13 September Update

I prefer how it was before

 

Stop me if this sounds overly complex or immersion breaking, but try this on for size.

Lock the teleporter until the locker has be interacted with vis-a-vis the quest..

Then add a button that can be held while playing the game that 'highlights interactive objects".
Pros

1. It's entirely optional, no one has to use it but it's useful in this situation.
2. Because it's a button hold, it's only vaguely immersion breaking, and no more so than some adventure games, where such an option is either a hint button or a matter of course.
3. The system can be applied to other parts of the game where players might get stuck. You're in a dungeon, killed lots of stuff, looted some junk.. but can't find the 'destroy to unlock dungeon for building' object. Why not? Highlight button - show s a panel on the wall that you THOUGHT was a decoration (and didn't think to use the investigate feature, because it looked just like other brick designs you've seen) .. rather than take the player out of the game to find an FAQ or ask in the forums. Again, since it's optional, you never have to use it if you feel like such a thing is 'cheating'.
4. Could be made so that the highlighting doesn't show up in the dark (so as not to ruin the fun of trying to find things in the dark because you forgot to bring torches... Tiy. ^_^)
5. Could also be made disabled by other conditions where it breaks immersion or might accidentally show the solution to a puzzle that's meant to be solved 'manually'

Cons

1. Could be a lot more work than it seems.
2. Probably would require manually flagging when and where to disable it when you want to do it, which might be overlooked when content is added/changed.
3. Potential for new bugs

The text actually really bugs me personally, as it severely takes away from the way the ships feel. If you go with a text that can be removed, it'll be removed instantly when I get the game. I feel like making text or highlights part of a quest hand-holding system is also not something I want to see in 99% of the game, let alone right at the start. Exploration and discovering new things is all part of the fun.
At any rate, thank you for all the hard work. I hope you don't go with what you've done so far, but I like that you showed everyone what the most blatant kind of hand-holding would look like. (NO THANKS!)
^_^

 

Honestly, as others have said, the text looks really obnoxious and out of place... I think, instead of text, making a small, bobbing arrow above the locker pointing downwards as a "current quest objective" marker would be a better solution. I would also prefer this so that, if I were to start new games, I could just choose to not do the basic tutorial quest and I wouldn't have huge obnoxious text on my ship anyway.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but why not simply lock the teleporter until you've checked the locker?

 

exactly what i wanted to say

 

How about you keep it with the 'texty' look as you start out a new character, but then you can toggle it off at any time? Which would mean you know how to use them in the first place.
I dunno, just a thought.

 

looks great....maybe the lighting at the back of the text could be multi coloured to grab your attention even more

 

Good update, George!
How about making the text's opacity relative to the distance between the locker and the player?
And maybe an option to toggle text visibility, so after learning that there's a locker there, we can chose to never see the text again!

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/...mprovement-to-ship-labels.29876/#post-1180041

 

Personally, I think that the signs are a bit much. With the way the Glitch ship is lit now, and with the locker moved off of that center brace, I think the brass outlines of everything work pretty well. Were y'all looking at what made people beam down first? Was it the colour contrast of the old teleporter?

I might also suggest, if the signs are necessary, to put icons on them. A gas pump for the fuel compartment, for example.

 

Hmmmmmmm... I dunno about the text. After I figure out what the clickable regions are, the text is no longer necessary and sort of mucks up the feng shui of my luxury star-scooter. Maybe the game needs to start with a dialog screen that is short and sweet; something like, "WELCOME TO SPACE! [insert basic tutorial/controls/step 1 text here] Don't forget to check your locker and suit up before beaming down, moron! " - or something.. I don't know. There's a reason I'm not a writer on the team

 

Looks good but I wouldn't put too much stock in the I49 players. Given enough time they would have figured it out, no for that much hand holding. That's my 2 cents.

 

Seems way to texty in my opinion and ruins the look of the ship.
I think the issue revolves around people wanting to leave the ship a.s.a.p. and start playing on the planets without wanting to read any text.
Why not make it so the teleporter on your ship does not physically work until you have completed quest 1, which is go to your locker and pick stuff up. Surely after more than 30 seconds of not being able to get off the ship people would read the quest and go "ooooo thats what i have to do" and then the rest of the game works as normal .

 

Seems pretty easy. Or just make it so that if you click the Beamer you get a dialog box: "Don't forget to check your locker before Beamin'!"

 

The text for fuel and locker is a good addition. The part for Beam is blocking that window on the Glitch ship, and would probably do so for the other race ships also. Maybe have the 'Beam' text at the base of the teleporter pad?

 

A little big? My 20/170 vision likes this font.

 

I think the text seems kidna out of place so, like many suggested, disable the teleporter till the lockerquest is done and use images in the quest and all should be well. I also liked the old position of the teleporter more, looked better in my opinion.

 

I really dislike the text. x.x It's way to big and makes it seem like everyone in the future are idiots. I mean, why don't you do a small "Quest" at first, that pops up arrows over the things you're supposed to click. Like, it says, collect your gear from the storage locker, and put a big arrow over it that fades after you collect everything you need. It'd take a bit of coding but it'd not look so... Gaudy.

 

If removable signs aren't an item featured in the game yet, this would bea cool time to implement it. There could be a letter limit as to how many words until the sign just says "....." until you click on it to read it. then, adding a sign to the home ship would be easy as pie along with being informative on the use of signs anyway. It doesn't havev to "fit" the look of the screen as long as you eventually point out that signs are removable, and hey, there could be different kinds of signs for purposes of aesthetics and all that.

 

There had better be some kind of option to turn that text off... it's ugly and bulky and I sure as hell don't want it there.

^ This, I like this idea. The temporary arrows that popup when doing the initial quests.