This game badly needs tooltips

[krs]

Now we have bigger monitors and to hoover mouse in one place and small text to appear "far away" in another is simply cumbersome. (I have entirely missed them for the first hours of play because I was used to having tool-tips).

[Krom]

Could you bring us screenshots of different RTS games so we could see how it is made there?

[krs]

It seems not so common to have tooltips in screenshots In principle you hover mouse over an icon and you get a small tooltip popup at the right of it.

Example 1: http://i37.tinypic.com/b4akbs.jpg
Example 2: http://www.diablowiki.net/images/1/14/S ... oltip1.jpg
Example 3:http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wlmr19CgzSw/T ... 000014.jpg

Altough this is not from a game it's minimalistic enough. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SPF22fuZL7s/T ... oltips.png

So nothing fancy, just a quick way to know I am hoovering a stone and not an iron bar .

[Lewin]

I think tool tips like that would be more intrusive/annoying, but I guess we could have an option to turn them off in settings for experienced players. By the way, other games use the same system as KaM where tooltips are shown in one place. I can make some screenshots later if you like.

[Krom]

Yeah, like novice mode having all the tooltips on and expert mode having only few.

But I need to notice many of your examples are not exactly tooltips in a way KaM has em.

[krs]

Yeah, like novice mode having all the tooltips on and expert mode having only few.

But I need to notice many of your examples are not exactly tooltips in a way KaM has em.

I gave "some" quick examples . To me one in the stile of the Ubuntu one (last one) would be the greatest. Small, clean, un-intrusive and giving only information needed. (No wiki-page about Foresters's hut).

[Krom]

Yes, but Ubuntu stile has empty space on right and hints can safely pop up there without blocking any of the UI.
In KaM many elements are more in a grid, so separate hint area is less intrusive. Maybe we need to decorate it like Diablo screen does though (to draw more attention to it).

[Lewin]

Yes, maybe making the existing tooltip more obvious (by highlighting it) would be enough. If it was in a box or something it would be more noticeable when it appeared. Currently it is quite hidden.

[Krom]

Hidden, especially on green background )

[krs]

One of the biggest flaws I see is still the fact that we have way bigger resolutions right now. So moving eyes from the icon (top part of screen) to the very bottom... is quite an unnecessary effort. that's why I suggest small tool-tips near the icon hoovered.

[Krom]

If we 'd have more freedom in art direction I would have made all UI elements bigger, cos on my 24: LCD they look quite small and pixely in fact )

[Lewin]

If we 'd have more freedom in art direction I would have made all UI elements bigger, cos on my 24: LCD they look quite small and pixely in fact )

They're quite a good size on the original resolutions KaM was designed for, 800x600 and 1024x768. Some people still use small resolutions so making it scale up with bigger resolutions would be the best option (but that's a massive redesign).

[krs]

If we 'd have more freedom in art direction I would have made all UI elements bigger, cos on my 24: LCD they look quite small and pixely in fact )

They're quite a good size on the original resolutions KaM was designed for, 800x600 and 1024x768. Some people still use small resolutions so making it scale up with bigger resolutions would be the best option (but that's a massive redesign).

Browser Display Statistics says 85% of users have resolutions higher than the maximum designed for 1024x768.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

[pawel95]

Yeah but this is not a statistics of Kam Players. IF you have a stat. of Crysis 2 players, i can tell you,that about 90% will have FULL HD resolution or maybe higher. However Knightsandmerchants is played by many players, which had an maybe 6-10 old computer. So you cant argumente only with this statistic, I think.

[Krom]

Do you suggest to drop 15% of our players just like that? )) Seriously though, we have noticably share of laptop users who have 1024x600 displays.