Game Engine: User-definable UI

[NapalmEnima]

Several Popular MMORPGs let their users customize their GUI. I suggest PS2 allow folks to do the same (to some degree).

Ideally, all the stats available to the Outside World would likewise be available to the internal custom GUI. If someone wants to whip up a "top 3 people who shot me this session" UI, let 'em.

And if you can do something in game to track those people when they're on my screen, so much the better. "You OWE that one."

This sort of thing shouldn't make it easier to spot cloakers (which is why this aspect probably won't happen). Maybe allow you to add extra icons to enemy names if/when they're displayed, replace their radar "blip" with a custom graphic of some sort.

And if SOE's stat display dump includes things like weapon damage and fall-off-over-distance, a GUI Thing that displayed that information would be Quite Nice to whip up. Snazzy-points for showing the damage done at the range of the current-target-under-your-cross-hairs.

Heck, you could even make that sort of thing a Game Mechanic.

• Advanced unlockable scopes would have more output slots. They might normally display target range/health/armor, but a custom gui plugin could stuff whatever text it wanted into the given space.
  
  Your upgraded goggles could highlight N targets. This highlight might come from a mission by default, but custom GUI code could add to the list of Highlightable Targets. Say your outfit has a real hate-hate relationship with some other outfit. So you install a GUI Gizmo that adds everyone from Selected-Outfit to your highlight list when there isn't something more important to display (mission objectives most likely).

So now you've got a proposed Handy Game Mechanic (visually highlight targets of interest via unlockable googles) interacting with Custom GUI Thing to make something Really Cool. And the Game Mechanic would be responsible for "not making cloakers easy to spot" so Custom GUI Thing can't be abused (as much).

Some custom GUI Stuff might simply make existing GUI information more attractive (MY_CUSTOM_OUTFIT ammo counter), while others might present information available online but not available through the standard GUI element (I've fired N shots from this weapon today, with X% accuracy).

Do Want.

Javascript, LUA, CustomSOEThing, whatever. Just make it happen.

Another groovy idea: Sort squad members by vehicle, and underline them all with that vehicle's current health. To pull that off, SOE would pretty much have to write the existing squad list using this mechanism (a given), and share that code (unheard of!). Then folks could come along and tweak it to their heart's content.

"Signed GUI Element". Some functions would only be available to Blessed UI Elements (in other words: Ones that SOE wrote). But the CODE/SCRIPT could be available to anyone.
A: "How'd they do that?"
B: "Like this."
A: "Oh. Hey! That gives me an idea."

Do Want ^ 2