Hi everyone, this is Lee "Torsion" Nagar, a programmer on Star Wars Galaxies. For my first dev diary, I am going to discuss my work on the player buffs interface.
One of the first things I noticed in SWG was a somewhat limited buff interface. So when the lead designer brought me into his office to discuss a buff UI revamp, I was very eager to participate.
The very first task was to allow for more than two rows of displayed buffs. What is the purpose of showing the player what buffs are on them if they aren't visible?
This picture shows how the UI is no longer stuck to two rows. Granted, this is a ton of buffs, but I am just trying to show the capability of the new interface.
Now that we have dynamic rows for our buffs, the next task was to allow players to quickly determine if a buff is beneficial or not. We split the buff display into two categories: buffs and debuffs.
This allows players to immediately determine if a buff is beneficial or detrimental. Professions that can remove negative buffs will find this very useful. The dynamic rows and the added buffer for debuffs does bring up the issue of screen space. We addressed this by allowing players to change the size of buff icons. (Resizable buff icons were done by SWG programmer CancelAutoRun).
The last task was to allow players to remove buffs (not debuffs) that, for whatever reason, were not wanted. This is done simply by right-clicking the buff. Not all buffs can be removed! A good example would be Stasis. Classified as a buff, when this skill is used on an enemy, it actually acts as a debuff, preventing movement on the target. This is a buff that we don't want players to remove because it acts as a debuff in this case. Designers will be making the final call as to which buffs can be removed by players.
Thanks for taking the time to read a little about what I do on this project. I hope this revamp makes your gaming more enjoyable.
Lee "Torsion" Nagar Programmer, Star Wars Galaxies
