Stat panels look ugly and I can only think of 1 legitimate reason to use them and that is displaying information quickly and easily to help with testing things.

You should never use them in a finished game. Ever.

This guy knows what's up. Stat panels are hideous and lazy, and always end up being crammed with so much superfluous information and hundreds of verbs. The only time I use them is for debugging, but never in release.

Ask yourself this: can you name one non-BYOND game that uses something like stat panels?

I'm fairly certain the majority of people who use the forums don't like stat panels.

I'm sure there is some other place you could put things like that.

i know i could make Huds for event text but it seems more efficient to use A stat panel for things that just spam some text every hour or so telling you the event is starting and whats going on in the event.

Rushnut wrote:

Stat panels are the devil

This, Is said wise man. ;( brings a tear to my eye every time.

And to add a bit of flare for you Look at Rise of the Pirates, i was considering using a event stat panel like that and chat like that.
Link: http://www.byond.com/games/PrideRavanok/ RiseOfThePirates#tab=pics

EDIT: You would have to play it for a few min to see what i mean..

I think you may be confusing a stat panel for what is simply an output element. It appears Rise of the Pirates is emulating a stat panel by having buttons to switch between output elements, but that's not the actual dreaded stat panel element. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using the output element for displaying information and chat messages.

BOOOOOOO! STATPANELS! BOOOOO HUDS! BYOND is capable of so much more than statpanels OR HUDs. HUDs need to be used WITH the interface tools, and people need to do more with their window than just make it a solid color, stick in a donate button, and some tabs/statpanels, and a healthbar on the screen. The interface should be non-intrusive the game, should fit the theme, and should be hard to tell apart from the map element. If I can tell what is interface, and what is map in your game, you very possibly have a very crappy interface.

This is something along the lines of what I do. Note that this demo is incomplete and a number of things don't work, or are simply broken because the person I made this for never paid the second payment.

I haven't bothered to go back and polish it, because honestly, while the graphics are solid, I have no real want to make an RPG.

Don't use the graphics, BTW. They belong to me.

http://www.byond.com/developer/Ter13/Interfacedemo

The above demo uses a couple of browsers (A few things really need work, graphically, but the basic idea is there), HUD elements, and some very serious interface elements.

Note the lack of solid-color verb panels, tab panes to navigate through, and how there are NO statpanels or verbs.

All stats should be represented either in unfoldable subwindows, or on-screen. One of the browsers is a tooltip that I've set up with javascript to communicate back and forward with the server. It keeps track of the mouse and if the mouse exits the tooltip, it tells the server to hide the browser. It was intended to be used when you right clicked on an object in the inventory menu, or when you hovered your mouse over it for about 3 seconds.

The output panel isn't an output at all. It's a custom-written HTML page with javascript in it, which is available in my demos as "ImageScrollbar".

Most of the rest of it is pure HUD. Including the paperdoll, which is a map element, and the inventory bags are map elements with item slots, rather than grids, seeing as grids have a horrible tendency to... Well... Suck.


If you want a closer look at what is what in my demo:

Everything in green is using skin/interface elements.
Everything in purple is using browsers
Everything in red is using HUD objects.

The inventory windows are all separate windows, with a map element in them, so they don't have to clutter the screen, but they can overlap if the client wants them to.

The spellbook uses a map embedded in the pages to allow you to add hud elements and text, but you could easily swap that for a browser.

The paperdoll uses a map as well as a lot of labels for stats.

Honestly, I'd probably want to switch it to HTML as well, with javascript that way I could just sent it updates periodically using simple DM to send function calls to it to update it.



Right click the image and click view image to see the full size screencap.

I would never use it without consent of the owners, and or person it was made for, i'm not like most on here.

Could i coax you into finishing it? Its a nice demo but i don't have any money to spare, you should not keep something that has so much potential unfinished.