[feature] Improving the navigation with designated exits

Bugs & Features
1

So I was thinking of we could improve the navigation with several categories of exits and here’s what I thought out.

Definitions

Arterial Exits

Those are transit exits like the ones running along Sinder Lane. An arterial road leads to rooms connecting to other areas.

Sub-area Exits

Those lead from an arterial room to a sub-area. A sub-area is effectively a cul-de-sac, having no other connections.

In-area Exits

Those are the regular exits that allow you to navigate within an area (or a tightly connected group of areas).

How to use them

Arterial Exits are the ones you travel for exploration. You know that those lead to more stuffs. Those are yellow in my mockups because the yellow brick road leads to the EmeraldSinder.

You travel the yellow roads until you hit a red exit. Those Are in-area exits. With those you know you’re entering a sub-area or several tightly connected ones.

Mockups

image

you can travel along the lane. The park is a transit because that’s how you get to trains.

image

the stables don’t have any highlight for the local areas – only the transit ones.

image

only the exit from the nimbat village is highlighted.

3 Likes
2

Nice suggestion! Exits does indeed need improvement.

Myself, I have been playing with the thought of using icons;

exit_icon

Where you have a set of icons for things like: north, southeast, up (stairs), down (ladder), exit, entrance, etc. And for each exit, you can select one suitable icon.

Further more, by letting the client give semantical meaning to icons (such as icon north having the semantical meaning of going north), you could even draw them up in a star compass like navigation GUI on the client.

But your suggestion to group exits by categories (and color coding them), is also a really nice idea that could further give meaning and clarity to exits. And the ideas are not mutually exclusive :slight_smile:

4 Likes
3

I love both ideas, but I think the icon direction would be more obvious semantically. I know right now many folks don’t fully realize the yellow next to a room occupant’s name means they’re looking at you, so having something that reads a bit more obviously would help the overall usefulness of the feature.

Edit: But you’re right Acci that they aren’t mutually exclusive.

1 Like