This document is divided into three sections, one for the required functionality for the the Realm Wars main screen interface, one for some notes on graphical considerations for the interface, and my proposal for the interface layout and basic functionality.
Required Functionality
Things that need to appear onscreen:
Life Meter and at least one other meter. (Magic points, charge time, special ability points, etc)
Status indicators, such as poison, "stone skin," etc etc. We expect that there will be a fair number of status changing spells and items and need to reserve some screen real estate for those. These will not be on screen at all times but will come and go.
Armor status. We assume that armor can degrade over time in some fashion. Armor could potentially be considered one item and treated similarly.
Weapons and ammo for each weapon.
Spells and special abilities.
Items that can be saved and used later - potions, etc.
Passive item(s) that are always active. "Boots of speed", for example. These can perhaps take up the same slots as normal items, the difference is that you don't have to activate them.
Indication of flag/base direction. I would suggest that this appear on a compass rose as icons, giving direction but exact distance. If we include this we want something less technological seeming than the Tribes 2 markers.
Things you need to be able to do with the onscreen items:
Select a weapon, spell or usable item and use it, either on yourself or others.
Use a weapon, item or spell, an alternate fire key might be useful for some of these.
Some variation on the Tribes2 order giving/acking would be nice.
At least one defensive maneuver (block?) for h-t-h combat.
Use a vehicle/interact with stuff - hit switches, open doors, etc. Basically an "interact with" button.
Change music selection. (Bring up separate window?)
Adjust key mappings and other options like sound levels, graphic detail?
Exit to server browser/desktop.
Initiate player kick?
Graphical and Key Mapping Considerations
Problem: Too much plain text
This is sort of a pet peeve of mine, developed from seeing too many screen shots of "you hit the giant rat for 1 points of damage." Small, plain text in a standard font does not feel very game-like. We are well past the point of the days of all-text adventures, there is no need to display most info in plain text format. Phantasy Star Online is a great example of this, even the chatting is displayed not in plain text but as a comic book word-balloon. This word balloon helps you pinpoint the speaker and looks more game-like and less like a plain PC application.
Using that sort of word-balloon approach probably will not work in a game like Realm Wars (too many people), but we can emulate the intent. Our motto should be "show, don't tell." If someone takes your flag, a flashing flag icon should appear. Ammo should be represented as a bar, not a Times New Roman number. It is a lot easier to glance at a bar out of the corner of your eye than read a small number on the side of your screen. Anything that can be expressed graphically should be.
Anything that reminds the user of a typical non-game application is a bad thing. In Tribes 2 one could make the case that text numbers fit with a futuristic HUD, but that isn't the case with Realm Wars.
Thematic Decorations vs. Functionality
Keeping in mind the above, functionality is still of utmost importance. Health bars, mana amounts, etc need to be easy to read and understand with a quick glance. I remember a fighting game where the health of your character was displayed as a sword that got more bloody as you were damaged. It fit with the theme of the game but it was nearly impossible to tell how much energy you had without staring for a second, and even then you could get only a rough approximation.
If we want to adorn the energy bar with a nice border, or break it into colored sections, or something to that effect that is alright, but the core display must be understandable with a quick glance. That same philosophy needs to apply to mana bars, ammo amounts, etc. Someone on the forums proposed that mana or health for an Orc would be displayed as series of skulls that glow brighter to indicate power. It may be doable, but I suspect that such a display would be hard to read quickly an accurately.
On a related note, an idea that sounds initially appealing is having unique interface components for each class. This might make a game like Aliens vs. Predator that has 3 classes interesting and flavorful, but for the number of classes we want to include it would most likely be overkill and daunting to new players.
My Proposal
Weapon / Item / Spell Selection
My ideal is that weapons, items, spells, and special abilities would all line up at the top or bottom of the screen and be activated by the number keys by default. (Maybe -/+ as well, even ` if needed). Items would be arranged at the bottom of the screen in a consistent order from class to class, with like items/weapons etc grouped closer and with different borders or some other graphical indication.
The ordering would always be something like:
Armor/Shield (Might not need to be selectable, just replace if they get something better)
Hand-to-Hand Weapons
Ranged Weapons (maybe merge these with HTH weapons and not distinguish between them?)
Spells
Special Abilities
Items
Different classes could have different numbers of each of these. So an Orc might have 2 slots for HTH weapons, 2 slots for ranged weapons, 1 special ability and 4 item spaces. Pressing '1' would activate the first HTH weapon, pressing '3' would activate the first ranged weapon. Each of these groups would be grouped on screen and color coded and have some form of easy identification. So the Orc screen might look like:
Hand-to-Hand weapons would always appear in silver boxes, range weapons will appear in green boxes with ammo meters running down the right side, items would appear in potion-shaped containers, etc. (Something like that anyway) In the picture above from left to right is 2 HTH weapons, 2 long range weapons, one special ability, 4 items, and a non-selectable armor at the end. If a class can only equip certain types of weapons, icons representing that type could appear in empty spaces and perhaps flash a red 'x' if someone tries to pick up a non-compatible item. For example if the only weapons the Sorceress can equip are staffs a ghostly staff icon could appear in the '1' slot when no staff was currently equipped. (I say ghostly so that it won't be mistaken for an actual equipped weapon)
The reason I propose this system is that it is a very uniform interface that would be easily decipherable. If you want to select an item and throw it way, hit the number and the throw button. If you want to use a special ability hit the number and left-click. It allows for different classes to support different numbers of weapon, items, spells etc while still being readable I think.
One of the biggest issues I had with Tribes 2 (demo) was that there would be icons on screen and I would not know if they were items or weapons or what and I didn't know how to select or use them. With some weapon configurations the last weapon(?) would have infinite ammo but I never figured out how to select it - maybe it was a shield, I really have no idea. I couldn't figure out how to repair things, how to place mines, etc. Under this scheme it would be very straightforward, if you want to select something and use it press the number key, if it doesn't select it must be a non-selectable item like armor. Even a flag in CTF would work nicely in this approach, a the flag would simply take up an item slot, if you want to throw it select it and throw the same way you would any other item.
The main downside I can see to this is that you have a maximum of 10-12 or so selectable things total. That means a spellcaster with 8 spells might have room for a single HTH weapon, a single long-range weapon and 2 items. That sounds like enough to me, I would rather that than have a few more items at the cost of non-obvious key bindings.
Compass Rose
One very useful feature of Tribes 2 is that you can see where your flag and base are with onscreen indicators. Given how large the maps can we probably want something similar. I would rather not do this if we don't have to, but it seems likely that we will have to help players navigate large maps.
For mostly outdoor levels of sufficient size we most likely will need some directional indicator. I don't like the idea of an exact numerical distance being given, it doesn't fit well with a low-technology setting. What I propose is a compass rose with important locations appearing around the edges of the compass, giving a direction but not exact distance. Some rough distance may be indicated, by making closer objects have larger icons or something to that effect. This would give players some idea of the location of important objectives without giving them an exact path to follow, which I see as a plus. (People with the flag could still hide to some degree, and following them wouldn't be as simple as staying centered on a position-indicating line)
