Repairing Gears #4: Information Management, Part 3
This one will have to be a bit shorter and lacking a diagram since I was away from my home computer most of the day. The good news is, there is no great need for a diagram as it is more of an addition to last week’s topic than an entirely new one. As promised, this week will be a bit about buffs and debuffs. More specifically, how they are displayed, seeing as how that’s what we are talking about in this series of Repairing Gears.
If you head on back to last week’s Repairing Gears you’ll be able to get a good picture in your mind from the diagram for what I am about to add to it. Right on the player’s circle (or target’s circle, for that matter) would be attached smaller circles that have a color/graphic on them representing a certain debuff type. For instance, there may be a circle on a person when they have a poison on them. Mousing over that circle would display the information about the poison (damage/time remaining). If they also had a disease on them then they would have 2 circles sitting around their bars. If there were multiple debuffs of a certain type on the person the mouse-over effect would show each debuff. Fairly simple. For buffs there would really only be 2 circles that would ever be needed. They would be buffs you were able to cast on yourself (with mouse-over for time left and effect) and other buffs that players put on you. Simple.
Target buffs/debuffs would be displayed the same way so there is no real reason to break into that too much. Party buffs would be a little different though. Mousing over a player would display the buffs he has on him, targeting him would allow you to check how much time was left on your buffs, but the simple mouse-over without targeting would not display the time left on the buff. Debuffs would display next to the party health/special bars with a small icon and color around them to discern type. A good option to add here would be a special notation for debuffs that players have the ability to get rid of (perhaps a slightly oversized icon) so they are more easily seen.
Next week we will explore some different parts of the user interface that we haven’t done before.
repairing gears, information management, buff, debuff, poison, disease, mmorpg, mmo gaming, interface, user interface
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