Statusbars in Design Philosophy

ID:154297
 
Jan 26 2002, 7:07 pm
Ok I just wrote a statusbar lib (well, it's not that many commands, but it still counts!) that I can use to put a status on any mob just by saying STATUSLIB_SetStatus(mob). It will read it's MP and HP. and if the MMP (max MP) is 0, it ommits the MP bar, and of course the gauge fills up depending on how much of MP or HP they have (empty space is see-throught).

Now I don't know who all have played my game and seen it yet, but it looks like this:

|P|

P is the player, the left | is the red HP bar, and the right | is the blue MP bar.

My question is, should I leave it like this, or should I do one of the following (or something totally different):

1] Make the bars smaller and go width-wise instead, and put them stacked at the bottem/top

2] Put the bars together on the left/right side.

Any suggestions would be nice ^_^
#1 Jan 28 2002, 10:56 am
Darke Dungeon used a similar display. I liked having both of them together so yu could see all the information for each mob in one place. If you put them on each side, and stand next to another mob, your mana would be next to the other mob's health and that could be confusing. I chose to put them to the right, since in BYOND info tends to congregate on the right side of the screen.

Most players are used to horizontal bars over top of the mob fron other games though.
#2 Jan 28 2002, 7:38 pm
I have a suggestion *raises her hand*

Ok. I like the idea of being able to see hp/mp/whatever on the map. HOWEVER IMO it clutters graphics up a LOT.

Easy way around it (and this is my suggestion). Set it to a timer. So anytime anything is added, or subtracted to whatever you're displaying the bars will pop up, and then if theres no change for a couple seconds they'll go away.

I dont think it should be -that- hard to implement but what do I know? ^_~

Elorien
#3 Jan 28 2002, 11:07 pm
In response to Elorien (#2)
What I ended up doing (just finished, haven't even uploaded it to the server yet) is making a small graphical display on the bottem-left corner, with an edge that looks like:
|==\
it's 4 pixels high, the 2nd being a blue mana bar, and the 3rd being the HP bar. If an enemy sets it's sights on you and decides to attack, a second icon that fits on the right side ( \==|) flashes while the enemy is still attacking. Simularly, the enemy flashes an exclimation mark when they are persuing a player. Neat huh? ^_^