Guild Wars 2

amax.8034:

@Chrispy.5641 It’s not about level locking, it’s about creating a user experience for new players that might be new to MMO’s or RPG’s since not everyone is experienced with them. By doing that you slowly introduce the player to multiple mechanics. Although your 3 click lore journal issue is valid, you assume that users will jump from reading a characters lore, to reading the lore behind a certain place, or maybe the lore behind a weapon. That’s a valid point of view, however I’m more inclined to believe that users will most likely jump from a characters lore to anothers characters lore and another characters lore and probably after that move to other sections of the lore journal. However your point of view is valid and a fix would be to use tabs at the bottom or at the top, that would let users jump between categories faster. Although your proposed redesign features the same type of layout as found in the achievement panels, it still involves users to read the navigation, making it less intuitive. Using a vertical layout, for navigation, when you have let’s say 30 entries would involve users to find content a lot harder, rather then if it would feature images. The main page provides a lot of random information that’s although valid, it distracts user from actual content. Although I respect your approach, we have different approaches, which isn’t a bad thing it shows that we think differently and without further testing and actual data gathering we can’t know which one would perform better, we can only assume.

Let’s use the entry I provided as an example. I’m reading about Kryta, the region, in the Places section (in the Kryta subsection). Suddenly the Centaur War catches my attention, and I want to read more about that.

Under your design, I would have to click back to the Kryta subsection, back to the Places section, back to the main lore page, then click on history, click on Wars/Krytan history, then click on the Centaur War entry. (And this is if you even have subsections under those six main lore sections in your design [for example, I click Places, then I click on Kryta to get every Places lore entry in just the Kryta region). and if not, I’m scrolling through hundreds of unrelated history or character entries to find what I’m looking for, which would take as much time as having one less back button. That’s what makes it less intuitive than a list. The amount of time it takes to click away at those things,…well, takes time)

Adding tabs for each major section would be a great idea, but there’s still the problem I just mentioned, and that’s scrolling through hundreds of entries in each section without them being grouped into smaller groups. As others have said earlier, a search feature would probably help that problem.

lots of people

Wiki this, Wiki that, Blah, Blah, Blah

There’s nothing wrong with the wiki, other than that its out of the game. It kills immersion to have to go to an external website to find out information about something. The way the website is designed kills immersion. Not only that, but the way many of the pages on the website are worded also kills immersion, so just having a built in wiki browser isn’t really the answer.

It could work, if the website was redesigned, or a new web site/engine was created for the purpose of being GW2’s Lore Journal (kind of like the trading post), and it looks like it actually belongs in the game (kind of like the trading post). That might take options away though. For example, what if the devs madeit so all lore entries are locked, and you have to go speak to people and discover places and find items and read books to unlock the lore entries? In this way, you know as much in-game as your character does. If the lore journal was entirely in the game, this would probably be a little easier (not to mention being more immersive) than having an external website with everything on it already.

Chrispy.5641:

Let’s use the entry I provided as an example. I’m reading about Kryta, the region, in the Places section (in the Kryta subsection). Suddenly the Centaur War catches my attention, and I want to read more about that.

How would the Centaur War catch your attention? If it caught your attention by it being mentioned in the text you are reading in the lore journal, then a clickable link of that text would be a better implementation of jumping from topic A to topic X, similar to how I did with Lord Faren panel, where I mentioned his current location. If however it just pops up in your head as you read then yes I agree a global search function would be extremely helpful, especially if it would include auto-complete function to reduce the time you spend typing. That coupled with a tab navigation that acts like a drop-down menu function would help improve the general flow while avoiding the list approach, due to the mentioned issues in my previous reply.

Chrispy.5641:

There’s nothing wrong with the wiki, other than that its out of the game. It kills immersion to have to go to an external website to find out information about something. The way the website is designed kills immersion. Not only that, but the way many of the pages on the website are worded also kills immersion, so just having a built in wiki browser isn’t really the answer.

That’s exactly what I said in my latest post on this thread, at least we can agree that the wiki breaks immersion.

Chrispy.5641:

It could work, if the website was redesigned, or a new web site/engine was created for the purpose of being GW2’s Lore Journal (kind of like the trading post), and it looks like it actually belongs in the game (kind of like the trading post).

Initially with the release of the Living World Website that featured a gigantic interactive map, I thought that was the plan that ANET had in mind, creating a website that would feature lore and that would get updated as events happen. However it turned out to be something different and only related to season 1 and yes having the entire lore journal in game would be a lot easier, hence the design, and it would definitely make it easier for people to actual see or read, while they are waiting for their friends to come online, finish a dungeon and so on. I discussed why it’s better to have an actual journal in-game rather then a wiki in my previous post so I’ll try not to repeat myself

Chrispy.5641:

That might take options away though. For example, what if the devs made it so all lore entries are locked, and you have to go speak to people and discover places and find items and read books to unlock the lore entries? In this way, you know as much in-game as your character does. If the lore journal was entirely in the game, this would probably be a little easier (not to mention being more immersive) than having an external website with everything on it already.

That could be an option and it would be immersive, however due keep in mind that there would be players who wouldn’t want to have to go to hunt all this lore. There’a s lot of lore regarding the game, so people would do quite a lot of walking which would lead to a massive problem… which is skipping… people would get burn out and just start skipping content.

Building upon this initial idea, a better approach could probably be if once a player enters/discovers a zone he would unlock that zones story, while defeating a certain enemy for the first time would reveal that enemies lore and it’s strengths/weakness. While meeting NPC’s in the actual living/personal story would unlock their lore. However there might be some NPC’s that aren’t part of the living story as well as areas that aren’t in the game yet, and those areas could be discovered/revelead by default to all users.

This would make it that new players would only see lore they’ve actually took part in while also having access to lore that was once forgotten. This could also be further expanded by letting users find rare books that tell stories about certain events that took place in GW1 and these books could be exchanged with others to unlock the entire chapter of that said event.

However we must be somewhat realistic and understand that this kind of implementation although would be mind blowing, it would take an amazing effort from the entire dev team to get it done.

Zoltreez.6435:

HOLY MOTHER OF DWAYNA and everything that is wrong with the Zaithan fight !!!!!!!!

THIS IS EPIC.

ANET !!!!!!!!! needs to use this and give this guy 10k free gems lol

Don’t tempt me with those free gems and I’m glad you enjoyed it… ohh and your Zhaitan & Dwayna reference made me laugh, ty for that

5. Lore Journal:
- sorry but time required to get something implemented isn’t a valid statement,
- regarding using /wiki sure that works now, however how many players actually now about that feature? how many of those actually use that? and how would new players find and get comfortable with while there are tons of other things they need to grasp. The answer to the first two is… not many, even I as a player although know that command, don’t use it, the reason is because it breaks immersion, it forces you to change to a bright white page filled with text and when you come back you realize you missed a world boss, a event, a whisper or you’re dead because a dynamic event just started and killed you. The reason why you didn’t see a search bar present is because for that certain page I didn’t think GW2 would have that many key NPC’s that it would need one. The implementation I thought of would involve right clicking an enemies icon where he’s health bar is, then selecting lore which would bring up that panel. Although I agree that a search function might be needed for some parts of the journal that are more complex.

I would say that time to implement something is definitely a good statement. Ofcourse it doesn’t particularly say anything about the UI idea other than resources being used elsewhere is better. I think Bobby Stein said something along those lines as well when talking about implementing something like that.

Other than that I must agree with Crispy that going back every time is unfavourable as NPCs and area and races are all linked to eachother. I’m not sure how that is so weird. if an area is important to a certain race who has a certain event take place with a certain key character then being able to easily switch between categories is preferable. I don’t think the human mind works in such strict categories and rather by association. So yeah.

Woow! Amazing job! Really nice idéas!!
Love all of it!!!

HIRE OP NOW

I now know why people put /15chars after their posts

I can’t believe we don’t have a dev looking at this yet….

I’m sure the Dev’s have seen it. But really, calm down. The system we have now is not too dissimilar from this. Its not bad by any means, but its not the best either. Its got its flaws. Starting with being so image heavy and cramped.

This is brilliant. Perhaps the amount of images would be a problem for bandwidth, with about more information being handled but I don’t know much about that just seen it mentioned in other games. Your work is stellar mate, this looks such an improvement over the current system. Hope you get some developer feedback

You sir are a GOD. Amazing UI !! GW2 has an OK UI but it leaves a lot to be desired and you improved everything a find lacking, now only if at least some if these changes actually get ingame I would be one happy panda !

Again kudos to you sir !!!

IMO, the design/layout is great for an experienced and/or die-hard GW2 fan.

The problem is that it is a cluster (too many images, too much in your face, and not enough “white space”) and especially if you are new to GW or GW2. Less is actually more.

Don’t get me wrong. The effort put into this is absolutely astounding (and quite frankly, looks like you want a job or a consultant gig with ANet). But from my eyes (and I have seen a lot of this), it has way too much cramped into so little. Generally speaking, audiences want intuitive drill down menus (we all want graphical versions) but there should be no more than a left/top bar for options and no more than 9 images to click through on a single layout. Some of these mock-ups have way way too much (it takes way too long to read through all of the options per page because of all the data shown).

Honest feedback, you need to create far more click-through depth and then cross-reference to related topics (especially when you get down to the end of the drill down). It’s a great draft with some interesting benefits (like the character paper-doll UI redo).

Artaz.3819:

IMO, the design/layout is great for an experienced and/or die-hard GW2 fan.

The problem is that it is a cluster (too many images, too much in your face, and not enough “white space”) and especially if you are new to GW or GW2. Less is actually more.

Don’t get me wrong. The effort put into this is absolutely astounding (and quite frankly, looks like you want a job or a consultant gig with ANet). But from my eyes (and I have seen a lot of this), it has way too much cramped into so little. Generally speaking, audiences want intuitive drill down menus (we all want graphical versions) but there should be no more than a left/top bar for options and no more than 9 images to click through on a single layout. Some of these mock-ups have way way too much (it takes way too long to read through all of the options per page because of all the data shown).

Honest feedback, you need to create far more click-through depth and then cross-reference to related topics (especially when you get down to the end of the drill down). It’s a great draft with some interesting benefits (like the character paper-doll UI redo).

Thanks for the feedback, that’s a fair point of view due keep in mind that there are a lot of explanations in those images, which would make it a lot more cluttered then it actually is. In my previous posts I’ve already stated some possible fixes for some of the feedback that I’ve got and I agree that it can definitely be improved if proper time and resources would be allocated to it.

Regarding the job thingy, I would be lying if I would say that I wouldn’t be interested but on the other hand I do know that they are based in the US and I’m based in Europe which would be a real headache for them or any company to get sorted due to visa, paperwork and other relocation things… although the US still is my ultimate goal.

However the design was really not made as a way to apply for them since in the past I’ve received job offers from other high profile companies like Ubisoft & EA that have seen my portfolio, but due to focusing on my masters degree I had to turn them down, which by itself turned to be a good decision since it lead to representing my university at Archiprix – worlds best graduation projects.

The reason why I stated this is to show that it was a design made from pure passion and as a way to spice up my portfolio with something more interesting then just web based work. I’m really flatered by the amount of comments received regarding hiring me and if the guys at ANET are really interested, we could talk and see how we could approach it.

On another note, I can’t believe this is still getting comments after so many days and that yesterday it got picked up by Massively. Once again I would like to thank the community for the amount of feedback they’ve provided.

amax.8034:

Thanks for the feedback, that’s a fair point of view due keep in mind that there are a lot of explanations in those images, which would make it a lot more cluttered then it actually is. In my previous posts I’ve already stated some possible fixes for some of the feedback that I’ve got and I agree that it can definitely be improved if proper time and resources would be allocated to it.

You can cut out all the explanations on all the mock ups, and some would still look as cluttered as they actually are, especially the redesigned character panel.

Chrispy.5641:

amax.8034:

Thanks for the feedback, that’s a fair point of view due keep in mind that there are a lot of explanations in those images, which would make it a lot more cluttered then it actually is. In my previous posts I’ve already stated some possible fixes for some of the feedback that I’ve got and I agree that it can definitely be improved if proper time and resources would be allocated to it.

You can cut out all the explanations on all the mock ups, and some would still look as cluttered as they actually are, especially the redesigned character panel.

Fair enough, you’re entitled to your opinion, that doesn’t mean everyone thinks that, as you have seen there are people who think differently and this redesign has provided a lot of helpful feedback that ANet can analyze and use to improve the UI & UX.

amax.8034:

Chrispy.5641:

amax.8034:

Thanks for the feedback, that’s a fair point of view due keep in mind that there are a lot of explanations in those images, which would make it a lot more cluttered then it actually is. In my previous posts I’ve already stated some possible fixes for some of the feedback that I’ve got and I agree that it can definitely be improved if proper time and resources would be allocated to it.

You can cut out all the explanations on all the mock ups, and some would still look as cluttered as they actually are, especially the redesigned character panel.

Fair enough, you’re entitled to your opinion, that doesn’t mean everyone thinks that, as you have seen there are people who think differently and this redesign has provided a lot of helpful feedback that ANet can analyze and use to improve the UI & UX.

Glad I’m entitled to my opinion, because I’m going to keep giving it.

I would rather find fault in something and give the proper feedback instead of being like a lot of other people that only know how to throw blind praise in someone’s direction without explaining why.

Your UI redesign is good, except for what I already explained earlier, and there’s no need to go back over any of it.

The thing is you did an absolutely stunning job on a clear labor of love. Some knowledgeable sorts have pointed out some problems with specifics of your approach, with very constructive feedback, but you keep responding rather defensively and stating it’s just their opinion.

As Shriketalon strikingly said in LS-2 feedback, “be willing to kill your darlings.” Step back and objectively look at the commentary you’ve received. You might just see an even better approach than what you’ve done so far, using your current iteration as a strong base.

I’m pretty sure ANet employees have to have a very thick skin and be willing to see great gobs of their work redone or never used (apparently it took years for Glint’s Lair to get into GW1, and it happened because Colin nagged his boss on a regular basis to use the assets the artists had created).

I absolutely love this esp… the lore journal. I’ve spent countless time on wiki just to try to go through each character and the story. This makes the game that much more worth it if it was in the UI.

freaking amazing job

amax.8034:

@Filaha.1678 Thank you for your feedback, although most of this has already been answered I will try to provide an answer.

1. Hero Panel: -snipped for length-

My short perusal of your changes left me less than impressed. When you’re trying to redesign something, it’s to make it better, not make it worse by cluttering it with complete crap. You’ve got so much junk crammed onto the screen that it’s going to confuse more than help. “Locking” features behind levels as well is pointless. All of the current hero panel is available from a Day One state simply because it’s not cluttered, it’s clearly separated, and easy to navigate.

2. Guild Panel:-snipped for length-

To quote that npc in Sorrow’s Embrace; “No no no no. No no no no. No no no no.” Character portraits dont help immersion a squat in the guild menu. It’s a roster for god’s sake. Even in the half-baked world of RP in guild wars, this would at most be a document with names, like it currently is. If I’m looking at the guild interface, it’s because I want to see who’s on, what’s built, and what the guild resources are. NOT sorting through pictures of goku version 91873 through 91993.

- Achievement points -snipped for length-

FALSE. AP does not equate players that can help you. AP does not represent status nor importance. If you have a high AP count, it just means you whored yourself out during limited time events (IE LS season 1) and doing repetitive activities. It does not mean you know how to play their class, it does not mean you’re even good at your own. Additionally, quit with the false pretenses. If a new player is smart enough to open the guild panel, accept the guild invite, I’m fairly certain they’re smart enough to type /guild in the chat window. No answers from guild? Ask in /map chat. There’s bound to be someone experienced lurking on a map.

Status based off achievements is basing the entire concept around achievements actually being hard. They arent. Therefore achievements give about as much status as a legendary.

- there are quite a lot of people that join different guilds […] -snipped for length-

BS argument. Might have held water when teq had no designated time to spawn. But now? Teq used to spawn every 2 hours, and more or less spawns every 4 hours now. Members not knowing when to show up only happens for a bit until they learn the guild’s habits.

3. LFG: -snipped for length-

Pointless. You would simply screw around with people with visual memory tendencies than help them. As it is now, they know WHERE to click for dungeons, WHERE to click for a given dungeon, and where to click to join or advertise a party. You’re changing a functioning minimalist system purely for the sake of changing it. Kinda like what you did to the hero panel, you know? Dont change crap just because you can, change it because it legitimately needs it.

4. Journal:
- please see some of my earlier posts for the reson behind it and a potential second solution.

Can it be made better? Sure, does it require wholesale destruction and reconstruction? No. Sometimes tweaks are better than an overhaul. Why do you think the UI takes a minimalist approach in the first place?

5. Lore Journal: -snipped for length-

I respect your feedback and taking the time to write such a lengthy post, however you must understand that just because you play the game a certain way, that doesn’t mean everyone plays like it and not everyone has such a vast knowledge when they just start playing.

How many people care enough about the lore in the first place? You’d be creating something that some, or most, people would use less than the sPVP lobby. Instead of globbing that crap in the game, aggregate it onto a website, such as the wiki. That’s where it belongs, not an interface ingame.

It’s less about a “vast knowledge” as a new player than it is running around with simple common sense. Most of your changes go from “you can use this if you have common sense” to “you might be able to use this if you stand here for an hour, no guarantees though.”

Now that I’ve thought about your hero panel more, I see that what you’re trying to do is turn the Equipment tab – which currently had just a select few other nuggets of info – into a full Overview tab.

I would heavily recommend keeping the two concepts separate. If you want to make an Overview tab, make it its own thing, and with a specific functionality in mind. The purpose should be provide slivers of the high-level info while guiding the player to each pertinent tab.

This could be accomplished pretty easily. First, spread out the tab icons to fill the whole left edge. Your Overview tab will then be divided into rows matching each tab, highlighting select info from each. Clicking on a row is the same as clicking on a tab icon.

This would give players a concise hero hub, providing just the most important details and guiding them to easily discover the proper tabs.

If you want to include things that aren’t internal to the hero panel, (like a guild banner image that opens the Guild panel when clicked), you can theoretically make space around the edge somewhere.

Frankly, there’s no way to redesign the hero panel to make it better while keeping the minimalist theme. It might be possible to tweak it, sure, but a redesign is unlikely. At best you’d be able to hover over the navbar tabs and get a quick overview that way (such as y/x armor broken on equipment, a and b crafts at levels c and d, XYZ achievement points, etc).

The hero panel is a bit cluttered, but I like the personal story and living world concept, especially the lore section, Guild Wars desperately needs a lore section.

just bump for red dev post to notice that and stil + 1for op

OMG! Love this new design you did! Anet take notes!

Free bump for a beautiful idea

Anet won’t comment if they don’t agree with the concept.

Blizzard used to do it, However, everytime Blizzard commented on a thread and/or discussed why some of the suggested concepts can’t make it into the game and that the players are actually wrong regarding the design, there was a major backclash with fans whining that the company is insulting their ideas.

Since that day, Blizzard started with their silence policy that eventually got popular in the inudstry and now Anet follows it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

amax.8034:

@Filaha.1678 Thank you for your feedback, although most of this has already been answered I will try to provide an answer.

1. Hero Panel: -snipped for length-

My short perusal of your changes left me less than impressed. When you’re trying to redesign something, it’s to make it better, not make it worse by cluttering it with complete crap. You’ve got so much junk crammed onto the screen that it’s going to confuse more than help. “Locking” features behind levels as well is pointless. All of the current hero panel is available from a Day One state simply because it’s not cluttered, it’s clearly separated, and easy to navigate.

2. Guild Panel:-snipped for length-

To quote that npc in Sorrow’s Embrace; “No no no no. No no no no. No no no no.” Character portraits dont help immersion a squat in the guild menu. It’s a roster for god’s sake. Even in the half-baked world of RP in guild wars, this would at most be a document with names, like it currently is. If I’m looking at the guild interface, it’s because I want to see who’s on, what’s built, and what the guild resources are. NOT sorting through pictures of goku version 91873 through 91993.

- Achievement points -snipped for length-

FALSE. AP does not equate players that can help you. AP does not represent status nor importance. If you have a high AP count, it just means you whored yourself out during limited time events (IE LS season 1) and doing repetitive activities. It does not mean you know how to play their class, it does not mean you’re even good at your own. Additionally, quit with the false pretenses. If a new player is smart enough to open the guild panel, accept the guild invite, I’m fairly certain they’re smart enough to type /guild in the chat window. No answers from guild? Ask in /map chat. There’s bound to be someone experienced lurking on a map.

Status based off achievements is basing the entire concept around achievements actually being hard. They arent. Therefore achievements give about as much status as a legendary.

- there are quite a lot of people that join different guilds […] -snipped for length-

BS argument. Might have held water when teq had no designated time to spawn. But now? Teq used to spawn every 2 hours, and more or less spawns every 4 hours now. Members not knowing when to show up only happens for a bit until they learn the guild’s habits.

3. LFG: -snipped for length-

Pointless. You would simply screw around with people with visual memory tendencies than help them. As it is now, they know WHERE to click for dungeons, WHERE to click for a given dungeon, and where to click to join or advertise a party. You’re changing a functioning minimalist system purely for the sake of changing it. Kinda like what you did to the hero panel, you know? Dont change crap just because you can, change it because it legitimately needs it.

4. Journal:
- please see some of my earlier posts for the reson behind it and a potential second solution.

Can it be made better? Sure, does it require wholesale destruction and reconstruction? No. Sometimes tweaks are better than an overhaul. Why do you think the UI takes a minimalist approach in the first place?

5. Lore Journal: -snipped for length-

I respect your feedback and taking the time to write such a lengthy post, however you must understand that just because you play the game a certain way, that doesn’t mean everyone plays like it and not everyone has such a vast knowledge when they just start playing.

How many people care enough about the lore in the first place? You’d be creating something that some, or most, people would use less than the sPVP lobby. Instead of globbing that crap in the game, aggregate it onto a website, such as the wiki. That’s where it belongs, not an interface ingame.

It’s less about a “vast knowledge” as a new player than it is running around with simple common sense. Most of your changes go from “you can use this if you have common sense” to “you might be able to use this if you stand here for an hour, no guarantees though.”

Sharp, brutal, and spot-on.
very +1

hm, I looked at this a few days ago, saw the inital hype on the first few pages and thought I’d give myself a bit, but tbh I still don’t like it.

No offense OP (though I realize that this is probably one of the most offensive things one can say to a designer) but your changes are kind of reminiscent to the win 7 -> win 8 changes. Why? You prioritize visuals and big flashy tiles over coherent and structured simplicity. Sure, the new ui elements look fancy and all if you look at them on a website, but you’d be bombareded with so much visual input that the actual functionality gets kind of lost somewhere. Plus, while the current system sometimes takes a minute to get you where you need to go, it’s all (with the exception of the new spvp interface apparently) very coherent as in select menu on the left --> see result on the right. So basically you learn how to navigate one menu you learn how to navigate them all. (Kind of how the startbar in win 7 was your alpha and your omega to everything, whereas now in win 8 you have to do a scavenger hunt to find what you’re looking for).
You bring up a few interesting points and present it all really beautifully, but at the end of the day I want a modest ui that supports the game and lets me find what I’m looking for mid-combat, rather than a visual attack (as appealing as it may be) on my eyeballs.

And sorry to say this, but I feel a lot of the hype around your re-design comes from the fact that a) you introduce a few features that people may like (lore compendium in the game), b) the fact that it’s viewed outside the game as a stand alone (as opposed to actually used IN the game), and c) that you present the whole thing very professionally and that tends to impress people.

I don’t dislike the website re-design as it’s more of a stand-alone feature and can afford to be flashy, but tbh I find the current white version to really be in line with the sketch-like art design of the promotional images. I’d much rather you would’ve actually tackled the forums – they are in DIRE need of a re-make.

Holy kittening kitten, this looks awesome!

- I like the change to the Hero/Equipment tab.

• I dislike the unnecessary tab switching of the current system, it’s a waste of time. The popular excuse of people being “confused” and “overwhelmed” by UI led to UI being plagued by more and more clicks and presses which eat the time of people who are not 5 year old and know how to read and look; instead, I’m regularly misclicking tabs which look very alike. So yes, in the hero stat/looks panel, everything should be in one and only place.

- I dislike the LFG change.

• Information improvements are good (paths run/not run today, on this character, on another characters, guildies in LFG etc.).
• Extra large slide images are bad. This is also a plague of the modern UI focused on being “cool looking (on tablet)” instead of “easily accessible (on PC)”. Lists are perfect when there’s a lot of stuff to list; in this case, in the LFG panel. I want to have access to all LFGs straight away, because if I open LFG panel, it doesn’t mean that one single dungeon is the only thing I ever need. Instead, I often go through different LFGs to find a party which I might want to join. However, “extended” view is fine as long as it’s an option.

- I dislike the website redesign.

• Quoting myself from above: This is also a plague of the modern UI focused on being “cool looking (on tablet)” instead of “easily accessible (on PC)”. Lists are perfect when there’s a lot of stuff to list; in this case, on the website. MOVE THE FRIGGING SLIDESHOWS TO YOUR PERSONAL “COOL” WEB PAGES AND KEEP THEM OUT OF STUFF I NEED TO USE DAILY! Thank you

@Donari.5237 That’s a fair point of view, however “I’ve been willing to kill my darlings” as you put it as seen in my previous post where I’ve stated some facts that came up based on the feedback provided by the community. However the design has mixed reception for people, even on this forum page you can see people, for example disliking the Hero Panel changes, while above or below that certain page another person liking it. I’m aware that each person has it’s own point of view, but to actually come with a solution that would be widely accepted, that would imply lots of testing & data gathering, that if it would be for actual production then ANET would have the time for. Overall the design has been received quite positively, with different things disliked and liked by certain people.

@teeoneimme.3960 thank you

@Aidan Savage.2078 Please view one of my previous post regarding your first two concerns, since I’ve already answered them and it seams you’ve misunderstood how they would work.

I haven’t stated that AP are hard or that it displays a players skills, what I said is that AP act as a guideline, if a new player joins the game he could use the AP system to ask for information. A player with 10k AP, for example, is more likely to be able to answer a whole lot more questions then a player with 200AP.

There are in fact players who play in other guilds, for example there are guilds that don’t do too many WvW or PvP activities, only PVE stuff. This leads to players swapping to those guilds when they want to do those type of activities. Similar is to people who play in RP guilds or Dungeon Duoing guilds…. and on my few occasions that I’ve participated to Wurm or Tequatl events I did see people still jumping from a certain guild to one that’s doing that event, on my server, in order to better coordinate since other commanders or players might be talking in map chat.

Regarding LFG, people with a visual memory can’t always remember where certain things are placed if all looks the same, like in the case of the current LFG. Also I haven’t changed things just because of the sake of changing it, there was a reasoning behind it and please see some of my previous posts for an in-depth explanation.

How many people care enough about the lore? quite a lot in fact, plus it helps them catch up with what has happened without having to visit third party websites that break immersion. As previous stated please read some of my previous post regarding why it’s important to have a lore journal in-game.

@Gulesave.5073 That’s actually the same conclusion I’ve came to, based on the number of feedback provided, the best approach for the Hero Panel would be to have a minimalist version and an detailed version for people who want all the info. Another option that I was made aware of after the amount of feedback provided, would to include things such as crafting professions, guild & order banner directly on the character select screen.

@Aedelric.1287 glad you enjoyed those parts of the concept

@das neue spiel.5902 Thank you

@jnfinley.2158 Thank you

@Draconius.9076 Thank you

@nGumball.1283 Thank you for pointing that out.

@Liz.1497 Thank you for the feedback and no worries I’m not offended. Please see some of my previous posts regarding the grid imaged based approach. Regarding hype sure that might be some of the factors, but I think it’s more complex then that.

@haresean.3856 Glad you liked it

@Lishtenbird.2814 thanks for the feedback and I’m glad you enjoyed at least those aspects of my design.

well, this looks a lot more like the (f2p-) standard we’re used to. i’ve said it again and again, but whoever designed the gw2-ui as well as the person who designed the forum should be fired and never get a job again. give them a hobosack, send them to a mine or so and hire the op to redesign all your stuff that looks like straight from 1995.

I agree with the OP in particular about a few things-

Artwork is important. It makes dungeons far, far more enticing.
A lore journal where you can review story recaps and see character images/bios is badly needed.

amax.8034:

I haven’t stated that AP are hard or that it displays a players skills, what I said is that AP act as a guideline, if a new player joins the game he could use the AP system to ask for information. A player with 10k AP, for example, is more likely to be able to answer a whole lot more questions then a player with 200AP.

That’s one side of the coin really. It’s not so much that you or Anet would envision it as such, because that’s pretty easy to do. The problem lies in how the user base can potentially start to exploit it, grief it or use kitten arguments that it is indeed a form of skill. It’s much better to not add an extra label to players that can potentially lead to discrimination based on that label. As stupid as it is, player will use it like that. More, they already use it, though that’s not a reason to put it in anyway.

Regarding LFG, people with a visual memory can’t always remember where certain things are placed if all looks the same, like in the case of the current LFG. Also I haven’t changed things just because of the sake of changing it, there was a reasoning behind it and please see some of my previous posts for an in-depth explanation.

This is becoming a very one sided argument imo, the world doesn’t consist of only people with a visual memory. The use of pictures IS imbalanced. Which means that certain people might be able to use it better as you say, which is all good. I agree with that, but then you forget about all the people that get overloaded and confused by all the pictures.

Good job nice work! You had me at the integrated inventory window!

Simply amazing.

It looks nice, if maybe a bit generic but that is probably unavoidable since you don’t have access to the art assets.

Not a fan of the hero panel changes since I don’t care about titles, orders or the crafting status. None of those are things I need to see frequently. Having build templates would be nice but that is a functionality change not a UI change.

Actually, after a few looks at it, I’d say it doesn’t fit very well with the theme. Now I’m not saying the layout is bad; it’s actually amazing. However, the artistic theme to it could be tweaked to have the more painterly red, blacks, and whites that GW2 uses.

Additionally, I believe that there could be a cutback on the amount of media used in place of a few good lines of text. I think that a majority of PC gamers are pretty literate and wouldn’t mind reading, this is especially true for MMORPG players. Media should highlight the truly epic parts of the game, rather than explain details.

Otherwise, this is an awesome and pleasing concept.

I was happy with the games current UI now you went and made it look like a piece of kitten thank -_- now everyday ill be annoyed by not seeing the info i want to see on my guild list

Holy moly guacamole! I can’t believe the devs have nothing to say about this. This is simply amazing work! I mean, sure, the art could be improved, but the theory and the “why I think we need this, and why I did that” are surely pro-work. 9/10. It improves everything.

It’s a shame this suggestion just slowly fell into oblivion.

it’s not a suggestion. as if anet would even ever consider…
it’s a nice to look at “what could have been” that fades with time as all hope does.
edit: now that i looked at it again i can’t stop looking at it.

Since some of you wanted to see how this would look in-game, I made a quick prototype:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUHYOEGKtJs

and in case some of you are interested in seeing the behind the scenes process like the research, sketches, what I learned and so on, feel free to check out the link from my portfolio.

http://builtbyg.com/portfolio/guild-wars-2-redesign

Awful

It seriously looks wayyy too cluttered and the big boxes look incovninet to use

You don’t need a picture for everything

amax.8034:

Hi guys,

I’m a Senior UX UI designer and I’ve been playing GW2 since the betas, with long breaks in-between and since I’ve spent quite a lot of hours with this game, I’ve noticed some flaws in the games UX (user experience) and thus I decided to tackle it in order to diversify my portfolio. This lead me to redesigning some of the in-game UI’s & the official website.

*Cut for brevity.

While I think this is awesome creatively, it is also such a bad idea to do in general. A long time ago I was trying to get my foot in the door with the 2 big dog comic companies as an artist and the one thing they both told me straight out was do not, under any circumstances, send them original work/artwork of my own. I was only allowed to draw and showcase their own characters drawn like their top artists of that time. At first glance i didn’t know why they wouldn’t want to see my own portfolio, then one of the HR people at “M” explained it to me. If they were working on anything remotely similar to something i showed them, regardless of how far along they were, they’d have to trash the entire thing since they didn’t want to get into any IP lawsuits with someone, especially if they were not going to hire them.

Basically, let’s say that Anet was working on something similar to what you’ve presented to them here, they might have to shelve it now or risk having to compensate you in some way, even if they’d been working on it first since you could argue your work gave them these ideas even if that wasn’t the case.

Wow, so yeah, I was actually all for this when it was first presented. I thought it looked great and seemed functionally better. After watching the video and seeing the actual flow of the UI, though, I have changed my view. That is not good. It is definitely not cleaner nor easier to use than what we already have.

There are far too many menus and extra drop downs and the whole thing is a cluttered mess. I do hope you are competing in the UI challenge. And I hope you make some iterations on this design. It might have potential, but right now it is not what we need.

something similar happened in Lord of the Rings Online…
random guy appeared with not some random ideas…

Over 2 years his thread got bumped up, praised, adored and worshiped.
(I’m talking about kinship revamp thread, if anyone knows about it)
Thread got like 300k views and over 10-15k replies.
Not a single reply was from staff.
Ideas were just ignored and some slight portions of it were bad implemented.

I hope this won’t be the case here.
First of all, UI of GW2 causes huge fps problem and it already requires attention.

If I may be honest with all of you, I never had any issues with UI design. Less is more for me, and I don’t like flashy stuff.
Your UI looks amazing, but Coherent UI application already has allot issues with fps drops and with built in video links and all those tiny and not so tiny details you placed there would probably cause even more fps drop when opened.

Priorities first. We need lighter UI not flashy and shiny.
It looks amazing but in this state of game would just not work.

If they would fix their own UI problems first, only than your amazing ideas would came to it’s true potential.

kitten , really good job on this, I hope you get yours for it. Keep it up.

Posting for visibility. Will comment more later.

TL;DR = YES, we NEED a better GUI, and the ideas presented here are going in the right direction. ANet…make it happen.

this is such an Amazing job! I love it!

Listen Anet. HIRE HIM

NOWWWWW.