Diary part 2

2/10/99 UI - Second Usability Test. In the weeks before this test, we brainstormed ways to give the information on both the 'why' and the 'what' of the units and technologies. Extending our already useful rollover help to work for all interface items was the ticket, and the results were impressive. Now came the real test - turning a 'Solitaire only' player loose on it.

Five trebuchets attack a mideastern town

Success! The rollover worked better than we could have imagined - the users were reading it, using it, and understanding it. The big problem now was the basics - that left-click-select, right-click-action was completely lost on people who didn't cut their teeth on Warcraft - and you sure never used the right button in Solitaire.

Quaint little port

2/12/99 Playtesting - These tests are a little different, rather than the focus on an individual's experience with the game, the playtest lab would cover broader topics. That evening nearly 40 people showed up in the lab, split between novices and RTS gamers who had played some AoE. After covering several aspects of the game ranging from the appeal of the opening cinematic to the ease of group-selecting units, we split into two conference rooms. Ian Fischer took the Advanced group and I talked with the Novice group. In one of the scenarios you were supposed to take a group of units a short distance across the map and attack an enemy group - this was to test group selection and combat. One of the novices said "Well, I would have liked to, but I couldn't figure out how to get my troops across the water". Remembering this was an all land map I was puzzled. "Yeah, I figured out that if I walked to the edge of my island, it would grow" said another tester. Finally the light went on in my head - I asked the leading question "Show of hands - how many people thought the black part of the map was water". Every hand in the room went up. Humbling - 100% of the novice players thought the fog of war and unexplored map was water.

A German keep perhaps?

A lot of the time behind the 2-way glass in the lab was spent brainstorming solutions to problems users had with the interface - we kept a running white board of ideas and things to try during the test. After a week of testing, the white board was full - and the major hurdle left was obvious. We would have to patiently teach the very basics of RTS gaming, and concepts that experienced gamers never gave a second though to - like the fog of war - were puzzling new concepts that we had to explain.