Should they add Unit appearance in the UI like Blizzard does?

[stormgear]

There was a thread about how units talk under certain circumstances. From there I'm thinking if it would be a good idea if you can see the pilot of the units in the UI too like Warcraft and Starcraft does?

OR

As of now we can only see a picture of that selected unit. With that in mind I'm thinking maybe we can have a similar satellite view to replace that? From there you can 'actually' see the units physical appearance and perhaps a bit of its surrounding too, along with the volley of shots thrown and took as far as the little box allows to do so.

Although I'm a bit worried at one part where say an air unit 'gets in the way of the view' of the selected ground unit but that can be fixed by putting some transparency for the unit blocking the view. Finally this idea might be a bit taxing for the computer. Thoughts?

[(Kibax)]

I'm happy with just having a picture, but I suppose a view of the unit could work. Seeing their actual face would draw too much SC comparison, but an outside perspective could work. Say I have five tanks and I select all five, the game could pick one tank to focus on, instead of having a picture.

EDIT: You could go even further and add a filter so it looked like it was a view from a satellite or something.

[stormgear]

I'm happy with just having a picture, but I suppose a view of the unit could work. Seeing their actual face would draw too much SC comparison,

Yep, this is what I'm worried with that idea too. People will scream that it's a copypasta of SC.

But tbh I think certain game elements shouldn't be monopolized by a person/company just because they're the 'first one' that came up with it. Otherwise there won't be any effort for the rest of similar person/companies to innovate/improve/change from that idea. But let's leave that part for another topic for now.

I like the filter part and yes, the select many but view one is still applied in the idea just like any other previous cnc games.

[Borreh]

How about an animated of the unit's pilot with a real actor there? That would be very C&C.

[Kellogen]

I would go for minimalism....even though there are alot of features being added keeping it is probably not there so much on the idea of minimalism of UI interfaces. Maybe on Dual screen ideas, on something to look forward too might be an idea of direction to look into rather to find a use of or not and then on the idea of when dual screen cant be used.

Might add some perspective of what to have and not have, given direction of where 4 kinda has went to with where CnC features are within say modern releases. Given the Build que is either going to change to say the older style or maintain any new changes. Cause on dual screen everything would be within reducing on a single screen or just lack of options to use.

Second screen use, would be able to apply many ideas with little question (if any) to many points, but on single screen is going to probably be conflict of interest.

[Kyang]

Wasn't there a live action portrait in one of the old westwood UI mockups?

EDIT:
Yeah, here you go:



It's not so much of a copy and paste if EA makes this little nugget very obvious.

[R315r4z0r]

Looking at that video, I notice a little histogram of some sort near the animated image. It would be cool if it showed different stats of the unit... like armor, damage, speed, etc.

I like how it's like an x-ray wireframe version of the vehicle that shows the crew inside. That seems like a really neat idea.

[Kellogen]

The video is nice...alot of detail in loading, so like when i mission started it would be full of effect to say, then building and etc would takes its place, and selecting units might have some effect outside action of unit uses.

Selecting a unit and having as such is nice as put within the vid and what has been put in posts. Stats might be cool...I'd be more interest in like group power and strength rating. Maybe Group leader highligh with anis for units in groups actions with some kind of strenght and power meter instead of stats. Stats are nice though. But seem more like an RPG effect of actions with characters/units in use though. But could have some benefits.

Think there was a release to where things like support powers could be an additon to a group of units in use. But you are stuck having to make those groups for the support powers. Also given that you'd have to see bonus of say power and or strengh either increase as such or seperate for the group support power.

[Commander_McNash]

How about an animated of the unit's pilot with a real actor there? That would be very C&C.

Stock pics FTW:



In EA we trust says the artbox.

[Zaptagious]

I love the way the interface looks in the Westwood version of C&C3, I don't know how much was actual useful information but you get the feeling it all serves a function unlike in C&C3 for example where they would just throw in some techy looking stuff just to make it look, well, techy. An example of this would be the interface thing whenever you got a new objective.