Creation Menus

[Budda 2,675]

Just been thinking today about how we can improve (replace) creation menus, for easier creation of items.

We've had a couple of ideas, but nothing perfect, so just wondering what everything thinks should be the way to go.

Don't worry about technical feasibility, just put what you think would be the best way to have the menus, we'll work out everything else.

[san_tropez 394]

A "continue_last_action" or at least just moving the item last created to the top of the creation menu have been suggested several times before, and either would save people a lot of time and frustration

[Budda 2,675]

Yes, I know.

Im asking for new ideas for a full creation menu overhaul. Not just small fixes to make things slightly less bad .

[Rhazul 0]

Yes, I know.

Im asking for new ideas for a full creation menu overhaul. Not just small fixes to make things slightly less bad .

Maybe small fixes are better than a complete menu overhaul that won't be much better anyway than what we have.

Anyway, I can't imagine a new system that wouldn't benefit from moving the last item created to the top of the creation menu.

[Manny 380]

Radial menus

[Syleth 19]

along with the "activated item" there could be a "target" item.

once you got an item activated and got a target you could open a window which lists the available items (maybe with icons or thumbs for beautification) to create with the selected combination. on this list you can click an item to create. once you clicked it, the window stays open to repeat a creation or click several times for queue.

here is a quick draft for better understanding:

did not take any anti-macroing mechanism into consideration. this will be the task of the devs

target could be set to "target type" so that you don't have to set each rock shard as a target when you want to make bricks.

[Mouchard 22]

Is drag and drop possible?    I'd like to brainstorm on this a bit, and have loose ideas in doing it in several ways. 

Also, am I guessing correctly that multiple actions per craft construction would still be required?  No sense in working on a menu/UI that just shows the desired finished object, checks for materials needed, and then allows a single (or very few) clicks in order to queue up the entire process.  (Though my wrists would thank you).

[Budda 2,675]

Is drag and drop possible?    I'd like to brainstorm on this a bit, and have loose ideas in doing it in several ways. 

Also, am I guessing correctly that multiple actions per craft construction would still be required?  No sense in working on a menu/UI that just shows the desired finished object, checks for materials needed, and then allows a single (or very few) clicks in order to queue up the entire process.  (Though my wrists would thank you).

Don't worry about technical feasibility, just put what you think would be the best way to have the menus, we'll work out everything else.

Don't worry about how easy things will be to macro.

Just give us any and all ideas we'll work out the technical stuff and specifics for how easy stuff is later on. Basically I want to see what people think would work better for Wurm that what we have currently.

[darthryan 588]

Keybinds for create actions. Then the menus can be whatever.

[Vroomfondel 1,128]

Just a small idea, how about reducing the levels we have to dig by making the right click menu only creation or imp commands when we have a tool in hand or, for example,  taking lump to an anvil.  This would make it a bit easier anyway.

[Mord 0]

http://wurmonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=69899.0  this thread (6 threads down from the top) has what I believe would be the best way to organize everything?

I know a lot of people would be happy with creation items in their respective slots:

Weapons go in a web sub cat.

armor in armor sub cat

tools in tool sub cat

etc

[Touchmee 380]

what about a creation tab much like skills and inventory tab where it lists all the skills you have and the things you can create...

Creation

-----------------------

Smithing

-Weaponsmithing

-Blacksmithng

-Armour Smithing

etc

When you click a skill such as Weaponsmithing you get all the items that can be created, for example, you open the window and under smithing you click Blacksmithing and then it opens up all the items available you simple have to have the lump in your inventory and click a button that says create... or even if its in a forge infront of you no messing about moving stuff around lumps cooling down on you etc would speed up the process and make everything simple

[Wraithglow 787]

it would be nice to have 1 click to add creations to the order queue, for example (simplest way i can think of) by keeping the menu open after you select what you want to create first. or some toolbelt-like buttons somewhere, idk

[Leslie 5]

The option to use the current menus, as they are - no slight tweaks (I'm looking at you classic!).

I hate change.

[Pashka 707]

I would like to be able to move items within the list like i can move inventory from top to bottom.

[Myst 1]

Personally id LOVE a "toolbelt" type feature on menu items.  Example:  If i Know im going to be making some smith items , i can "toolbelt" certain actions.  If i change over to woodcrafting, I can redo the "toolbelt" of actions like i would with my items.

Going through the menu list for nails each and every time Is a Pita.  As those lists grow over time .. which i hope they do, then it would be nice to have something like this where if only "belt up" the action once in a while , not 100 + times a day.

Thanks

[Mord 0]

That is like other MMOs where you could drag a crafting action button to your hotbar?  That what you guys are talking about?  That is a pretty neat idea.

[Ecrir 887]

How about being able to select an active item like now, but then also being able to select a target item.

For example select the small anvil as active item, then select an iron lump as target item. (other way around works too in that example I guess)

Once the game detects that you have selected a valid match (an example of an invalid match would be an iron lump with a piece of leather, you can't produce anything with those two) it will pop up a menu screen with all possible items that you can create and a create button. This menu could have details on creation chance, how much it will consume (iron ore in this case), etc.

Once you press the create button the menu will remain, allowing you to press it as many times as you want. You can simply close the menu like any other menu by pressing the top right X, or by pressing what ever key the crafting menu is bound to.

An example for creating 100 small nails:

- You select a small anvil as the active item

- You select an iron ore lump of 60kg as the target item (right click it, then press some new option? Or drag it to some special spot used for this?).

A menu now pops up, showing you everything you can create with this combination.

- You scroll to the small nails and select them (or click your way to it, depending on how that menu works. It could be a branched tree structure with categories or just one big list on alphabetic order that you have to scroll through with the mouse). Then press the create button as many times as your mind logic allows. Once that is done you let stamina restore itself and then you repeat this until you have 100 small nails.

This way you won't have to right click and go through the menu a ton of times, you can just keep clicking that one button.

Now this stuff could even work for items that need stuff added to them, for example boats, but that would need some further work. For example say a boat needs 100 pegs:

- First combine 100 pegs into one item, called for example: "Pegs (100)" or "Bundle of Pegs (100)" (this is the part where further work is required, currently you cannot combine 100 pegs into one item outside of the BSB system unless I missed something)

- Make the pegs your active item

- Right click the boat and select the option that makes it your target item

- A crafting menu now pops up, with only one option. The option to add pegs to the boat. Instead of a "Create" button there would be a "Continue" button

- Every time you press the continue button it queues an action to add one peg to the boat (mind logic max of course).

This way to add 100 pegs to the boat you only need to press the continue button that many times, you don't have to right click on the boat every single time. In effect it's the same thing as what the Continue keybind allows now, right? But the player won't have to bother binding any keybinds and can just use the mouse. This could work for every single item that needs stuff added to it in order to finish it, but if you cannot combine the 100 pegs into one item as in the example then you would have to select a new active item every time, making it way to cumbersome.

An extra improvement to this could be a textbox next to the button (or somewhere else) where you can put in a number, for example say you put in '5'. Then when you press the Create or Continue button you queue 5 actions with one press of the button. That way 100 nails can be made with only 20 presses.

The Create/Continue button could also show some interaction. For example say it's a round button, with another circle around it. This outer area then fills up green when an action starts, the same way as the timer bar works now. So in essence it's the timer bar wrapped around the button. In case I'm not totally clear here, here's an example of what I mean with this circle that fills up around the button (the video has nothing to do with the rest of this suggestion, just with the idea for the button): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xKEUaZKYfiQ#t=467s

[Rhazul 0]

Excellent suggestion, Ecrir.

[orthanas 7]

I've been thinking about this topic for a while now and have been working on a visualization of my idea.

So good timing and perfect thread for it I guess.

This window is accessed by opening your skill window and clicking the skill.  It would obviously have more listed than these 2 items I was just saving time.  Also the blades would actually be made in the blade smithing tab and knives in weapon smithing etc.

It lists the required materials and chance of success.  The smith would need to be within normal range of a large/small anvil in inventory like normal.  Glowing hot ore etc.  I think the actual materials required would be great for newer players. Think of making a mallet.... make a shaft and then make another shaft to make a mallet head?  I think the tutorial shows how to do that but a mallet isn't the only awkward suggestion one could think of.  In crafting windows like this with all other requirements met (tools in inventory/materials etc) would help someone new learn the game faster.

This is only for creation, imping remains the same.

The top left is a window with a create button, highlight butchering blade, click create as many times as you have ore to complete etc.  Top right keeps more in theme with Wurms archaic ways (sorry:)) and has a right click menu.  Bottom left shows you could minimize it etc.

Players wouldn't be forced to use this, but it would be activated upon initial install etc.  It would need to be toggled off like ironwood -> classic.  On top of that I would keep creation in the way it is now as well for the people who really just don't want to be bothered.

I would also like to link to this other ui idea:

http://wurmonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=69824.0

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

1. Radial/"rose" style menus. For this to work optimally, the buttons need to be "snap-to" in my opinion. Possibly we need a toggle for the snap-to function in case people want to keep the crafting menu open and click other GUI items meanwhile (see 2).

2. The crafting menu shouldn't always automatically close. Simplest solution I can think of right now is to make holding Shift (or any bindable key) while clicking tell the menus to remain open.

3. Labeled menu choices 0-9 that (+ shift modifiers for long menus) that allows players to quickly navigate to their choice. The idea is that people should be able to learn frequently used menu items through muscle memory.

[whykillme 1,621]

I'm up for any changes, except that if it needs more clicks, mouseovers are easy and just require you to move around. Like Orthanas presented, you probably have to click on the skills, which i really dont want to do.. we do enough clicking in this game already.

(I might be understanding your idea wrong)

[Aetherwalker 1,863]

I like Orthanas' Creation Menus

[Enola 53]

nuff said

[orthanas 7]

I'm up for any changes, except that if it needs more clicks, mouseovers are easy and just require you to move around. Like Orthanas presented, you probably have to click on the skills, which i really dont want to do.. we do enough clicking in this game already.

(I might be understanding your idea wrong)

It's less clicking depending on what you're doing.  Also if they do indeed just add a create button.  So if you're jamming out some locks (hundreds) it saves a lot of wrist work.  If you're just making one thing to imp or something it's probably the same amount of clicking.  Mainly I just want to get the message across of making the game easier to learn for new people, without trivializing it's integrity as a great crafting sandbox.