15 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 121st comment:
Votes: 0
Tavish said:
Basic support for Mob listing and targeting in place. The panels in the target listing window are hotspots that execute the target command to change who you are attacking.

Nice - I was considering doing the same with mini avatars, but having two maps takes up quite a bit of space. I'd still like to do it at some point though.

Tavish said:
The MSDP is also passing the HP min/max of the creature (also a reference to what will be a image file for the creature type), I just haven't decided a good way to display it.

For the enemy I simply pass a health percentage - I don't really want players to see the exact health of other people anyway, and this means I don't need to send as much data. For the mini avatars, my idea was to display a tiny energy bar underneath each, in the exactly same way I do for the larger enemy avatar on the bottom left.

Tavish said:
Dynamic windows inside windows inside windows gets a bit hairy. Haven't decided how I want to handle the map window display of the creatures yet either. I will probably wuss out and go with the rogue style ascii representation instead of an image. At least until I find small enough sprites that are still somewhat recognizable at that size.

Yeah I'm still using the coloured dots - I found 20x20 was okay for buildings, but creating recognisable creatures at that scale was too hard. You could probably double the width and height of your map though, you've got more space available than me.
15 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 122nd comment:
Votes: 0
I decided to give GodWars2 another bit of a trial, and I found it much more enjoyable with the GUI up than I had with the default interface. One suggestion I have is that you might consider using the space underneath the local map to display a name of the area you are currently in. Also, having an icon on the larger area map of the staircase's location, maybe a smaller cyan circle, would be really helpful (as I found out while running from a Goblin King bent on destruction.)
15 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 123rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Tavish said:
Basic support for Mob listing and targeting in place. The panels in the target listing window are hotspots that execute the target command to change who you are attacking.

Nice - I was considering doing the same with mini avatars, but having two maps takes up quite a bit of space. I'd still like to do it at some point though.

I finally decided to reduce the size of the text window so I do have even more space available now. I was back and forth on it for awhile and decided since most information is getting rerouted to miniwindows anyways I didn't need to dedicate as much space to the text, especially given the large scrollback buffer MUSHClient has.

KaVir said:
Tavish said:
The MSDP is also passing the HP min/max of the creature (also a reference to what will be a image file for the creature type), I just haven't decided a good way to display it.

For the enemy I simply pass a health percentage - I don't really want players to see the exact health of other people anyway, and this means I don't need to send as much data. For the mini avatars, my idea was to display a tiny energy bar underneath each, in the exactly same way I do for the larger enemy avatar on the bottom left.

Passing the percentage is probably a good idea, I was planning on turning it into a percentage client-side anyways. I guess I need to get it into my head that when I pass the MSDP data I won't be the only one with access to the raw numbers.

I am planning on doing something similar with the target avatars, although I will likely keep the name printout (in a smaller form) and put the name with the energy bar below it to the side of the avatar. I don't want to compact it too much mainly to reduce the chance of misclicks when selecting targets.
16 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 124th comment:
Votes: 0
16-Oct-2010: I decided to have a go at adding the mini avatars below the zoomed map, as I mentioned earlier. I'm a bit short on space, but I can fit seven of them side-by-side (although if there are seven, the last one sticks out two pixels further than the map). I was nearly able to fit in two rows, but not with the energy bars, and using the pie-shaped timer doesn't seem to fit. Other options would be to remove the boot icon, or put the additional avatars beside it - but I can't think of a better place for the boot, and I'm thinking of adding more icons beside it anyway.

So it looks like I'll be limited to seven mini avatars. But as it shows the seven closest things, that's probably okay - I don't generally have a lot of things in one place, and you could always click on the map to move closer (and thus change which avatars are displayed). The only real exception would be in the starting village, where there are already seven buildings, and where players tend to pass through or sometimes even hang around.

You can click on the mini avatars to target the appropriate thing, but there's no other way to tell which is which. One option might be to use a range of different colours for each dot on the map, and use the same colours for the energy bars - that would allow the user to distinguish between mobs at a glance. But I wouldn't like it from a consistency perspective.

16 Oct, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 125th comment:
Votes: 0
I would think that color-coordinating the avatars with dots would look fine. What about printing the name over the icon? or would you run into formatting/wrapping issues with the text?
17 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 126th comment:
Votes: 0
ATT_Turan said:
I would think that color-coordinating the avatars with dots would look fine.

My only worry is consistency, as I mentioned before. I currently use red for all health bars, blu(ish) for mana, green for actions and gold+silver for primal. If I start using different colours for different mini-avatar health bars, I think it would look a bit strange. One option might be to have different coloured borders around the avatars, but after dropping the borders from everything else I think that could end up looking strange as well.

I did also wonder about having a mouseover option for the avatars that would draw an arrow to the appropriate dot, but that's not particlarly convenient.

ATT_Turan said:
What about printing the name over the icon? or would you run into formatting/wrapping issues with the text?

I'm not sure I could get the text that small. But there would be enough space to draw a coloured dot over each avatar instead. In some cases it might still be difficult to distinguish between certain mobs at a glance, but at least you'd always be able to see which avatar matched each dot. I think this may prove to be the easiest option.
17 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 127th comment:
Votes: 0
Kavir, you could perhaps have coloured borders around the mini avatars, which coordinate with the dots on the map.

Maya/Rudha
17 Oct, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 128th comment:
Votes: 0
One thing I'm curious about is the underlying data handling, it's all rather obscure, is that intentional? Do you have unique identifiers for objects? Does your GUI being limited to 7 avatars mean that the data is also limited to 7 avatars?

It might also be interesting to display something about what the mini avatars are doing. I think in WoW you can see whether someone is in combat, and if so, who they're in combat with.
17 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 129th comment:
Votes: 0
Small overlay icons could serve that purpose, though it would require the mud differentiating accurately between actions. Combat is easy, of course, but some other things (if you got ambitious with it) can be more problematic.

I wouldn't see having more avatars being problematic on the MSDP end, though if the GUI isn't using it, Im not sure sending it would be helpful either, except perhaps to support custom iterations of the GUI.

Maya/Rudha
17 Oct, 2010, chrisd wrote in the 130th comment:
Votes: 0
Have you considered changing the circle that indicates the player's position on the world map in to a square? Something tells me that it might look a bit weird, but it also might be nice to have the area represented be the player's actual FOV, as seen in the map below.
17 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 131st comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
Kavir, you could perhaps have coloured borders around the mini avatars, which coordinate with the dots on the map.

I did consider that, but having dropped borders from all the other icons I think it might look a bit out of place.

Scandum said:
One thing I'm curious about is the underlying data handling, it's all rather obscure, is that intentional?

I've not intentionally made anything obscure, but there are several things I plan to rewrite in the future. The current plugin has suffered from feature creep, as I've just been making it up as I went along, and tweaking the data format as I go. I keep promising to properly document it on the website, and I will, but I keep putting it off.

Scandum said:
Do you have unique identifiers for objects? Does your GUI being limited to 7 avatars mean that the data is also limited to 7 avatars?

For these avatars? Yes, I send its name, unique ID, avatar and health%. It's currently limited to the closest 7 avatars at the mud end, but that's just while I'm playing with it. I will make it more generic when I'm finished, either have it send them all or let the user specify a limit.

Scandum said:
It might also be interesting to display something about what the mini avatars are doing. I think in WoW you can see whether someone is in combat, and if so, who they're in combat with.

I think that would work better with Tavish's plugin, as he has more space on the "nearby" list. However if there was demand for it, I could certainly include it in another variable - or, if the player can configure an avatar limit, perhaps they could also configure other optional extras.

I tend to view MSDP as an open ended project, where people will be able to ask for new variables as needed.

chrisd said:
Have you considered changing the circle that indicates the player's position on the world map in to a square?

I have, but I thought the circle looked cooler. I also considered a triangle, which could indicate your facing, but I'm not sure how good that would look either.

I also wondered about adding a circle to the bottom map, as large as possible so that it touched all four borders, but with no actual border of its own - it would only be visible as a darkening of the outside area, like the pie-shape on the spell affect icons, to create a sort of light radius around the player. However I wonder if this might look a bit silly in dungeons, where it should really conform to your line-of-sight.
17 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 132nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I did consider that, but having dropped borders from all the other icons I think it might look a bit out of place.


An alternative might be to make the avatars have different background colours to correspond with them, though that means either: A: A bunch of icons in different colour codes, or B: A transparent avatar over a coloured background. B is preferable, but Im not sure its doable with MC.

Maya/Rudha
17 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 133rd comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
It might also be interesting to display something about what the mini avatars are doing. I think in WoW you can see whether someone is in combat, and if so, who they're in combat with.
KaVir said:
I think that would work better with Tavish's plugin, as he has more space on the "nearby" list. However if there was demand for it, I could certainly include it in another variable - or, if the player can configure an avatar limit, perhaps they could also configure other optional extras.

I have actually run into my first dilemma with the client model doing this. My plan was to display a target icon and next to it the target name and health bar and then next to that an icon depicting what the target was doing (sleeping, fleeing, eating, whatever). In the case the target was fighting I wanted to display an avatar of who they were engaged with. This works fine if the target is fighting another npc or you personally but not so well if the npc is fighting another player who has peronalized their avatar. I may have to rethink how avatar settings are done.
18 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 134th comment:
Votes: 0


Pulled out the "current action" icon for the targets for the time being until I decide on how to handle the personalization stuff. I'm going to work on getting the character info box filled out next and then start building the inventory control window that will run down the right side.
18 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 135th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
You can click on the mini avatars to target the appropriate thing, but there's no other way to tell which is which. One option might be to use a range of different colours for each dot on the map, and use the same colours for the energy bars - that would allow the user to distinguish between mobs at a glance. But I wouldn't like it from a consistency perspective.


Being able to differentiate between the mini-Avatars would be great, I've found very infrequently targeting the right guy in-game can be a bit troublesome when there's 3 skeletons about me. I don't suppose it'd be possible to target the MOBs by clicking on the dots? (Actually, now that I ask that I realize I haven't tried to, so if that's already the case forgive me.) One thing, as far as the layout goes, is that I find myself tending to pay a lot of attention to the bottom-left during combat and to the bottom-right during exploration, which should be expected I guess. I think adding a line for a few seconds to the right of the boot icon to indicate something that comes into sight might be really helpful.

KaVir said:
My only worry is consistency, as I mentioned before. I currently use red for all health bars, blu(ish) for mana, green for actions and gold+silver for primal. If I start using different colours for different mini-avatar health bars, I think it would look a bit strange. One option might be to have different coloured borders around the avatars, but after dropping the borders from everything else I think that could end up looking strange as well.


If you did do that I'd suggest not using the green that is used to show items on mini-map, as that would definitely get confusing. I agree that having the health bars be something other than red would probably look out of place, though it would certainly make it easiest to tell guys apart. If anything, I'd just suggest different shades of red.

Also, KaVir, one thing I've noticed is that when the NPC has no avatar associated with it, it still shows the 'None Selected' picture. That gets kinda confusing for a moment, even with the health bar lighting up a bit. Would it be possible to have a default "Mob doesn't have an avatar" icon that's different from the 'No Avatar' icon?

[Edit:] Looking up at Tavish's stuff up above, I especially like how he has the movement speed bar. While something like that wouldn't be as easy for you, KaVir, I think it'd be great if clicking on the boot sent 'ff' to get me moving quicker. As it is I find myself mostly ignoring the boot, given how good the game is at telling me how far I'm going.
19 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 136th comment:
Votes: 0
Bobo the bee said:
I don't suppose it'd be possible to target the MOBs by clicking on the dots?

Right now the mud only tells the client which of the 11x11 map locations have 1+ mobs, 1+ players and 1+ objects - it doesn't identify them in any way, or even indicate how many there are. I could either get the mud to include an ID with that data, or send a map position with the mini-avatars (actually the second approach would also mean I could drop the original approach entirely).

The problem is you can have multiple targets standing in the same location. However in that case you could still click on the mini-avatars to target a specific opponent.

Bobo the bee said:
One thing, as far as the layout goes, is that I find myself tending to pay a lot of attention to the bottom-left during combat and to the bottom-right during exploration, which should be expected I guess.

Yeah I'm not too happy about that, but I can't find an alternative layout that feels any better. I guess I could shift the maps over to the left as well, but it would feel pretty cluttered.

Bobo the bee said:
Also, KaVir, one thing I've noticed is that when the NPC has no avatar associated with it, it still shows the 'None Selected' picture. That gets kinda confusing for a moment, even with the health bar lighting up a bit. Would it be possible to have a default "Mob doesn't have an avatar" icon that's different from the 'No Avatar' icon?

Yup good idea, I just need to find one that's suitable.

Actually on the subject of avatars, I've started collecting a bunch of public domain ones that anyone can use: http://www.godwars2.org/download/avatars...

Bobo the bee said:
Looking up at Tavish's stuff up above, I especially like how he has the movement speed bar. While something like that wouldn't be as easy for you, KaVir, I think it'd be great if clicking on the boot sent 'ff' to get me moving quicker.

Could do. I've been thinking of adding some buttons beside it for basic combat moves, and if I did that it would make sense for the boot to do something as well. On the other hand, if that one icon becomes a button, I should really do the same for the crossed swords and heart icons.
19 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 137th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Bobo the bee said:
One thing, as far as the layout goes, is that I find myself tending to pay a lot of attention to the bottom-left during combat and to the bottom-right during exploration, which should be expected I guess.

Yeah I'm not too happy about that, but I can't find an alternative layout that feels any better. I guess I could shift the maps over to the left as well, but it would feel pretty cluttered.


Yeah, I can't see any better alternative – and looking at different areas of the screen are to be expected, after all.

KaVir said:
Bobo the bee said:
Looking up at Tavish's stuff up above, I especially like how he has the movement speed bar. While something like that wouldn't be as easy for you, KaVir, I think it'd be great if clicking on the boot sent 'ff' to get me moving quicker.

Could do. I've been thinking of adding some buttons beside it for basic combat moves, and if I did that it would make sense for the boot to do something as well. On the other hand, if that one icon becomes a button, I should really do the same for the crossed swords and heart icons.


I'm sure you've thought about it, but just to vocalize it I can't help but wonder what you could use for those two buttons. I'd love to see something like 'eat <item>' or 'hr' for the heart, but that's just because I use both of those commands frequently – I'm not familiar with the other classes, but I don't imagine everyone has a head regenerate command. :wink: How possible would it be to allow users to set a command that each button sends?

One thing I noticed was that there's nothing that displays blur timer on the plugin – not a complaint or anything, as a simple addition to my prompt helped that out, but it's one of those things that I thought might be something useful.
19 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 138th comment:
Votes: 0
Nothing major, but I changed the login screen to an image splash instead of the ASCII login. The image isn't public domain so I'm just using it as a stand-in for right now. The final version would have the mud name set against the image.

19 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 139th comment:
Votes: 0
Tavish said:
Nothing major, but I changed the login screen to an image splash instead of the ASCII login. The image isn't public domain so I'm just using it as a stand-in for right now. The final version would have the mud name set against the image.


Personally, I'm not sure I like that look unless you can find a way to make it most of the screen and just a line or two for name and password.
19 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 140th comment:
Votes: 0
Bobo the bee said:
Tavish said:
Nothing major, but I changed the login screen to an image splash instead of the ASCII login. The image isn't public domain so I'm just using it as a stand-in for right now. The final version would have the mud name set against the image.


Personally, I'm not sure I like that look unless you can find a way to make it most of the screen and just a line or two for name and password.

I'm sure there are other options, but the choices that come to mind right now are:
A) Use the image layout shown above where the image is there to basically cover up the in-game layout until it can be filled with data (there is no data until the login is finished).
B) Show the empty layout (borders and windows with no data) and use the ascii splash screen.
C) Not show the top panel at all until login is complete and use the ascii splash screen.
D) Create two completely different layouts similar to your thoughts. One layout that shows prior to the login and then change the layout to the standard after login.

I wasn't a big fan at all of B, which was why I went to A. I might try a mock-up of D, the downside is that unless I want to constantly resize the text box depending on the login state, it would have to big enough to show all the menu options available to the player between login and entering the game. Of course I could probably hide the text box altogether during login and send all the options via MSDP and draw clickable menus. :biggrin:
120.0/177