Clock

Depends on the game for me really. But as long as I can use fake full screen all is good.

Only recently came across 'fake fullscreen', and frequently forget to switch to it. But either way I am not able to view the system clock from in-game.
Having a real-time clock would be useful, and I'd happily stick in a +1 for it, but if the UI is going to be a transparent JavaScript layer anyway, then as has been said previously, this should be easily moddable.

An important note on windowed/fake fullscreen: There should be an option to cap the mouse to the window when the window has focus. This allows you to properly use border scrolling while still being able to move the mouse out of the window when it loses focus (alt-tab etc).
I hate it when I'm playing an RTS and my mouse simply moves off to my other screen, making the game either minimize or bug when I click.

Fake fullscreen is a term that makes sense only for Windows: it's a window without border and with size matching resolution. Unix-like OS'es (Mac OS X and Linux including) generally use X.org or compatible window systems, which do not have fullscreen mode at all. So any fullscreen there is same as "fake fullscreen" from Windows.

Makes it nice playing the games in wine. But, really, what the matter? Alt-tabbing (alt-F'ing for most adequate Unix WM's) to see the clock is not an option anyway - that just distracting from game process.

P.S. But enabling some additional overlay, like options (Why not include clock in top of game menu instead of "game menu" label?) or special tools overlay is other thing - it's more gamish.

I would like to have an ingame email client too. You know, in case I want to check my emails.
Also, could you make an ingame steam shop adaption? That would be nice for running out steam sales, when you are ingame.
And maybe a text editor for note stuff you want to buy in the super market after the match...

You sarcasm is little... not sarcastic =(.

They are going to include web-browser as in-game UI, so well, technically yes - you'll got your email, steam integration and youtube directly on battlefield. And you would be able to tweeting your war progress directly to your precious 1000+ social network friends, directly from said battlefield

I'm sure that there would be A LOT of such mods just instantly and clock-mod would be most innocent from them.

I know you're joking but all of this kind of stuff is possible. Email is silly, but integration with an IM system like twitter could make sense.

The text editor is already there for the console (which just executes javascript).

Just a thought - modding gameplay concepts will and should obviously cause compatibility issues, but could modifying the UI possibly cause any compatibility issues when playing multiplayer?

E.g. a player with a modified UI being unable to connect to a player without a modified UI?

Regarding to the clock, the best way is still the one from Baldur's Gate 2. At 8pm, add in the chatbox :
"While your character doesn't need to eat, remember that you do. We don't want to lose any dedicated players."

...

I want my money back.

I dunno, I think the idea of the game tweeting things you do could be interesting in terms of 'lol' factor, and think, in SCII there's stream watching, and PA could have Tweet Reading! xD

Mike

haha I want to post every victory on facebook! Directly ingame! with stats and things maybe even with a video of the best scenes?

IIRC most games using the source engine will display the clock if you type "time" in the console.

Furthermore, there are games out there that will post to your social networks if you want them to. See blur on the xbox and of course, the countless games integrated into facebook.

As far as modding goes, those who don't understand how these things work and are therefore unable to check if it's legit might be wary of putting your personal information into such a mod that someone has made. Security is a big issue here. It's one thing having that functionality out of the box from developers that you trust, but it's another giving a mod access to your social network account that contains so much personal information.

Wow you went off-topic quickly.

Dev console - hardly counts.
Social Media integration - again doesn't count, this time because any timestamp on your in-game message is actually done by the social media service and not the game.

Modding/privacy - umm what?

Have you even read the last few pages of this topic? I suggest you go away and do just that as it appears you have no idea what is being discussed here.

While I'm at it I'll correct myself before someone else does: the command was "the time" and it was typed into the chatbox, not the console. It displayed the time briefly - just a few seconds - this way there was no need to integrate it permanently in the UI.

Social network stuff falls so far outside the realm of core gameplay it's ridiculous. Admittedly, it wouldn't be especially hard to implement so it's not nearly as bad as some suggestions, but still...

Agreed. The thread was *supposed* to be about a small doodad feature. I'll forgive the off-topic-ness since neutrino practically invited it into the thread

I remembered what game it was that put the clock up on the screen all the time. It was Diablo 3. By most accounts, a crappy game due to poor handling by Blizzard. Oddly addictive though. I found myself increasingly grateful for the small reminder of what time it was in the upper right corner. It was one of those things that I didn't even notice most of the time - it was small and nonintrusive.

-Stretch

Yeah, Starcraft did it as well. Civilization also does it. These games are time-suckers, and it's helpful to see constantly what time it is. You hardly ever look at them, but they still saved a few nights of sleep for me when I gazed up and noticed "crap, past midnight and I have work tomorrow".

I also don't have any other clock except "alt-tab" which I don't do if I'm sucked into a good game. It's just the occasional casual glance across the screen that reminds me of the time.

(A few months ago I still had a clock within gazing range of my computer, and I didn't check that one either if I was really into a game)

So what is wrong with typing a simple command into the chatbox to display a clock for a few seconds then? In fact, what is wrong with having a variety of commands available for the chatbox?

Who is going to want to bother to waste effort to type in such a command line for each time you need to check the time, or even remember it? Alt tabbing is even quicker at that job. The time is something you generally want to know periodically and at a cursory glance.