By: hamtastic, Erik Friborg
Oct 19 2009 10:26pm
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Okay!  As promised, here are more UI screens and details for you all, since I know you're all interested in more information, and who can blame you!

Click the link for the screens!

Here's what they're working on, and the order in which they're approaching it.  For those curious about why we haven't seen the navigation system, or clans, or whatnot... it's because we're not there yet.  However the duel scene is one of the biggest UI pieces to finish, so being so far along with it is a good thing for the overall roadmap of the client.

The next two items are really cool slides that illustrate not only how much work went in to figuring out the focus of a typical user, but how they use the system while shifting focus.  This will, possibly, allow them to adjust the program to the play skill of the user involved.  While not available on launch, that's a pretty nifty metric to know and use.

 

Without giving away TOO much of my interview with Adriana, I will say that Silverlight is very likely to remain the technology used going forward.  Unless something major happens to change that between now and the hopeful release next year.  And yes, that last bullet is correct.  As you'd no longer need to have a 'local client' you would also not need all those big, bulky local updates as well.  The jury is still out about handling card image storage.  Either on the server or local... they're not sure which is the best performance/size trade off yet.  I'll pass along details as I learn them, of course. 

 

As I mentioned previously, both the left and the right sides can be minimized to make way for as much battlefield as possible.  Also, the battlefield can be "zoomed out" as you outgrow the default sizes.  Notice the phase indicator in the bottom left, the stack and mana pools are only visible as needed.

 

In the following shot you can see the different types of 'focus' that are available for cards.  Each focus type has a different color and/or style.  The Associated/Associated source are very neat as they tie the items together... no. more. arrows!!!  You know, those twelve stacked arrows that overlap and get in the way?  Yeah, enough of that! I will have a video up, sometime this week I hope, of the differences in action.  A lot was 'borrowed' from the Duels of the Planeswalker UI prompts which are quite nice and have been very well received so far.

And last but not least, some hearty testers banging away at the UI:

13 Comments

Thanks for the additional by hamtastic at Tue, 10/20/2009 - 09:49
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Thanks for the additional info and links, Trick! Great stuff! Also, it was awesome meeting you and Evan in Austin, I hope we'll all cross paths again soon! :)

Your collection already is on by Natedawg (not verified) at Tue, 10/20/2009 - 11:25
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Your collection already is on the server and does not reside on your machine currently.

Right on the money as usual, by hamtastic at Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:16
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Right on the money as usual, nate.

And even though everything is permantly stored on the server, there is a large collection download as you log in, which may be what he's worried about.