The Interface:
There is going to be a lot of information to display Valve has created a system
of menus to try and alleviate the spam, Valve is going all out to keep uneeded infomation off screen,
and important eaisly seen, but not blocking the game. Fargo took a little trip to Valve a while back,
and reported the following,
"They had a translucent electric blue background,
allowing the action to continue behind them, as though your soldier's helmet had an intricate
heads-up display. When you need a menu, we slide it out, when you're done, put it back away," Robin
demonstrated for me."
One of the major problems in large multiplayer games is information overload. Everquest is a prime
example, all information in the game is passed through one window, you can be in the middle of a
fight and have a friend begging you for help and you won't even see it. Other games have all sorts
of things mixed together: communication among teammates -- and trash talk aimed at the other
team -- is mixed in among death messages, game status messages, and output from your various
character actions. Valve has put a lot of effort into alleviating this problem, once again we turn
to Fargo's interview with Robin Walker,
Robin pointed to
different parts of the display. "We use what we call a 'newsbar' to separate what's going on with
just you and what's going on with everyone else. If you issue bad commands and get errors and
whatnot, your error report will be down there. We're trying to cut down on spam. All
communications, for instance, by default are in your squad only. In a 50 player game using squads
we can cut it down so that all you have to do is work well within your team of eight or whatever...
Valve has created a compass that will point at your objective, say on an attack/defend base
destruction map, where-as the object is to get into the enemy base and destroy specific sections.
The rotating compass points towards your goal. So on this example map, it's pointing at the first
point in the enemy base that needs to be destroyed. Currently it points straight at it, but once the
map-maker codes his map for the artificial intelligence, it can give you waypoints, akin to
RainBowSix so you can walk in the front door, and know which room you need to head to.
This will be very advantageous for players on a map they have never seen before.
And of course this system wouldn't be complete if it didn't lead you back home when needed,
also we've heard that when the commander gives you a specific command, be it protect a certain player
or whatnot, your compass will lead you right to it/him.
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Information, the key to victory.
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