Holy balls the UI in Skyrim drives me insane!

I'm not even a UI designer and i would have made something better... The armor is arranged alphabetically and no priority is given to what's equipped?!?! egads!

The menu list starts in the middle... whaaaaat? I have to scroll for everything?!

And why is everyone going with this web 2.0 interface/font in games lately? Larger fonts, no icons, lots of dead space may be simple and clean...  but I'm checking my inventory not reading a blog! I should be able to quickly pick what i want without freakin scrolling all the time. Also, the the armor values on the bottom and the item all the way on the left forces my eye back and forth all the time, and is frankly uncomfortable.

Some really bad UI design decisions made here.

Also, Bethesda really loves their high frequency noisy textures. At least their animations have improved a bit.


Anyway my first impression is that this should be a pretty cool game. As long as I can get a mod for that UI...

MediaMaster wrote on Nov 24^th, 2011 at 9:09pm:


Without a doubt, the UI is the worst element of the entire game.  It is incredibly poorly designed and even in its simplicity it manages to be a buggy mess.  If you are in a store dialog and you don't click right on the name of the section you want to browse, you get dumped out of the store window altogether.  Then you get to listen to the inane vendor repeat the same line of dialog you've already heard a billion times.

Unfortunately, the creation kit isn't out yet, so mods are limited to texture improvements and replacements.

Here are a couple of mods I'm running right now:

No More Blocky Faces - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30
Detailed Faces - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26
Enhanced Night Sky - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=85
Glowing Ore Veins - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=193
High Quality Eyes - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=498
Realistic Water Textures - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=711
Detailed Bodies - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=256
High Def Textures - http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=607


-b0b
(...loves Skyrim.)

I've been watching Dead End Thrills for a couple weeks now, good stuff.  How many cells/grids are you loading?  Did you turn it up to 11?


-b0b
(...needs to give it a try.)

Do the Shrine of Azura quest line.  At the end her head priest will swear to you.  She is a summoner/destruction dark elf chick.  I used her for a while before accidentally blowing her up with a Fireball.

I've spent the last two nights putting in about 14 hours of The Old Republic, the new MMO from Bioware.

I cannot recomend a game, even if it is an MMO, more strongly if I tried.  The quest, or character stories as the game refers to them, are absolutely fucking mind blowingly good.  Every quest is voice acted, well, and really puts you in the thick of things.

For example, I levelled a Sith Warrior to level 11 (specializing to a Sith Juggernaut).  In that time, I competed for my masters acceptance, who I then murdered to get in good with Darth Baras.  I activated an ancient Sith machine with a group in a Flashpoint (think instance or dungeon).  I freed a Jedi prisoner, and led him to believe he had information, that I planted, and which was fake.  All this took place on the cruel and harsh landscape of Korriban.

I also spent some time levelling a Sith Agent to level 8 or so.  And running around the polluted and slave riddled landscape of Nal Hutta, with the twinkling city-planet of Nar Shadda hanging in the sky overhead is fucking breathtaking. 

Do yourself a favor....play this game.

I can't wait to hear about the end-game.  I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a grindy mess like every other MMO out there.


-b0b
(...soon!)

I've got 114 hours into the game, and I think I'm finally starting to burn out on my first playthrough.  Saints Row 3 is still calling my name, and I picked up a bunch of new games during the Thanksgiving sale on Steam.  Bulletstorm, FEAR 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dungeon Defenders, and L.A. Noire are now on my list of must-play titles.

I still want to finish off the main quest (first time I've done that in an Elder Scrolls title since Arena) and the Dark Brotherhood stuff, but I am definitely slowing down.  Now that I've hit level 50, my level climbing has slowed to a monotonous crawl as I've maxed out all of the skills that I actually use.  I can keep grinding up to level 80 by using a new set of skills (two-handed, block, etc) but that might be reserved for my next Skyrim binge six months down the road.


-b0b
(...best Elder Scrolls title yet!)

I do not have any screens of the Old Republic, the in-game screenshot mechanic was disabled from the NDA still and I didn't feel like using an outside program to screenshot shit.  The NDA is already lifted by the way.