Time to design AH entrance?

[haggerty]

I see alot of UI complaints in the negative steam reviews, I'm assuming because the UI is straight from the 90's.  There have been a ton of succesful games throughout the years that could be emulated to create a more intuitive experience for new people.  All of us veterans have long since learned where everything is, how it works, where to go, etc.  Doesn't mean it wasn't painful.  After years of playing people still learn new things about this game, that shouldn't really be happening.

[Zoney]

After years of playing people still learn new things about this game, that shouldn't really be happening.

I disagree with this vehemently.

1.) Learning new things is exciting

2.) if you think you already know everything you are sadly mistaken

[Vraciu]

I disagree with this vehemently.

1.) Learning new things is exciting

2.) if you think you already know everything you are sadly mistaken

You shouldn't put a period after a numbered list if you use parenthesis.      See?  You learned something right there. 



 

Now as for number two on your list...   

[Zoney]

LOL, that was a one eyed smile, see you just learned something     .)

[Vraciu]

LOL, that was a one eyed smile, see you just learned something     .)

Ah ha!  Touche'! 

[Zoney]

Ah ha!  Touche'! 

Except I was lying 

Vraciu is my friend

[Vraciu]

Except I was lying 

Vraciu is my friend

I'm grateful for that, friendo!   

[Wraith_TMS]

...

Would some kind of top-level graphical lobby not be handy. Somewhere you can even make an appointment with a trainer, explain how comms / help channel works, join a plane in flight, do training exercises, find apprenticeships withestablished squads, leave questions, game-specific plane info etc?

It's just a suggestion to start a discussion. Perhaps other forum members have more experience of other games 'entrances'. It's just ours seems not very UX-centred (please don't shoot me, just an observation). Be a shame to lose potential layers the moment they get here.

I'm late to this discussion, but I think you make a good point, 'Shida.  It was my lunch time so I spent a little of it to conceptualize MY (emphasize on "my" since stuff like this can take a lot of planning and thought) interpretation of how your idea might pan out.  Here is my demo--btw, this will not integrate into AH in its present format as is; it's just a demo of one possible general approach to 'Shida's proposal.  I'll leave it to HTC to kill the devil in the details if they think it's something they'd want to implement.

FWIW,

[JimmyC]

You could almost have very start of game arriving at check point gate entrance to base first and being asked on clipboard where you want to go by gaurd..check your clearance..then when you click location..tower, hanger officers club etc  get a little jeep ride through base to location(while loading)
This gives a bit of owner ship to the base, get the lay of the land and the driver can hand out tips..observations and advice..like a caddy would if you will.

[FBKampfer]

Perhaps seperate arenas into official and player-created under two tabs, with a check box to show only free or show all?

Should nicely sort out the arenas into the four groups that people are likely to be searching for.

Additionally, I think the WoT wiki is a good example of what we should be shooting for. More visual icons, less simple text. Seperate pages out into categories (accepting that there will be some overlap).

And then it's on us as the community to flesh it out.

There's still some planes that need a writeup, and much of the information is somewhat out of date.

[Wiley]

Some decent beginnings of ideas in this thread.

Wiley.

[nrshida]

Awesome that you did that Wraith. Thanks. The reason I suggested a museum-like lobby arrangment is to shorten the transitions between areas. Just walk through a door essentially.

Honestly don't know how feasible the hangar would be. Webpage says 120 aircraft, vehicles, and boats. That's a lot of real estate! Might have to have a vending machine instead 

Love some of the suggestions that are coming up. Can you mock up a 3D space online somewhere? Something like Sketchup?

[Wraith_TMS]

Awesome that you did that Wraith. Thanks. The reason I suggested a museum-like lobby arrangment is to shorten the transitions between areas. Just walk through a door essentially.

Honestly don't know how feasible the hangar would be. Webpage says 120 aircraft, vehicles, and boats. That's a lot of real estate! Might have to have a vending machine instead 

Love some of the suggestions that are coming up. Can you mock up a 3D space online somewhere? Something like Sketchup?

Was fun, 'Shida; you're welcome  . 

If anyone wants to tackle a 3D mockup, I don't recommend SketchUp.  It's a great tool but it's for static modeling, even if you use its scenes tool to come up with different views of an object.  You also won't have the interactivity that you'd want (like mouse hover points, hidden slide panels, etc).  Rather, I would recommend something like the Unity 3D game engine (it's free) to mock up a working demo: https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download.  However, it'll take someone with coding skills to create something that is user-navigable, interactive, etc. to develop a demonstration.  Not something I have the code skills or time to do.

All that said, I do think that mocking up anything more elaborate than what I managed (which was really simple and very rough) is probably putting the cart before the horse.  HT and company haven't indicated that they're entertaining the wish idea, so that mocking up a semi-functional 3D example before that happens isn't worth the squeeze.

I have more than a passing involvement/familiarity with UX, so IMO a good game UI makeover ideally would involve one or more pros with UX/CX, game UI design, information architecture, universal design/user-centered design and usability experience working in tandem with the HTC software team.  Given that Steam has or may skew HTC's understanding of their user-base given new users without this community's known preferences, it's a certainty (IMO) that they'd also need to sample the new user base somehow to get a better understanding of what Steam's users look for/want. So they'd need some pre-design/pre-dev user-oriented research into preferences and needs (statitistical studies and maybe even more eloborate stuff).   In short, don't get your hopes up, guys  ; to do it right is a big deal and I'm pretty sure that HTC understands that.

Now, if I'm wrong and HT does want to consider this with attention to UX/UCD, I have many UX industry contacts in my LinkedIn network so feel free to PM me and I can put the word out that you want to talk to a UX consultant or add you to my network.

FWIW,