To be honest I feel that bnet 2 needs a total overhaul of the back end of their UI, not just a few interface improvements. There's just a lot of latency when you try to do things, and the overall visual themes are not unified and therefore counterintuitive.

Obviously this isn't the job you're applying for, but even if the changes here were implemented I would still use SC2Gears to look at my stats and organize my replays because of those issues. It has more features, and while its interface isn't a work of art it is snappy and coherent.

DeVx

United States98 Posts

March 16 2012 03:23 GMT

#223

I like the idea to add shapes next to replays that you think were good, but I think instead of adding shapes next to the replay, suggesting that you could add a "save file as..."

Other then that I like the ideas, very innovative I think.

eloist

United States1017 Posts

March 16 2012 03:24 GMT

#224

Those are not design changes. Those are feature requests.

I can assure you it's not coming up with the idea of right-click-send-to-friend that is the problem. It's actually implementing it.

shizaep

Canada2920 Posts

March 16 2012 03:32 GMT

#225

These are good ideas, no doubt.
However, I hope everyone realizes that, from a software development standpoint, it is not easy to add all these features, a UI overhall can't just be released in a patch.

Not to be rude, but it seems like a lot of high level ideas and no concern of how to do it.

The linking of replay and match history... how would they implement that without storing replays in the server?

Like mentioned by another realist.

Genetic

Canada84 Posts

March 16 2012 03:42 GMT

#226

Pretty good. Still feel as though you are essentially patching a very poorly designed UI. Like yeah the fixes are good, but honestly when I heard SC2 was coming, my expectations were insanely high. I thought we may have built in streams with hat lobbies lol.

I'd like to see SC2 UI be more gutted, instead of continuous new features being tacked on. But good video nevertheless.

Schneeflocke

Canada89 Posts

March 16 2012 03:48 GMT

#227

There is nobody currently at Blizzard who is concerned about the quality of the UI.
The part that bothers me the most is their wording when adressing the community's concerns regarding the UI, it seems to say "Not enough people who gave us their money are expressing their concern about the quality of the UI for us to care."
They might as well say, "We know its crap, but you bought it, jokes on you."
If this man is hired I will be a happy hampster.
Even if they just steal his ideas (seems more likely) at least someone is listening.

Mr Showtime

United States1353 Posts

March 16 2012 04:04 GMT

#228

First I want to say, this is awesome.

But really, anyone can do this (not anyone can do something this well. You've done an exceptional job). The difficult part is for Blizzard to apply these proposed changes to the game. They can't just stick bunch of art in a blender with the current game/UI they have, hit a button, and it's all new and better.

I'm really not trying to take away from what you've done, because your ideas are awesome. I've just seen too much whining about the current UI, and I get the impression that too many people think making huge changes like that is easy.

Kryptonite

United States155 Posts

March 16 2012 07:11 GMT

#229

On March 16 2012 06:19 talontromper wrote:

Show nested quote +

Agreed! hopefully all of these changes are added for patch 1.5

LOL. Obviously you don't know a thing about programming. To actually implement all these ideas, would take way longer than when patch 1.5 will be released.

RaiKageRyu

Canada4773 Posts

March 16 2012 07:30 GMT

#230

Nice ideas. Hope you get in.

Battleaxe

United States843 Posts

March 16 2012 07:46 GMT

#231

Sweet ideas, but as most people have pointed out some of those ideas would be insane to actually implement. With that said, you applied as an artist, not as a designer, and I think that your work artistically was well done. You certainly proved to me you have a better head on your shoulders then whoever designed the original system.

I hope you included a link to that video in your app, or that blizzard stumbles across it and sees it, I think that video alone could be enough to get you hired lol.

StarStruck

25339 Posts

March 16 2012 07:47 GMT

#232

Not bad. I would like to see more. That's only a facelift in my eyes for the replay organization. It's a start. I wouldn't focus solely on that though.

LastDance

New Zealand510 Posts

March 16 2012 07:57 GMT

#233

BLIZZARD, PLEASE HIRE THIS GUY. god these changes would make life so much easier

IronManSC

United States2119 Posts

March 16 2012 08:03 GMT

#234

This is the best thing I have ever seen in my life <3

Bigpet

Germany533 Posts

March 16 2012 08:09 GMT

#235

Like many have already said. People seem to have a disregard of the effort that such changes actually take. The problem is that Blizzard somehow designed themselves into a corner with how the BNet2.0 back-end actually works. I feel that either they tried to keep it way to general in order to overly "future-proof" it for their upcoming games or they just under-committed on staff for that project.

All in all SC2 and D3 feel like they were understaffed for the scope that those projects should have had. I don't know if that resulted from them not scaling their teams to the increased manpower necessary to create AAA games today or whether they just feel that project ~~THOR~~ TITAN takes precedence over any other projects because it is more key to the continued future existence of Blizz than either SC2 or D3.

ShakaZu.Sc2

United States131 Posts

March 16 2012 08:20 GMT

#236

Dude this is amazing, if Blizzard hires you on they are getting a great addition, if not then hell im sure theres tons of companies that could use a man like yourself

Jausa

Finland47 Posts

March 16 2012 08:24 GMT

#237

hire this guy! DO EET! :D

Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo

Germany2959 Posts

March 16 2012 08:26 GMT

#238

On March 16 2012 17:09 Bigpet wrote:
Like many have already said. People seem to have a disregard of the effort that such changes actually take. The problem is that Blizzard somehow designed themselves into a corner with how the BNet2.0 back-end actually works. I feel that either they tried to keep it way to general in order to overly "future-proof" it for their upcoming games or they just under-committed on staff for that project.

All in all SC2 and D3 feel like they were understaffed for the scope that those projects should have had. I don't know if that resulted from them not scaling their teams to the increased manpower necessary to create AAA games today or whether they just feel that project THOR takes precedence over any other projects because it is more key to the continued future existence of Blizz than either SC2 or D3.

Isn't it called Titan?

Either way, I think it's pretty apparent that Blizzard is/was understaffed. Before the release of Starcraft 2 they were always looking for BNet designers of all sorts and probably still are to this day. I mean in Diablo 3 too there seems to be quite a lot struggling with stuff like the auction house etc.
I mean up until the last patch the Auction House UI was garbage (now it's somewhat well) and there were a ton of issues with joining public games, missing texts and so on.

I mean it's not really excusable as they should've more effort (and earlier) into acquiring the right people considering the importance of BNet for all their titles. Because that probably somewhat failed there's just not enough manpower for all 4 (5 perhaps even) titles that are being developed at the moment and I can imagine that finding really good personal for such a job can be hard.

But oh well, it can only get better now ;P

Edit:
Gotta say, this thread turned out as expected, a bunch of excited guys shouting "HIRE HIM, HIRE HIM!" Just because the OP makes some decent mockups that doesn't mean he necessarily has the qualifications required for the job. That's not up to you guys to decide as most aren't even experienced in UI or programming.

And I don't mean to downplay the OPs skills, I just don't think it's a wise choice to make an application material video like this public before. It's not like he can go there and tell them "look, a lot people like my video and want you to hire me, that gives me a better chance, right?"

moofang

508 Posts

March 16 2012 08:26 GMT

#239

Many things suggested here are really non-trivial. Even if Blizzard hires him it'll be completely unrealistic to expect all this in the next one or two, or even four or five patches.

Zarahtra

Iceland4053 Posts

March 16 2012 08:29 GMT

#240

On March 16 2012 12:32 shizaep wrote:
These are good ideas, no doubt.
However, I hope everyone realizes that, from a software development standpoint, it is not easy to add all these features, a UI overhall can't just be released in a patch.

Show nested quote +

Like mentioned by another realist.

Well the MU screen already stores a a decent chunk of things, I think storing the path would be very little problem. Then if file doesn't exist, the button is grey'd out(or not shown). A deeper connection would admittedly be a bit more code, but I cannot for the life of me see how that'd be very hard to code. Infact the biggest issues I see would be, how to keep the GUI consistent with and without the replay behind the MU screen(which is a designer problem, not programmer one).