Suggestions for less clicking in Book 2
Posted: November 5th, 2010, 3:24 am
Hi everyone, bought book one when it was out, never registered. Loved it though it annoyed me in places.
I waited for book two which I'm enjoying aside from a few interface niggles that I thought would have been cleared up after book one (same annoyances). I assumed the developers play their own games and would realise some game play elements are tedious and maybe they themselves would have done something about it.
I don't mean to be too critical, understand these are small specific things. But I do find I have to do too much clicking in the game to get things done. There are simpler ways to navigate around objects and barter for goods.
[*]When walking and your character hits a few trees (say 3 in a line). Why does he stop dead, rather than walk around the trees? The computer knows the direction via the cursor. Can't some pathfinding algorithm be inserted into the game, I dislike hand holding and I do it a lot. I have to re-click to get him/her to move again.
[*]When exploring, I click on a door or a chest in the distance does the character not walk to it, regardless of whether he can see it. Ultimately the end goal is to inspect that object or interact with it. Wouldn't it be simpler to allow the play to click a door in the distance and have the character walk straight up to it and perform the obvious action? Instead I have to click next to said object and then another click to open it or inspect it.
[*]When bartering many objects, why can't the default be set to 1 instead of 0?
[*]When bartering many objects, why isn't there a directional arrow shortcut from the keyboard so as to stop me from having to click and drag the slider each time?
[*]When making camp, the computer will say there isn't enough space, yet in most cases you can move 1 square to the left/right and then it's doable. Why not allow the computer to shift the camp to the nearest available space. Again it will prevent me from re-clicking all the time trying to find a space. One good example is if I quick travel to Farrock Mountains. If you rest immediately without moving the character it won't work because something is in the way of the camp. Why does that matter when to the left is a wide open space. Just have the AI shift the camp 1 square to the left. Warn the user if you have too, but just please stop me from re-clicking and trying to set up camp.
In a general sense I'm talking about stream lining the interface and intelligence of the game, I'm not bashing it, because it's a really good game. I feel my enjoyment of it would further increase with these fixes.
Importantly, and this is a complement of sorts. The interface employed would seem to work better on an iPad. It's geared in some way toward the touch interface. If this game was realised for the iPad I suppose I wouldn't make this post. That's how I feel about playing this game.
I waited for book two which I'm enjoying aside from a few interface niggles that I thought would have been cleared up after book one (same annoyances). I assumed the developers play their own games and would realise some game play elements are tedious and maybe they themselves would have done something about it.
I don't mean to be too critical, understand these are small specific things. But I do find I have to do too much clicking in the game to get things done. There are simpler ways to navigate around objects and barter for goods.
[*]When walking and your character hits a few trees (say 3 in a line). Why does he stop dead, rather than walk around the trees? The computer knows the direction via the cursor. Can't some pathfinding algorithm be inserted into the game, I dislike hand holding and I do it a lot. I have to re-click to get him/her to move again.
[*]When exploring, I click on a door or a chest in the distance does the character not walk to it, regardless of whether he can see it. Ultimately the end goal is to inspect that object or interact with it. Wouldn't it be simpler to allow the play to click a door in the distance and have the character walk straight up to it and perform the obvious action? Instead I have to click next to said object and then another click to open it or inspect it.
[*]When bartering many objects, why can't the default be set to 1 instead of 0?
[*]When bartering many objects, why isn't there a directional arrow shortcut from the keyboard so as to stop me from having to click and drag the slider each time?
[*]When making camp, the computer will say there isn't enough space, yet in most cases you can move 1 square to the left/right and then it's doable. Why not allow the computer to shift the camp to the nearest available space. Again it will prevent me from re-clicking all the time trying to find a space. One good example is if I quick travel to Farrock Mountains. If you rest immediately without moving the character it won't work because something is in the way of the camp. Why does that matter when to the left is a wide open space. Just have the AI shift the camp 1 square to the left. Warn the user if you have too, but just please stop me from re-clicking and trying to set up camp.
In a general sense I'm talking about stream lining the interface and intelligence of the game, I'm not bashing it, because it's a really good game. I feel my enjoyment of it would further increase with these fixes.
Importantly, and this is a complement of sorts. The interface employed would seem to work better on an iPad. It's geared in some way toward the touch interface. If this game was realised for the iPad I suppose I wouldn't make this post. That's how I feel about playing this game.
While the gameplay and storyline is solid enough, you don't want newcomers to download the demo and find the UI is from 1995. (Though porting it to the iPad wouldn't give it that feel because as I said before, the UI would work really well on that device).
hehe