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  • Design, ESPECIALLY user-centric design is so difficult to get right. Epic Systems, one of the largest medical software companies in the world, has an entire research department dedicated solely to finding the optimal way to present information and options to their users. Since their users are typically old doctors who hate needing to learn new ways of doing things, this is among their highest valued divisions.

    When UI designers find something that works, people are going to copy it. That doesn’t mean it’s ripped-off, it means R&D paid off.

    Case-in-point video game controllers have slowly but surely converged into the ABXY, D-pad, 2xbumper+trigger pair, 2 analogue stick design with a system button and two more meta control buttons. Any ventures beyond that (index finger paddles, track pads, etc) have all found a way to fit into that schema.

    Additionally, that “click the stick to see important items” mechanic that was made famous as Arkham’s detective mode has made its way into basically any game that has any sort of secondary puzzle-solving mechanic (Batman Arkham, The Witcher, Spider-man, etc). It also shows up in tactical games to let you tag items or characters of interest (Splinter Cell, Crysis, Last of Us, etc)

    Furthermore, entire genres are built out of good user experiences. FPS wouldn’t exist without the slick mechanic implementations of Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM. FPS on console wouldn’t exist without Halo’s intuitive control schema which Call of Duty 2 would later improve upon and ultimately become the default console FPS layout.

    Good design is hard to come by, so yeah if it’s good it will be replicated.

  • Command and Conquer had traditionally used a "right-pillar" control interface, with your map at the top. utility controls like "sell building" or "power down", followed by a build selection screen below. There you had 4 panels you could select between - "main base" buildings, defensive buildings, infantry, and vehicles - and you could scroll up and down a given panel. So long as you had the right production building, you could select things to build from anywhere on the map. If a unit had a "special ability", it would be triggered by double-clicking on the unit.

    Come 2003's Command and Conquer: Generals, the UI had been totally redone to resemble the layout of Blizzard's wildly popular Warcraft 3: The control panel now sat at the bottom of the screen, with the map on the left. Building a particular kind of unit required you to select the building or unit that produced it. Selecting an individual unit gave you a list of magic spells special abilities it could take, such as using an alternative weapon or purchasing a particular upgrade.

    • Generals also took the base construction and resource harvesting systems from Blizzard's games. The entire game feels like it should have been named ModernCraft or something instead of C&C.

      Going the other way, Warcraft 1 and 2 used used a left-justified UI that was very similar to the one C&C used, but with elements that would evolve into the StarCraft and Warcraft 3 UI.

      • Oh absolutely. OP only asked about UI, so I focused on that. But Generals had a lot of WC3 flavor in it.

      • Age of Empires was, afaik, the first RTS with UI on the bottom, Starcraft and Warcraft 3 both took inspiration from it, though they differed slightly on placement of information

  • I've been watching a lot of game fail clip compilations recently and I have been noticing that Battlefield V, Hell Let Loose, and World War 3 all look identical and other than the fact that explosions gib people in Hell Let Loose and the name of the game being shown in the corner on the clips, I would never be able to tell them apart.

    They have the same game play, the same graphics style, the same setting (which I find weird for WW3 looking like it's actually WW2) and, more importantly, the same UI. Like all the HUD icons and even the HUD itself are identical.

    Also every single live service game has the same exact shitty landing page/main menu design that's just an adplosion of bullshit they want to nickel and dime you for with the actual game mode buttons and settings and even the got damn exit button being super small or otherwise obfuscated by comparison to the buttons that allow you to spend money.

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