I haven’t seen any comment on the latest preview vid so I thought I’d put up a quick post to get people’s impressions. What do you think of the compass as a navigation and communication tool?
Personally, I’m enthusiastic about anything that replaces the abstract UI of desktop games with in-world, interactive tools, so the compass looks great to me. I think combining navigation and communication (plus some amount of friend/group/guild management) into a single object is very smart, though it puts more pressure on the dev team to make the interactions clean and intuitive.
Can you think of anything else cool the compass might be used for? A “detect enemies” spell or ability that temporarily adds mob markers to a player’s compass might be useful in a dungeon.
Lastly, should the compass be the only navigation tool in the game, or do we also want maps (which might be for sale or just be posted in towns, crossroads, etc.) I’m not the best with navigation, to be honest, and while the compass looks very useful for finding local destinations, I might struggle with plotting longer trips across multiple zones. And yet, that kind of old-fashioned challenge is also part of the charm…
And how great is that grass gently waving in the breeze?
Glad you like it! And yes although we are making some concessions to old-school UI items like the settings menu and the inventory (I had a crazy idea of using a mannequin that you would equip your stuff on but it was too confusing), for the most part we are trying to keep things in-game like the compass.
I think a detect enemies spell is a really interesting idea. Especially for something like the disappearing ghosts… haha
Right now we are not planning on putting in any sort of “map” system, but I think it’s a very interesting idea that hopefully I’ll have some time to explore during the Alpha. I love the idea of people making their own maps and trading/selling them, but I’m not sure how hard it will be to pull off technically.
Oh yeah, the map idea is awesome. It would be cool if Cartographer could join the ranks of Fishermen. =D
They could use their compass, or better yet, some old school surveying implements, to create a landmark on their map. They could set some markers along rivers and trials and measure them with their Surveyor’s Transit to mark the path. The better they are at Cartography, the fewer markers they’d need and the more accurately placed their landmarks. The map would give you the feel for the land, and you could “turn on” a map to have it’s landmarks labeled on your compass.
I love the rise of these tactile UI replacements in VR games. I expect having the compass as a physical object leaving you to navigate by that, the terrain and landmarks around will make us much more intimately familiar with the world than if we were just looking at a moving dot on a map. It might even make road signs practical and used! I’m excited to see how this element plays.
When I saw the vid regarding the compass I really liked it. It’s different and refreshing. I look forward to using it in-game. I would although appreciate if there were at least a map of the game area at least in each town. Or have it as an ultra rare drop from monsters, but not a map of the whole game, rather of portions of it.
A map of a town for example, or a cave. It doesn’t need to be detailed at all but just to serve as a rough layout of the land, complemented with the compass.
Or a blank sheet that starts filling up as we explore, therefore players would be enticed to wander to further “fill” their personal maps.
