07 Apr 2015, 18:08

hermes wrote: Anyway, I would like your opinion, how can I polish it.



I generally like your simplistic approach, but I''d advise you to decide for one style and make it consistent. In HC the top UI with HC level, XP and aging bar still has the AoE3 visuals. Also, for your flat design you should, like Neuron, use another font than the AoE3 one, something without serifs and also no fantasia font. In HC I particularly like the way you emphasized the ages in the deck with an additional transparent square, sweet. The resource menu is cool with the population added in the same style as the resources, but Neuron''s single bar is not only more compressed, but also very classic since the resource bar always used to be arranged in a single bar on the screen''s top in every Age of Empires. What I like a bit more about your UI though than about Neuron''s is that you''re trying to preserve at least some of the original AoE3 UI''s layout.I do agree that - especially in multiplayer - a more reduced AoE3 UI is beneficial. However, - for me - it can get too technical and minimalistic, therefore only becomes a good UI for particularly skilled players who know the game and its hotkeys inside out. Technical/Minimalistic UIs feel cold to me as they''re all about effectivity, but not about immersion. Seeing more of the actual game doesn''t do the full immersion job if the visually contradicting style pulls me out of it again, everything I see on the screen has to harmonize. The UI is not your enemy, but your friend. And games that were not structurally designed for immersive controls like From Dust do not gain them by simply removing everything of the UI except the least of what is necessary to keep it fully functional.I personally think Neuron''s minimalistic UI is great for online veterans and for them it seems worth releasing IMHO. The advantage to have more game space is superb. Like it very much. Not sure I like the "commerical look" though, possibly because the two parallely existing aesthetics don''t mix well and the additionally granted layout could have a better arrangement of UI elements.Seeing that he''s using a widescreen, I''m not sure how well some elements scale though at more narrow screen resolutions. I''m particularly sceptical about the unit stats which can consume quite a lot of length due to the high ratio of boni/mali given to units. Funny sidenote, the idea to compactly arrange various buttons reminds me of some WoW UI mods in which the screen bottom was bombed with buttons. Luckily AoE3 is RTS and not RPG.