It’s not. I know it seems like it should be, but it’s not. During my struggles w/cataracts1 in 2018, this became painfully apparent. Flying out in null and j-space, away from the empire nebulae, was best. Operating in Amarr space? Sure, that was annoying, but the reddish elements from nearby Republic space helped a lot. Caldari space?
Blinding. We think of it as ‘blue’, but once you get into big swatches of The Citadel and Lonetrek, that nebula is white. Literally could not do more than desperately search for a relatively dark patch of sky to look at.
1. So, the relevance, for those who don’t know what happens w/cataracts: parts of the lens of your eye gets… cloudy. At first, it’s not really a big deal. You might not even really notice, while your brain can just shift your point of focus minutely and then extrapolate to fill in the blanks. We do that all the time. But as the cataract gets larger, then to be able to get any useful light in at all, your pupil needs to dilate more and more… which of course, it doesn’t, in bright light. Everything shifts to dark themes. Every setting goes as ‘white on BLACKERTHANBLACK’ as you can get it, so you can see by basically seeing around the edges of the cataract. I was playing under basically dark room conditions, with blinds, curtains, and then 3 layers of bedsheet over the window to block out absolutely every bit of light possible, and STILL played with 2 sets of sunglasses on.
OTOH, I could stare directly at the sun w/out pain… all I’d see was this absolutely gorgeous kaleidescope effect. Which, you know, much as going blind sucked? I’m glad to have experienced that bit. It was… beautiful.
One thing that’s been brought up a lot in this thread is how CCP has been working on Phroton for ages and we should have shared feedback previously.
I’m only going to point out a couple things:
Let’s not pretend that if feedback was shared previously, it made a difference. Going through this thread and the Known Issues thread, you’ll quickly find feedback that was shared months ago and wasn’t acted on.
A short time ago, CCP sent out a survey to gather feedback on Phroton. I spent time filling it out… and couldn’t submit it, since it was broken. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to waste any more of my time.
I also don’t think it’s fair to just dismiss all the feedback in these threads - there are several glaring bugs and questionable design choices that should be addressed, even if only to say “This is what we intended”
(These threads are always a mess, and it’s not helped by those people who just dismiss all the comments because of a few unreasonable posters.)
@Lodemai I agree that would be an optimal solution. I would 100% support a user modded UI.
However the reason they may not do this is some kind of exploit. I am not sure what or how this could be exploited? But changing the user interface and allowing users to decide the styles and colors is too revolutionary for CCP, when was the last time they ever asked a user for their opinion? When they want our opinions, they will beat it out of us, and charge us for the attention.
It’s worth noting that while you’re correct about a lot of feedback not being acted on, there’s ALSO a lot of feedback which HAS been acted on. Many of my past dislikes - some raised publicly in the past, some not - have been addressed and solved or improved. Many other complaints have likewise been addressed to varying degrees.
People have complained about the lack of windows which suppored compact mode, and this has been drastically expanded over time. There are still valid complaints about how compact mode for the inventory screen is handled, and while the change hasn’t ixed the problem, there has been a half-step taken in a not-entirely-wrong direction in response to this feedback. Many of the problems withe the drone window have been addresses, particularly ones relating to compact mode not being compact (though there’s a small but useful change still being recommended here). They’ve added a frequently-requested option to switch all windows into compact mode in the main menu. early on, compact mode removed several buttons needed for basic window functionality and buried them behind extra clicked in a drop-down menu, and that screwup has been rolled back.
They haven’t fixed everything, and importantly, they haven’t fixed all the critical functionality-impairing problems, but they HAVE been significantly improving photon compared with its initial state, in a lot of meaningful ways. It’s still got a way to go before it’s where I think it needs to be for the opt out to be removed. I still think they should bring back that option for at least a LITTLE while longer while they clean up a few of the worse remaining issues. But that doesn’t negate the fact that progress has been made and can reasonably be expected to continue. Nor does the existence of unresolved problems. The fact that there is feedback which has been resolved is also relevant to the discussion.
On the UI’s own merits, I absolutely agree. But at the same time, they’re not working in a vaccum, and as I said upthread, I suspect they’re out of time on that. There’s almost certainly entirely new data structures and very changed data formats coming with the next actual content patch (or soon after, given it’s CCP and they seem to excel at missing their target time-frames). And while Photon’s been able to interpret the old stuff, it’s my guess that the old UI wouldn’t have been able to handle the new stuff.
So they’d need to do one of two things. The first option is invest a lot of time into updating a UI they’re phasing out. And, let’s face it, introducing bugs into that UI. Because when you’re under a crunch and working with old, poorly-documented code, that’s when bugs happen most. Or, they could just sunset the old UI and weather our kvetching.
If that’s the case… I don’t blame them one bit. But I’m still gonna kvetch.
Agreed with the reasons why this isn’t a viable option.
And this is what they did, but it’s NOT the only other option, nor is it the best. This isn’t a dichotomy. And even less so when you consider…
…your own critiique of their timely delivery of planned content. The third option is simply not pushing the new content that requires the phasing out of the old UI into the game until photon is in a fit state to be live on its own merits. Which they’re already REALLY close to, so it shouldn’t even add that much of a delay, and that gets even less of an impact when you consider the probability that they’re going to delay it anyway…
No, this is also a non-starter. EVE’s very much in a recovery phase, where the changes that came with the Uprising expansion have made a huge difference in the direction the PCU is moving, the amount of goodwill the developers have among the players in general, and the overall health of the game. And that is very much a result of the Herculean efforts of a small number of game devs who deserve monumental praise. But it cannot stop. It is already starting to hit stall speed among a lot of folks, who want to know why the allegiance system that was supposed to be in 4 months ago—and was a big draw of Uprising—still isn’t in.
They’re already on borrowed time. They cannot afford to delay even a week over delaying the UI changeover. Photon, for the purposes of the vast majority of the players (you know, all the ones still playing and not here complaining) is ‘good enough’. Even if they aren’t thrilled with it, it’s not enough to motivate them to quit. Hell, for most of the people complaining here, it hasn’t motivated them to quit. So while they have issues, and they’re expressing those issues (and good on them for doing it!), it’s still ‘good enough’ that they keep using it.
They simply cannot afford even one single solitary delay, if they can avoid it. There is no reason to build in delays they might be able to avoid.
EDIT: I probably shouldn’t say it’s a ‘non-starter’… rather, I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s actually what they’ve already done for the last four months. I’m absolutely positive there were a whole lot of things that could have gone out in Nov/Dec, but didn’t, because the UX team were saying ‘just give us the winter, when people are inside, before we kill the old UI’.
March is soon upon us. Possibly worse for EVE, KSP2 is this Friday, and there’s plenty of people who’ll get their spaceship fix there. Once KSP2’s multiplayer goes in, expect that # to grow. They’re outta time.
When I was learning Assembler (back in the 1990’s), I wrote a fairly simple program; only problem instead of accepting input and displaying a result, it would crash the whole dang PC. I mean, shut down and reboot. I looked at that code for 3 days before I realized I had forgotten a radix designator on an interrupt number I was calling, resulting in the system calling the interrupt to switch to protected mode instead of DOS services. That really taught me to pay attention to detail when coding.
Why do I feel like I’m an alpha account with slight tint highlights? Why cant we have the whole colored themes like we used to? You forced this unto us… and did you really think that we’d like every client to look the same? the PI window (compact mode)… its super hard to differentiate which planet Im working with, I often have to recheck the top left with the list to confirm I’m on the correct planet, this definitely wasnt thought out completely, and I originally thought that it was a side effect of the ‘highlight’ (is not really a theme anymore) but no, Im using 5 different ones (proton, sisters, carbon, ore and minnmatar) and with all of them I have the same problem… and the drone window, OMG… and the location window??? I have to open in a new window everytime I undock??? I really don’t get why this was forced to everyone when its clearly not working as good as the old one was working.
“Why was this forced?”
“Why no ‘opt out’ options again?”
I’ll step up to answer from what I know why it was forced and it’s positive. You may even profit ISK (I hope).
I and many others had shared we don’t like this ‘force’ change in it’s current state.
Yes yes yes the visuals are nightmarish to some like I.
But the improvements and corrections will come filtered over time. Some soon. Some later. Some not.
The old User Interface coding(s) had became antiquated (over 20 years old) and don’t work well with the newer program codes being used today. You can only patch a tire so many times before it looks like a quilt.
The EVE devs are bringing new visuals, content, and compatibility other programs can be mashed into this game. The codes needed to match.
Photon Ui had to start first before all that could happen. We graduated from ‘opt outs’ now.
One of the new projects soon to come right now being tested in beta by some EVE players is the MS Excel spreadsheet working with the EVE market data.
As a merchant player I am very excited for that.
Do you need to buy MS Excel separately? I don’t know.
Imagine all the EVE market information now able to flow into one program to you and not needing multiple alts in different regions or searching through someone else’s app.
Envision all the prices, quantities, where, when, transactions, who, etc. in all of EVE became available.
I would be better abled to know or deduce who you are, where, and when you’re making changes.
I could deduce what you’re flying with, in your cargo holds, or contracts and where they are going.
I would know and/or deduce what and when corps and alliances are doing and where.
I see ISK profits.
I think coming or planned after is more easier media sharing between players.
That would make me more able to find/read/deduce who you are, sharing, saying, doing, and what you like or don’t like.
That’s good trade, war dec, and ganker information if/when that comes.
The new Photon UI had to come and stay sometime. Now was the time to allow the other new things planned to follow. I decided to stay and wait it out playing/doing something different in EVE waiting for corrections and improvements as I’ve done in past updates. Hope this gives you a heads up opportunity to profit.
then don’t use compact mode on the PI interface. Compact view didn’t change from the old one.
There are color themes in photon ui.
You don’t have to open the location window every time you undock.
It is objectively false that photon is ‘not working as well as the old one.’ The old UI was a buggy and slow dumpster fire that should have been retired a decade ago.
I am neutral as Canada on this whole Photon UI controversy. One can tell it is a controversy when any topic grows by nearly 600 postings in less than a week. Some of you might think this is a good thing and it will get you the change you desire.
Here is the reality of the situation. CCP knows the loyal players will eat whatever they shove in their faces. The neutralist, such as myself, will try their best to adapt to the new UI like it or not. While the others will quit or at least threaten to pull up stakes.
This topic could triple in volume and CCP would look at this meta data as a win, they know you still care to continue playing and complaining about it. Many of you question, if your postings get “read by developers” or “CCP pays any attention” to this topic. Most just bean count the meta data and ignore the content.
When I arrived here last year, I saw this Photon UI being offered and opted in, not because I liked it better, because I felt the winds of change. When any game posts they are developing the new and disapproved feature, it isn’t a question of IF you will get it, but WHEN it will become the global standard.
Somewhere in their meta data they knew it was time to pull the plug and now you have your answer. I replied once before to this topic up there someplace, and told you. If CCP wants your opinion, they will beat it out of you, and charge you for the attention. So ask yourselves , are you getting what you paid for in entertainment value?
no, however, the dilemma is i still pay for the hope it might give me value again. certainly it would be better to move on but i am old and not that easily uprooted.
i wouldnt care much if the new ui would be better in at least one aspect, but it is not. everything it changed, it changed for the worse.
when i start the game, i feel utterly depressed looking at it, like being subject to the dementors from harry potter. looks like that was the plan ccp laid out for us…
If the new UI is “all-new” and not the old UI upgraded, if this new UI is really just built up new from scratch, why it has some of the same “bugs” or “features” of the old UI.
One example:
Within the old UI the map- and the probe-scanner-map-window were always a bit different from the other windows. The look was different and i always had the issue, that these two windows did not have the option to lock them in place.
So if i had them open, dock and undock, these two windows change position.
I manually need to drag them a bit. Then they align to the other windows again.
Within Photon this “bug” is still there. How can that be if the UI is all new?
mini-adendum:
The little “News” button is still not good to align to other windows.
It is not magnetical and still gets bigger if you want to manually move it.
If its bigger you cannot properly align it to the other windows.
This button was behaving axactly like this in old UI.
The problem with this argument is: Where do you get entertainment like EVE? There is no alternative to this game at all. CCP has a real monopoly on this type of entertainment and the players have no alternative to it to which they could migrate if they don’t like the game, and CCP has no competitor that would force them to improve.
