Lobby design

Curent lobby is not very pleasent to look. Can we discus here how it should look?

I was thinkink about 2-3 panel layout where all the functionality of current ZKL is preserverd and content is just replaced and restyled.


Left and right panel would have fixed width and fluid vertical spacing/sizng.
Buttons on left would be done as images with mouse over and click actions.
Chat channels would be tabed on top.

Dont mind element sizing or colors, its just a sketch.

PS: Don just f* criticise and tel how it should look like.


Saktoth design:

quote: Dont mind element sizing or colors, its just a sketch.

quote: Chat channels would be tabed on top.

On middle panel, instead of list, tabs. 4-panel layout would look stupid.

It would fit into middle one, 10 tabs for sure, or better one row for channels and one row for friends. (which would be hidden for no friend chat)

I forgot to draw the map, it would be under battle chat on right, it would fir there, image have messed up sizing.

Why are there 2 settings buttons?

You could talk more about each design decision you've made in that sketch, would be much easier to understand, criticize and improve.

Things i dislike about current ZKL design (aside from minor graphical glitches and assorted bugs) and that could maybe get adressed in any "rebranding" attempt:

- Battle is a chat channel? What? I keep getting caught in this semantic noobtrap, trying to hit "multiplayer" to see my ongoing battle room enlarged.
- Proliferation of bottom bars that munch away at the primary dimension of my screen real estate for the pillbox effect.
- No real notion of tabs and lack of disambiguation between browser and in-app buttons.

Awesme think could be minimal mode, where you can show just the right panel and stick it to right side of screen, so you can browse and watch game status, vote and chat.

- Where does the current map of the battle you are in go?

- Will anything else be displayed on left panel? Huge wasted space if it is just those buttons. Current sketch: 25% of screen. current lobby: 5% of screen for the same buttons. Even when you resize this sketch and keep left panel the same width, all the space below it is wasted.

- Wastage of vertical space is not addressed by making a big zero-k icon take up vertical space, as well as a big tab button that tells you where you are in addition to the left panel being perfectly capable of telling you that. "my battle" info bar can also be made more vertically efficient by having no icon and one line of text.

- Two wrench icons is confusing. Better would be "general options" and "battle options", but those would be big buttons. For consistence, other buttons on battle panel should also have text instead of icons, and ideally all be the same size so you get a neat 2x2 grid of buttons.

- In my opinion chat is at least as important as singleplayer, button size should reflect this.

edit: spacing and:

- Where do the votes go in this lobby design? Logically they would go in "my battle" panel, but there is no space there with chat AND playerlist AND buttons.

its a good thing i can respawn!

OR we could have something that... you know. Doesn't look too awful.