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Halo |OT19| 793 Posts, And None Worth Reading

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Madness

Member
Pretty ridiculous how Halo Waypoint requires you to login to view ANY stats. Takes me less than 5 seconds to view detailed stats on sites like Halo Tracker for all 3 games, or even the Bungie stats still. Get on this Frank. I only ever used the Xbox 360 app for Waypoint to enter those free XP codes. After that, I'd always delete the app.
 

Ghazi

Member
This is amazing.

I want to imagine this is how an OraxWahrer conversation would go:

Okolxrp.png
 

HTupolev

Member
I find the venerance for Reach's UI odd considering it's mostly wasted space and canted, harder to read text. It's style over substance.
There is quite a lot of empty space, but it's laid out very intuitively despite the large feature set.

I guess the text could be a bit bigger in places, but I'm not sure I've actually found it problematic. And I say this as someone who has played Reach quite a lot on an SD CRT over composite NTSC.
Halo 4 is the only time I've been particularly bothered by Halo UI font.
 

TheXbox

Member
I find the venerance for Reach's UI odd considering it's mostly wasted space and canted, harder to read text. It's style over substance.
It's snappy, functional, and pretty. I never had any issue reading the text, and I play on a pretty small monitor.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Pretty ridiculous how Halo Waypoint requires you to login to view ANY stats. Takes me less than 5 seconds to view detailed stats on sites like Halo Tracker for all 3 games, or even the Bungie stats still. Get on this Frank. I only ever used the Xbox 360 app for Waypoint to enter those free XP codes. After that, I'd always delete the app.
It's seriously awful. Such a huge step down from B.net.
 

Chettlar

Banned
Sorry for the late response OddOne.

A) Why not both? H3 had two options too. Lobby switching was pretty fast, if I remember correctly.

Because what is the point? It takes just as long to do it the other way, so I don't see the point in duplicating a function. It had a reason for existing in Halo 3, but doing away with that reason (allowing parties to go into the main menu) does away with needing two ways of doing the exact same thing that are nearly identical.

B) Knowing whether you are playing online or local is important for people who might want to play split screen or lan.

I never said it wasn't. I was only saying that people refer to skulls and campaign scoring more often than changing their console settings, so since it is a more "utility" kind of menu, have it off to the side (by pressing X or Y). Not a big deal either way, but there is nothing wrong with the way the mockup could facilitate that, which was my whole point all along.

My whole point through that whole post was that the mockup design is just as functional and efficient as the Halo 3 design.

C) No, by doing it this way it makes sure that the “Resume Campaign” stays one-button click away for returning to the game. With your suggestion it becomes another sub-box where player could accidently make unwanted mistakes.

I communicated this badly, what I mean is:

"Resume campaign" in both versions is listed as the first option available in the main menu -- in both Halo 3 and the Halo One mockup -- and with good reason, since that is probably the one people are most likely going to want to click to get back into the game. I was not saying put resume campaign under another menu. Leave it in the main menu.

What I was saying is that when you get into Halo 3, Level Select is not the first item on the list. It's 3rd, below two things that I rarely mess with, at least compared to Level Select.

In the mockup, however, it was listed first, which makes sense, since, well look at it this way:

Most common thing I'm going to do with Campaign is "Resume Campaign." So it is first and forefront.

The second most common thing I'm going to do in Campaign is choose a different level, so then it makes sense to have this as the first selection under "Campaign."

Mockup does this, Halo 3 does not. Not a big deal either way, but it still proves my point that the Mockup is functional.

D, E, F ) I dislike that it has to go to a whole new menu for it. H3 topdown sub-menu system was perfect, because it is fast and stays in the campaign menu.

That mockup forgets that pretty does not mean it is functional and fast. It neglects that information that is important to the player should be conveys fast and effective and let the player not be encumbered and get as fast as possible back in the game.

Um what?

D. In Halo 3, you must select the difficulty menu and open it to change the difficulty setting. When you do, it displays this in two different places. This is unnecessary. In the mockup, it only says this in one place: directly on the menu item itself. You don't have to go into any more menus in the mockup then in Halo 3. Why did you say you do?

Again, just as functional. Nothing wrong with the fact that it is "Baseball card."

E. Is the same as B. I'm saying switch two things around. It takes just as long either way, and you could switch them back to the way they work in 3 (Have network be a menu item and have Campaign options be accessed via X). There is no difference or any more menu items either way. Did I just communicate this badly?

Anyway, again, just as functional.

F. The mockup has this in a submenu, you are correct, but in the point you argued with (the one that I myself typed), said that they should be present on the main screen, thus just as visable). No submenus required.

Again just as functional.

Get my point? There is nothing wrong with the mockup in terms of functionality. It's just as functional and intuitive as Halo 3's. I like it better, since it does a better job (with the exception of the roster, which I provide a solution for), of bringing what's important to the forefront without being redundant, two things that are important in menu design.
 

Duji

Member
Played some H4 at my friend's for the first time in months. Did they remove instant respawn from Infinity Slayer? I wonder if they removed it across the board.
 

Ghazi

Member
Played some H4 at my friend's for the first time in months. Did they remove instant respawn from Infinity Slayer? I wonder if they removed it across the board.

No, it's still in, I was playing 4 (for the first time in months as well) on Friday and I was instant spawning every opportunity. You must have played Legendary Slayer or something.
 

Chettlar

Banned
I wish I was good at Photoshop so I could make a UI. You guys got a real talent there. ;(

You should Use Powerpoint! It's super easy to use. Just makes shapes and make word arts where you want the letters to be. Then just save the whole thing as a picture. Super easy.

I'd do it myself, but I like Stalker's + that Halo One mockup, so I'm good.
 
You should Use Powerpoint! It's super easy to use. Just makes shapes and make word arts where you want the letters to be. Then just save the whole thing as a picture. Super easy.

I'd do it myself, but I like Stalker's + that Halo One mockup, so I'm good.

You keep making comments about them so put your money where your mouth is. Make a UI picture.

use the symbols or whatever that your brother (we dont need to know his shit, he isnt running his mouth) is using.

put up or shut up
 
I'd like if 343 does a Sparkcast with Bravo doing a postmortem of Halo 4 MP and talking about tiny hints on how they've improved for Halo 5 MP like frankles has sort been hinting.
 

Chettlar

Banned
You keep making comments about them so put your money where your mouth is. Make a UI picture.

use the symbols or whatever that your brother (we dont need to know his shit, he isnt running his mouth) is using.

put up or shut up

...Ok, ok dude. I don't see the point though since it would be really redundant, and frankly I would do a crappy job, since I am by no means good at it. It was just a friendly suggestion for people who don't have photoshop. Is being helpful a problem? I'm not like "showing off" or any nonsense like that; just trying to be helpful.

And I'm not sure why people act like I'm all know-it-all. I happen to know that...so I said it because it was relevant. When I don't know things I don't say them. Is there a problem with that somehow?

And what is wrong with "keep making comment about them"? I was in a conversation with a couple different people. Both made just as many comments to me as I made to them, so how does that mean I am suddenly "posting so much"? It's like people want to be annoyed at me. :/
 

Fuchsdh

Member
There is quite a lot of empty space, but it's laid out very intuitively despite the large feature set.

I guess the text could be a bit bigger in places, but I'm not sure I've actually found it problematic. And I say this as someone who has played Reach quite a lot on an SD CRT over composite NTSC.
Halo 4 is the only time I've been particularly bothered by Halo UI font.
The problem with Halo 4's type isn't the size per se, it's the weight. It's pretty thin, and while the text isn't in motion so it's not juddering it's still harder to make out than the previous games (Halo 3 used Din heavily, which was better than Halo 1 and 2's overuse of all-caps Handel Gothic. Can't remember what Reach used offhand, might just be a condensed version of Din.) having all-caps makes it harder to read as well. I imagine that's a bigger issue with making out gamer tags than the actual vertical orientation.
 
Venerance seems dead dead.

90% (percentage from my ass) of mods/total conversions/games do that shit. Product some okay looking work. Never get public attention. Never get anywhere close to being anything playable. Die.

Look at all the stargate mods for HL2 for example.

The problem is people who have the ability to craft great stories and gameplay ideas never have the skills required to follow through and people with the skills are most likely employed at least 9-5 doing that shit so they don't want to do it during free time.

Venerance has a shitty team structure, honestly. I was contacted to be a part of the 3d team after someone had seen some of the Halo models I had done and just poking around/learning how they handle work....nope. There's no structure at all. It's basically

"We need these things done:

1
2
3
4
5

In no particular order, and anyone just pick and choose what you want to do, but don't tell anyone you're doing it to avoid confusing with other artists, because that makes too much sense."
 

*faces. you can pretty much say goodbye to your torso, too.

It's here, people! It's more GTAV than Halo with regards to aesthetic, but I was going for minimalist functionality over trying to pull a completely unique, Halo-style UI out of my ass because there's no way I could manage that in one night. That being said, the menu does take some inspiration from Halo, particularly the formatting of the Terminals, hence the button prompts in brackets, dynamic text strings, etc. I don't know how much could realistically be pulled off on XBO. The major thing setting it apart from the other UI demos so far is that rather than try and cram all the data you could ever want into a single screen, there are two Menu Modes: Social, and Tactical. Social is a Halo 4 / Reach sort of deal where you can see what the other Spartans are up to, while Tactical is megapost city. This is in no way a perfect system, and I acknowledge that.

inPeR3Cegn7D6.png


Click to expand, each shot is native 1080p. The team organization is admittedly more Halo 4 than the past entries, but I like the idea of a unifying emblem per team. Tactical menu mode has a bunch of information at your disposal, including everything a newcomer could ever want. A large majority of these pages would be modifiable per custom map / gametype. Maps would have room for both a lore description and a small gametype-related anecdote, as well as the ability to list Key Weapons and Ideal Gametypes, up to 4 apiece. Gametypes, on the other hand, can have up to five general Gametype Settings and Player Traits displayed in the pregame lobby, a function customizable per gametype. They also include two description fields, and I'd imagine the Xbox One would allow for some formatting including simple things like accent colors, pulling gametype stats per user (allowing for Terminal-style "dynamic documents") or the ability to namedrop a user by gamertag. Player size and gametype author are added at the end of either's first description to save space. Active Roster is still integrated into the same menu just like Reach, but it requires a Halo 2-styled Y press to "open" it and scroll down.

The implementation of Accent coloration is pretty straightforward. Under Game Details and UI Settings (pictured below), accent coloration is used in situations where a default setting value isn't used; for example, with your Starting Weapon set to Tool of Destruction instead of the typical Battle Rifle. As you can see, holding down Back will bring up some UI customization options, which'll turn the menu into:

i766ZtNKTYnE9.png


Similar to the XBO's UI itself, you can choose an accent color for flavor text, which I imagine would just pull from the potential armor / emblem colors. Accents can also be turned off, just in case anyone's annoyed by it or something like color-blindness is causing a readability issue. In case you haven't noticed, the Custom Game lobby also uses customized backgrounds depending on what map you have selected, which would just be an expanded / blurred picture of the map thumbnail. The background itself also changes depending on what your accent color is; if you have accents disabled, it'll just use whatever coloration you were using before you disabled them. The Header and Footer are completely superfluous, and as such I've tucked them completely away into the blind-zone of HDTVs. The bottom would cycle through simple how-to-play stuff or Halo news via Waypoint, depending on which you have selected. Clicking in both sticks would toggle between Tips and News. To save us some headaches in the future, I also added in some options like Request Party lead to avoid the whole "who wants party lead? okay who was that?" thing that always happens now, as well as a Request Host option to avoid Ozzy screwing us all over.
Then again, with dedicated servers...

So, what happens if you hit both triggers?

ibuI0BQus1lrf.png


Boom. Every casual's wet dream. Accent color goes from Coral to Tempest Turquoise to showcase the differences in coloration, too. The middle pane pimps your Spartan's duds, and showcases your personal Emblem (top) and Clan Emblem (bottom). It also uses your gamertag's name and motto. This setup is designed with the ability to customize your baseball card in mind, though - some players might list their Clan and Position, while others might showcase their total playtime or accumulated Boltshot kills.

I threw in some completely unlikely options far-left like "Mute Clan" because I feel like it'd be a godsend going against the inevitable xXxMLGxB0N6xH1TZxXx clans and what have you. As far as Accents go, the turquoise in the player listings shows who you are, and the Active Roster accents anyone that's in your clan. Any accents in the baseball card are listing a stat that's superior to yours - hgs-boson has a higher max rank than you do, for example.

Here's where belief gets completely thrown out the window: Vignettes. Using the Kinect and the power of the Cloud, you can either use in-game Campaign animations (once you've unlocked them), buy custom-made vignette DLC, or record your own unique personal animations for things like victory poses, Assassinations, etc. Everyone would have a "Reel" showcasing the custom options, which could just be a simple Picture-In-Picture thing that'd replace the map thumbnail. Provided the player has made their custom Vignettes public domain, you can also download them for personal use.

And that's pretty much it! I know there's a lot I've probably forgotten and some of the spacing is off because I only have a 1440x900 monitor and had to work at like 50% zoom, but this is probably the most productive thing you guys are going to get out of me all year.

#ChiefForKI
 

GreyWind

Member
h4uistudy.png


I was not a fan of the baseball card style but after 343i released some new stances I started to like it, it just adds a bit of variety. I was a huge fan of the Reach UI but I think it looks outdated now, maybe because I'm seeing too many things using Metro and modernish/boxed UI. I also would like that 343 adds a wide screen hero banner showcasing the map and few tabs to the right for voting, each displays the name + gametype with the amount of votes, also when a player hovers over the voting options a nice transition slide effect should change the image with a nice 1080p concept art/image of the map.
 

Madness

Member
h4uistudy.png


I was not a fan of the baseball card style but after 343i released some new stances I started to like it, it just adds a bit of variety. I was a huge fan of the Reach UI but I think it looks outdated now, maybe because I'm seeing too many things using Metro and modernish/boxed UI. I also would like that 343 adds a wide screen hero banner showcasing the map and few tabs to the right for voting, each displays the name + gametype with the amount of votes, also when a player hovers over the voting options a nice transition slide effect should change the image with a nice 1080p concept art/image of the map.

images3.wikia.nocookie.net___cb20111125162443_glee_images_2_21_smh--4.gif
 
h4uistudy.png


I was not a fan of the baseball card style but after 343i released some new stances I started to like it, it just adds a bit of variety. I was a huge fan of the Reach UI but I think it looks outdated now, maybe because I'm seeing too many things using Metro and modernish/boxed UI. I also would like that 343 adds a wide screen hero banner showcasing the map and few tabs to the right for voting, each displays the name + gametype with the amount of votes, also when a player hovers over the voting options a nice transition slide effect should change the image with a nice 1080p concept art/image of the map.

add another member to the bad opinion train.
 
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