CORETECHS notification: Visual Upgrade Imminent!

We recently shared an early preview of the user interface design we’ve been working on. Our UI team has been tackling the significant challenge of creating the layout for an MMORPG that is playable on desktop, tablets, and smartphones all at the same time. We’ve made a lot of progress and although it is ongoing, we’d love to share some deeper insights. We hope you will enjoy!

Future Layout

The future landscape design consists of three primary aspects. An information panel at the top, the main content window in the middle, and a new area map, current ventures box, new stats bar with access to your inventory and extra rations at the bottom.

Some elements, like the area map or chat, are optional overlay displays you can minimize. With this design, there’s more space and you can enjoy more of our beloved background artwork. The advantage of having more space also helps our narrative team, because creating a game world with a lot of different stories and epic riddles for you also benefits from the UI.

Current Work

We’re now progressing area by area and room by room to prepare the UI experience for you. Enjoy the following impressions of our works in progress for the desktop version!

The Ruins

WIP landscape UI of the Ruins. Avatar, XP, money information is now at the upper left. People and Task tabs in the top middle, enclosing the metric clock. Icons for mails, events are now on the upper right, below a space for messages. The main window part shows the 3 sub-area cards with a lot of space for background artwork. At the bottom, there is a new area map on the left, stat bars in the middle and the current ventures box at the lower right side.

Government Center

WIP landscape UI of the Government Center. The new arrangement has been explained in the first picture. On the left side of the new main screen is the name of the area, below station and system information. A button next to it gives access to the area tutorial, displayed in a text box below. At the Gov't Center is the emergency shuttle information as usual and the option to acquire the VIP VISA service. The option for extra rations in attached to the new stats box at the bottom.

The Gym

WIP landscape UI of the Gym. The main layout details have been explained in the 2 previous pictures. New at the Gym is the display of changing trainer NPCs at the right. In this example, the current ventures box at the right bottom is minimized. With a click on an arrow, you can bring it up again.

Vendors

Beyond the new landscape, you can expect some little surprises for instance selling your items to vendors at the market will get it’s own fancy symbol.

WIP landscape UI of the NPC vendors. The main layout has been explained in the first 2 pictures of this article. The main window contains the newly designed button for selling your item from your inventory. Below are 4 selection cards, one per vendor with shop name and a shop/vendor picture.

University

WIP landscape UI of the University. The main layout has been explained in the first 2 pictures of this article. All courses are listed in groups, and as there are many many courses, there is a new scroll bar at the right side now. This shows you have to scroll inside the main window in the future, but won't scroll the entire page anymore. Top and bottom are fixed.

The course list reflects the category you chose, as the representative icon from the previous page has been added.

WIP landscape UI of the University, showing all courses of intermediate combat. The main layout has been explained in the first 2 pictures of this article. A major change is that the selected category now gets indicated with the according icon and not only text. Again, you have a scroll bar at the right now to scroll inside the main content area, but not the entire webpage anymore.

Hotel Rooms

A further detail: appropriate stat icons will be shown at all places in which training is available.

WIP landscape UI of the Hotel Room. The main layout has been explained in the first 2 pictures of this article. In this example, chat and area map have been minimized. Similar to the gym, the according stat icon is now also shown in areas where you can single stats, like here: intelligence by reading a book.

The Lounge

WIP landscape UI of the Lounge. The main layout has been explained in the first 2 pictures of this article. Similar to the Hotel Room, training social in the Lounge is now indicated with the according stat icon.

That’s all for today. We really hope you enjoyed this special preview of our current work. Tau Station Game play is fantastic, it’s time for the UI to reflect it. Let’s do it!

Next Update

On Tuesday, 31st of March, the game will be updated. In case you want to keep track of your shipping history, please take screenshots. “The beauty of Alpha, allows us to take some short cut. Short cut will not be allowed anymore after the launch”, said Leila. 😉