saw it... or the first year. But now i pretty much tried all the colours i'm kinda done with it, actually looks bulky to me now - something a bit more minimalistic would be great (xoblite/blackbox anyone?) but that's prolly just me. The bugs/irritations should have preference anyway imo.
On the mods disappearing on jump thing... i think its been on SoonÖ for a long time now.
Also there are some some real nice suggestions on the ideas board for other interface improvements that i think need mention in this context. Think damage indicators next to F1-F8 buttons and various decluttering-the-overview posts. i'll do the linky thing if i find some time.
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Jen Woo
Gallente Iugum Noctis
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Posted - 2007.04.03 17:43:00 -
[11]
I sign about the overview one. I hate lock targeting wreck. Thinking about it, maybe the overview panel can be grouped by icons, like the drones or the gang. So you can minimize the wreck, or stations. And view only the npcs...
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Sir Bart
Vendetta Underground Rule of Three
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Posted - 2007.04.03 17:50:00 -
[12]
These are all bugs and should be included in a bug report.
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Sir Bart
Vendetta Underground Rule of Three
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Posted - 2007.04.03 18:01:00 -
[13]
What bothers me is when you have a lot of ships in one location, the client seems to have no way of reducing the detail displayed, you can scroll out but it's still really laggy, like it's trying to render every ship in full detail. Why not have a way of reducing each ships detail to a squal box if you want and have every ship show up on grid start as such a low detail object until the full object is ready to be rendered? Then have a thread running in the background that will asign the proper renderings to each object as it can but the rest of the game doesn't need to stop to wait for this.
In fleet fights this is why fleets will first warp on grid 400km away from the fight, then do a small warp within grid to get into firing range.
It's also why some fleets will intentionally gang warp in a way that passes them right through your gang, you get a nice close up of all of them as they pass through you so you get lagged to hell trying to render it.
Please fix.
-Bart
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Mainreh Rhonaki
Jazz Associates R i s e
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Posted - 2007.04.04 10:36:00 -
[14]
I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
For me, the main issue is when targetting hostiles, so I would be satisfied with just ctrl freezing overview, but I assume there are ppl once in a while that would like to be able to actually leave Jita without needing a special overview profile for this particular task. :)
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.04 14:36:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Mainreh Rhonaki I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
For me, the main issue is when targetting hostiles, so I would be satisfied with just ctrl freezing overview, but I assume there are ppl once in a while that would like to be able to actually leave Jita without needing a special overview profile for this particular task. :)
That sounds like a good idea but what if someone jumps to the next system or warps out while you have the button held down? You'd have someone on your overview that you're not meant to. And removing them would negate the point of freezing the overview since things would keep jumping around as people warp in and out.
It's still a good solution but to add to it, the game should leave a blank space in the overview if someone leaves the grid or otherwise would disappear from the overview (cloaking, exploding etc). If something warps in, decloaks or spawns while the button is held, the overview would have to add them at the very end or nearest blank space to the top. That way, the overview positions can be frozen while you're holding whatever key it is but the people ON the overview will still represent what is on the grid. And if you need to re-jiggle the overview so it's displaying everything sorted correctly, you can just let go of the key and press it again.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Alpine 69
Slacker Industries Exuro Mortis
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Posted - 2007.04.04 17:02:00 -
[16]
/signed Your signature exceeds the maximum allowed filesize of 24000 bytes -Sahwoolo Etoophie ([email protected]) Noes not again =( |
Adunh Slavy
Ammatar Trade Syndicate
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Posted - 2007.04.05 00:24:00 -
[17]
Originally by: Par'Gellen ... use of blocking calls when they aren't needed ...
/signed
-AS |
Blind Man
Kemono. Anarchy Empire
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Posted - 2007.04.05 01:10:00 -
[18]
agreed. although this is a drop in the ocean of UI fixes and additions we need
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.08 14:54:00 -
[19]
Originally by: Blind Man agreed. although this is a drop in the ocean of UI fixes and additions we need
Suggestions like these are probably falling on deaf ears, to be honest. Some of these issues have been in eve longer than I have.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Tycoon Girl
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Posted - 2007.04.09 03:12:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Nyphur crapload of noob coded stuff
all this stuff the OP reported bugs me as hell on a daily basis... also... this char is a trader and guess what... I open up the market as less as possible since it's a lag fest: click veldspar... 30s for orders to appear...buy some veldspar... 30s for orders to update... do this with shuttles and you can go have a lunch or something... seriously ?
I seriously wonder if Stackless Python is a good language to run a game or if CCP's coders need 10 more years of training before we see a smooth working interface ever happen in EvE. go recruit some Blizzards coders or I don't know. STOP any new content devellopment and use ALL the staff to fix this game till their fingers and eyes bleed will ya.
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Mainreh Rhonaki
Jazz Associates R i s e
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Posted - 2007.04.09 11:54:00 -
[21]
Originally by: Nyphur
Originally by: Mainreh Rhonaki I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
That sounds like a good idea but what if someone jumps to the next system or warps out while you have the button held down? You'd have someone on your overview that you're not meant to. And removing them would negate the point of freezing the overview since things would keep jumping around as people warp in and out.
Well, given that a reasonably fast ship is unlockable most of the time it is visible in the overview if it warps/jumps in and immediately out, this problem exist already. All you need to do is release ctrl for a fraction of a second to get an updated view - when you want it. I think you can get that into your reflexes pretty quickly.
Originally by: Nyphur It's still a good solution but to add to it, the game should leave a blank space in the overview if someone leaves the grid or otherwise would disappear from the overview (cloaking, exploding etc). If something warps in, decloaks or spawns while the button is held, the overview would have to add them at the very end or nearest blank space to the top. That way, the overview positions can be frozen while you're holding whatever key it is but the people ON the overview will still represent what is on the grid. And if you need to re-jiggle the overview so it's displaying everything sorted correctly, you can just let go of the key and press it again.
That would be even better, but would prolly complicate the code quite a bit. Oh, well, I reckon that code has been thru innumerable rewrites. They can prolly do another one.
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Sevarus James
Minmatar Meridian Dynamics FREGE Alliance
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Posted - 2007.04.09 13:11:00 -
[22]
Signed, but one little thing bugs me MORE THAN ALL OF THAT ABOVE THIS POST, and here it is:
25-35fps @ 1900x122 fullscreen. /// CTRL+F9 and suddenly 105-130fps.
Give me a UI that DOES NOT TAKE OVER 70% OF THE DAMN FRAME RATE. All else is negotiable. The fps kill for the 2-d overlay is complete crud.
Ubuntu 3d Beryl-Linux Desktop+EVE |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.09 14:38:00 -
[23]
Edited by: Nyphur on 09/04/2007 14:36:54
Originally by: Sevarus James Signed, but one little thing bugs me MORE THAN ALL OF THAT ABOVE THIS POST, and here it is:
25-35fps @ 1900x122 fullscreen. /// CTRL+F9 and suddenly 105-130fps.
Give me a UI that DOES NOT TAKE OVER 70% OF THE DAMN FRAME RATE. All else is negotiable. The fps kill for the 2-d overlay is complete crud.
Rendering a user interface with chat etc. can be bottlenecked by user and network I/O as each time the UI is drawn (or at least at regular intervals), it must check for updates or process I/O buffers. Additionally, since the UI is translucent, it's possible that they render the screen twice (once without the UI then once applying the UI). That would cut the framerate down by a rough factor of the ratio between the speed the computer can render the game and the speed with which it can render the UI.
For example, if the UI takes twice as long to render as the game, you'd end up taking three times longer in total to render the entire thing than you would without the UI, cutting frame rate by about 66% with the UI up. I don't know how they coded eve so I could of course be glaringly incorrect, but I've had this problem in programs before where the program slows down significantly when a certain thread is running. The solution for me was to speed up that thread and let it run autonomously, using synching very sparingly or not at all.
I personally can't stand a translucent UI and set everything to opaque, and a 2D opaque UI should render which should render extremely quickly.
Another major problem I have, which may have been touched on before, is why the game stalls when making a chat window with someone or while someone is joining my gang. It should not.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.13 17:22:00 -
[24]
Edited by: Nyphur on 13/04/2007 17:19:28
This thread also brings up some relevant points. The main one I wanted to add here being the overview's input transparency. If there's an icon under a button on the overview and I click the button, it clicks the icon under the overview instead.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Tobias Sjodin
Caldari Ore Mongers R0ADKILL
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Posted - 2007.04.15 12:03:00 -
[25]
*BUMP*
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Tycoon Girl
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Posted - 2007.04.20 10:02:00 -
[26]
page 3 ? no way. FIX IT.
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Pan Tan
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Posted - 2007.04.20 12:36:00 -
[27]
Signed. Travelling is defiantly one of the most tedious tasks because of the constant jitters. It reminds me of skipping CDs, even if your not paying attention the off time pause grabs your attention.
Also learning in game is a pain in the a**, this is completely the GUIs fault. Having to use the market to see whatÆs what with lag included is just not on. There should be a general in-game library. This website isnÆt so hot either with multiple windows required to view anything. Open site/Item Database/Skills/Gunnery/Gunnery 4 clicks with few lines of information I should at least be able to view turret types.
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.22 01:14:00 -
[28]
Every time I go to start a second client for an alt or even just do simple things like open the market, check someone's info to see what corp they are in, undock or go to the next system over for something, I find that I weigh the pros and cons before carrying out the actions. The major issues that fall into the category of cons should NOT be things such as: - Will my client stall? (Usually yes) - How long will it stall for? - Could I get blown up due to the lag? - Will I have to reboot eve? (Usually no)
I've had ships returned after losing them in this manner. And they were lost in PvP, too, so if I am understanding the policy correctly, GMs checked and proved that it was a fault with the game that made me lag out and get blown up. This isn't just me idly complaining that these things about eve are annoying, this encompasses things which are known causes of people getting blown up.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Merick Dronome
Quantum Industries Prime Orbital Systems
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Posted - 2007.04.22 11:33:00 -
[29]
/signed, signed again to make sure.
Well presented, excellent suggestion for fixes.
I'd like to add 2. (and don't flame me if someone else wrote about them, I did not read the entire post.)
1). I miss being able to zoom into my ship and admire the beautiful textures on them. Please return the ship zoom back to what it used to be.
2). When jumping through the gate, can not the ships zoom level and camera angle be stored before the jump, and retrieved after the jump? Its so disorienting to have the zoom and camera angle reset to default every time I go through a gate.
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Rosur
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Posted - 2007.04.22 17:05:00 -
[30]
singed
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