Clock

Did a quick search and didn't see it yet, so I'll *gasp* make a new thread.

In some recent games (although I'm failing to come up with a specific example - maybe Starcraft 2?) there is a clock on the UI. Its pretty low profile, but just serves as an on-screen reality check that it really IS 7PM, and maybe you should go get some food or something.

While not the end of the world if something like this isnt available, it is kind of a nice doodad to have for fullscreen apps that cover the windoze taskbar. I personally don't have a "real" physical clock in the room i do my gaming in (insert bad life choices comment here)

What do y'all think?

-Stretch

I really like that actually. It's nice not having to keep checking my phone or minimizing to check the time.

Kind of like every game overlay (a la Steam) has a clock? Why do we need one in game? I have a watch, I have a phone, I usually run my games in windowed mode (if thy support custom resolutions), all you have to do is pick one of those to use.

Now something that would be more interesting/useful would be a timer of how long the match has progressed. Even then I probably wont look at it though.

Hm. I honestly forgot that the steam overlay had a clock. Probably because I NEVER use it - I find that the probability of something happening where I really need game control fast while I have the steam UI up is nearly 100%.

Perhaps that wouldn't be the case in an RTS game - I wouldn't know - I haven't ever pulled it up during one. Personally I like to have it always visible on the UI - not because I'm incapable of pulling my phone out of my pocket to check, but because it serves as a reminder to check. One of the biggest RL issues with very immersive games is how easy it is to forget to check the time periodically.

My 2 cents - im still curious how the rest of the forum users feel about it.

Wasted space on the ui. However this is something that could be modded up in a heartbeat.

truthy.

Woah...what? The idea that something like a size 10 font ticker located in the corner of a 1680x1050 screen seriously constitutes as wasted space baffles me.

Well, any space used that doesn't contribute directly to the game is technically wasted.....

Mike

Technically, yeah...but would it be noticeable?

Either way, I don't see why it couldn't be toggleable in the menu or something, along with other tickers like total game time elapsed and framerate.

Just my personal opinion acm, no need to get outraged buddy. Hell I'll even mod this up if it's not included.

It's a nifty utility, but it doesn't have a direct connection to gameplay. I dunno. Players might use it to coordinate attacks or something.

Honestly, if players were going to use it to coordinate attacks, an elapsed game time clock would be better. Or a synchronizable countdown timer that your team/alliance can see. What I am asking about is something that has no effect on gameplay. It's not a mechanic, its probably not EVER directly useful for playing the game.

While I agree that the amount of space it takes up is minimal, and we can argue the semantics of wasted UI space all day, I'm honestly satisfied by the point that if the devs don't just include it, its an extremely easy UI mod. I'm fine with continuing the discussion on it if y'all want though

-Stretch

I would like to announce the first mod for PA!

Simply put this into the web based UI and enjoy. And let the game developers get on with the actual game development.

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

var a_p = "";
var d = new Date();
var curr_hour = d.getHours();
if (curr_hour < 12)
   {
   a_p = "AM";
   }
else
   {
   a_p = "PM";
   }
if (curr_hour == 0)
   {
   curr_hour = 12;
   }
if (curr_hour > 12)
   {
   curr_hour = curr_hour - 12;
   }

var curr_min = d.getMinutes();

curr_min = curr_min + "";

if (curr_min.length == 1)
   {
   curr_min = "0" + curr_min;
   }

document.write(curr_hour + " : " + curr_min + " " + a_p);

//-->
</script>

From what Uber have said, it would be quite easy to implement custom client side UI or UI overlays. I would prefer to have special overlay with server ping, network stats, time, other nice things not directly related to game session all together. As "nice tools" are relative term, I would only expect some sample implementation (or just documentation) of such overlay/page. Everyone here can handle HTML with little JS, right?

elexis,

Your clock would have extra spaces in the display (like "12 : 00 AM").

Code review FTW!

I feel that something as trivial as a clock should be included in the default UI.

I don't have a watch, my phone isn't always with me, I have no visible clock from my computer chair because my computer always tells me the time in the lower right hand corner of the screen. I've been playing TA a lot since the announcement of this game and i hate having to constantly alt-tab to my desktop to see what time it is, only to find out that the 15 more min I wanted to play was actually 2 hours and now i'm only going to get 4 hours of sleep.

As for in the default vs. mod, why are you guys so adverse to having a *gasp* options menu to configure the default UI to some limited extent. I don't want to have to go to some mod website for every little thing.

I can't think of a single game that has a clock in game like that.

Also, a majority of the players would have no use for it, so including a clock in the UI would be an extra annoyance to be modded out. Better to just spend 20 seconds adding it to your own personal UI file.

SimCity 3000 comes to mind as a game that has one, which at the time I found to be useful.

And holy moley, you mean it wouldn't be possible to have an option in a display menu to turn it off?

How many people play in a window vs playing fullscreen?

I play in a window, because livestream and all.