Design A New Lobby Client Interface.

[rattle]

Let's make things retarded...

[smoth]

why is this here? what does it have to do with art OR modeling? Sure the ui needs to be pretty but is that really a discussion for this section of the forum?

[daan 79]

i am glad it get talked about. Why am i here?

We could also have a COMMING SOON tab.

With nice pictures from mods that will never be released.

and a build in spring guide that looks like art. but i think design is better word

[Argh]

why is this here? what does it have to do with art OR modeling? Sure the ui needs to be pretty but is that really a discussion for this section of the forum?

Absolutely yes. This is a design competition. Design, as in "visual representation of a functional object". It's a way to talk more coherently about ideas, and hopefully get Lobby developers to see what real needs are. I haven't had time to complete the rest of my mockup, but I'll try to get to that when I can this week.

[Wisse]

I've talked to certain someone and realized that this is completely worthless. I can't be bothered with even thinking about any ideas until i learn how to code. This will probably never happen since my education doesn't involve any programming at all, but who knows.

It just seems impossible that any new thing that require more than 1 person could ever be implemented. This is probably the case of spring being hobby project so i and others should be thankful for what we got so far.

Main thing that most of programmers don't realize is the importance of community. You need to take care of it and you need to encourage it all the time. Those who play multiplayer games do it for the ppl. But they first have to try it and that's where first impression comes in. First contact is probably this fugly site which has nice working replacement almost rdy but noone bothers to finish / change it. Than there's lobbys of course. I only know satiriks lobby so i'm gonna comment on that one only. I love it. It has everything. But for someone who didn't grow up in the time of mIRC fixedsys seems lil spartan. Lobby is made for power users and it's way too complicated for new guys who can't be bothered to go through steep learning curve just to start their first game. But than again i hear that there will be singleplayer which will teach newbies a bit before they're thrown in online hell.

Anyway i've learned that talk is useless. I'll come back and whine about shit when i learn how to code, make my own lobby, my own server and my own site, couse only than i'll be able to make any big change.

[Argh]

this is completely worthless

No, it's not. I don't really care, if a particular Lobby dev doesn't want to listen. That's their loss, so far as I'm concerned.

Projects like SpringLobby (and for that matter, TASClient) are Open Source, and somebody may very well pick up the ball on this, moving forward.

The whole point of the exercise is to show the Lobby developers what we'd actually like, as opposed to what gotten made thus far. There is nothing wrong about having an exploration of this stuff, frankly, and the reason why I want it done visually is to show people what we want in a way that's harder to misunderstand- the previous discussions about this have turned into giant flame-wars, I think primarily because we're using words, instead of pictures, to describe functionality.

[AF]

The problem with views on tasclient is that they are tainted by lengthy experience and nostalgia. TASClient is user friendly to us simply because we have been using it for so long we know it like the back of our hand. As a result we are inherently biased as a community and unable to objectively evaluate it or any of the lobbies due to extensive prior experience.

What really needs to be done is analysis of why people perceive it to be user friendly as well as studies on new users to ascertain what is good and bad to an inexperienced user so that we can further refine our knowledge of good lobby GUI design.

A greater understanding is necessary, and research is vital. We should not rely on ourselves for this but on new users so that we can rule out internal influences that would not affect those users we want to help the most.

[aegis]

this thread is not worthless at all. at least two positive things have come from it, whether intended or not :)

[REVENGE]

The problem with views on tasclient is that they are tainted by lengthy experience and nostalgia. TASClient is user friendly to us simply because we have been using it for so long we know it like the back of our hand. As a result we are inherently biased as a community and unable to objectively evaluate it or any of the lobbies due to extensive prior experience.

What really needs to be done is analysis of why people perceive it to be user friendly as well as studies on new users to ascertain what is good and bad to an inexperienced user so that we can further refine our knowledge of good lobby GUI design.

A greater understanding is necessary, and research is vital. We should not rely on ourselves for this but on new users so that we can rule out internal influences that would not affect those users we want to help the most.

lol Right, as if most new users even go on this forum? It sounds a little far-fetched that we need to conduct a "study" in order to find out what a good lobby client should look like.

It's not necessarily that TASClient is unfriendly, it just lacks useful features that we all want, and the included help info is really spartan. It might help to throw a few screenshots in there, launch it at first run, or even show some "tips" at startup.

[Satirik]

i'll add tips at start, with high priority and low priority, high priority will be shown at key moment like when hosting for the first time : how to makes boxes etc ... and low priorities at start like "you can make groups blabla" but i need to make a complete list before

[AF]

lol Right, as if most new users even go on this forum? It sounds a little far-fetched that we need to conduct a "study" in order to find out what a good lobby client should look like.

[REVENGE]

Ok AF, you do that then. Hurr hurr.

Nice tips Satirik, they should help newbies understand the interface more quickly now.

[rattle]

eww jpeg

[Kaine]

stuff

Cmon, its not that useless now is it? A new lobby design is somthing people have been wanting for a long time now and is long due to be implemented. Besides, I like yours the best out of all the ones suggested here. It combines the simplicity and familiarity of the current one with the capability for features (and looks!) we want and need.
If you have more to add, I say keep it up.

[aegis]

I'm not a fan of pretty much any non-fullscreen/3D/game app using extremely non-native controls

[Jazcash]

faKe o.O

[Wisse]

Hehe sry for that man. I just wanted to point out that clan name and clan tag don't have to be same thing.

[Jazcash]

/me growls

[Tribulexrenamed]

lol Right, as if most new users even go on this forum? It sounds a little far-fetched that we need to conduct a "study" in order to find out what a good lobby client should look like.

Fail UI. Too complicated.

[REVENGE]

Speaking of which, new lobby client skin/layout should match the new site design.