Interface and mass-clicking

[kaka]

The following is what I've suggested to J&L some time ago, to reduce a lot of clicking:

1) You left-click an item so that it sticks to your mouse (like usual).
2) You scroll up on your mouse-wheel, unloading the inventory (that you took the item from) of equal items, one after the other, and adds them to your mouse.
(The number of items are indicated at the held item and scrolling down puts them back in the inventory they came from.)
3 a) You left-click in an inventory (or the ground) and as many items as fit in the new inventory are moved there, leaving the rest on the mouse.
3 b) You right-click on a kiln or something (while holding fuel) and it refuels with as much as it can.
3 c) You right-click on the ground (while holding seeds) and it plants one seed.

Simple, fast and only 2 clicks (except for seed-planting, and a little scrolling). :)

Shift-clicking would still be left as is, 'cause it has its own uses, but i prefer this method over any modifier keys since the mouse is the main tool
for playing the game, and I want to be able to hold the mouse in my right hand and my...teacup in my left as much as I can. :)

[Jackard]

that sounds fairly unintuitive, which would certainly be in keeping with the rest of the game

laremere's ALT = 'all' seems a lot simpler - SHIFT-ALT is 'move all', CTRL-ALT is 'drop all', etc

[kaka]

that sounds fairly unintuitive, which would certainly be in keeping with the rest of the game

You could argue that it is, but if definitely isn't more unintuitive than using modifier keys,
which most people don't know how to use or that they even exist, unless they're told.

So it's just a matter of choice, and I'd choose using one way for nearly all different actions
before using several different modifier keys for different actions.
Plus, my way of moving x items of y beats the alternative, since it isn't restricted to one or all.

But most importantly though; J&L liked my idea. :)

Edit: I forgot to mention; shift-clicking will always be lacking since you can have more than 2 inventories open at the same time,
leading to items being moved to the wrong inventory, or as it sometimes is now, not being moved at all.

[jorb]

I like Kaka's idea. It's unintuitive, yes, because no game has done it before. New stuff is almost always unintuitive. The one thing I don't like about it is that it assumes that the user has a mouse wheel, but then again they hardly even make mice without, these days. It'd save about a gazillion clicks, that much is for sure. And it would be useful in a lot of different contexts. (Moving both inventories and refueling kilns, for example, where as the shift click can really only do one of those at present). Then again it could be argued that the entire business of [Hold object] -> [Right Click in Viewport] -> [Interaction between held object and right clicked object], should be done away with.... somehow. UI is not my strong side, and loftar wants the game to be run per command line input.

[Fcn]

>attack bear
Sorry, I don't understand "attack".
>hit bear
Sorry, I don't understand "hit".
>swing at bear.
You're not making any sense!
>swing sword at bear.
You're not making any sense!
The bear roars, swiping you with it's claws for 88 damage!
>run north
You run north.
You appear to be in a large, featureless plain. There is an apple tree here. There is a bear here.
The bear roars, swiping you with it's claws for 110 damage!
You have been knocked out!

[Jackard]

> run north
You are knocked down!
> get up
You cannot take "up".
> stand
You stand up.
> run north
You are too tired to run!
> go north
You cheer on the north!
The bear roars, swiping you with it's claws for 67 damage!
You have been knocked out!

[Jackard]

who thought L-Rclick was a good idea

[Fcn]

You appear to be in a large, featureless forest. There is a partially constructed wooden palisade here. There is a straw basket here. There is a meat grinder here. There is a Cabin here. There is a fox here. The fox does not seem to have noticed you. There is a branch here. There is a cart here.
>build palisade
Sorry, I don't understand "palisade".
>build wooden palisade
You need something to build that with.
>build wooden palisade with wood
You're not making any sense!
>add wood to wooden palisade
Sorry, I don't understand "wood".
>add wblock to wooden palisade
You add a wooden block to the partially built palisade. You estimate it requires 12 more wooden blocks to complete!
>add wblock to wooden palisade
You don't have any of those!
>cut tree
Sorry, I don't understand "cut".

[Ai_Shizuka]

Also, I just realized there's already a "do X using seed" code thingy to plant grass.
This could be used to plant crops as well. No need to over-complicate things, the current "use whatever seed" system is fine. The player should simply keep only the appropriate seeds in his/her inventory.

[Ford]

I don't know if this has been already suggested (browsed the first 10 pages and found nothing) or is already in the plans.
But I think basic gameplay should have higher priority than multiple types of beer, alloys, birds and so on. There's a lot of great ideas floating around and some are already implemented (cheese, BEER, etc.).
While I greatly appreciate the excellent new features, I think the interface needs some reworking.

I agree with you, but think there should be some even more basic features than what you suggested before any more content is added; for example:
-higher resolution than 800x600
-more action bars
-show player names on the screen either by mousing over the player or by toggling all names to show
-hotkey for overhead chat