Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Accessibility: Dragon Commander's UI

I've been a fan of Larian ever since Divinity iI. I have to admit, a lot of this has to so with my love of dragons, but part of it was also my enjoyment of games that offered me a well written story and meaningful choices.

The humour of Divinity II was hugely appreciated as well, as was how it tugged at the heart strings. It was a very memorable RPG and one that I won't soon forget, it lingers in my memory still and it stands proudly with the RPGs I've loved most. Alongside the likes of Mask of the Betrayer, and outdoing the likes of Skyrim. Just an opinion, but like I said, I loved that game.

I'm really looking forward to Dragon Commander, but one thing worries me. PC users tend to be very shouty about wanting a UI that a person has to be a veritable eagle to see. I didn't really have many problems with the Divinity II UI because it seemed to be identical to the console one. Often, console ported UIs I have little to no issues with.

And Dragon Commander? Well...

It focuses on dragons, the art design is amazing, it has a really fun looking board game element, and it's going to have the standard Larian amounts of choice, humour, and storytelling that I'm used to. I am eager to get my hands on and to play this game. Very much so.

But here's my worry: With all the shouting that's gone on about UIs of late, you're going to be developing a UI separate for the PC version which will require the user to be some sort of bloody genetically perfect being to use. Which I admit seems to be what most PC users want (tiny bit bitter about that attitude, yes).

If you are developing a separate UI like that, then could you include an option somewhere (even just in an INI or something) to use the console UI instead? Would that be difficult? It would really mean the world to every visually disabled person out there.

If you're just going to use the console version's UI then disregard that. I've seen that one in many videos and it looks fine and easily manageable to me. That's something I would actually be able to use.

Accessibility in games though has been a long time concern for me and I thank you for reading this.

Now, in case spectacles comes up - not every sight issue can be fixed by them. About 20% of sight issues can't. The same goes for me as the problem is with the optic nerves rather than the eyes themselves, so there's not a lot (or anything) that glasses can do.

Finally, for those who're curious, I wrote something of a manifesto up over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Reading back over it I'll admit that it does come off as a little bitter, but as I said in the thread, it's sometimes how it feels to be a disabled person. When you have people clamouring for games that only perfectly healthy people can play, it does cause some bitterness.

But anyway, sorry to have to raise this. Normally I'd not have the confidence to go poking an official forum of an unreleased game like this, but... really looking forward to Dragon Commander.

And just to say it again: For me, personally, you don't need to do anything more than to leave in the console version's UI as an option, and if it's already there then that's a non-concern in the first place and you can just disregard this entire thread.

Right, that's my piece said. I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for reading.

From one of the Q&A sessions:



There have been requests/suggestions for Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and Divinity 2 to be able to scale the interface (or at least the text size) independently of the game resolution, so eventually you'd think they would design that into a game. I assume that is not as straightforward as it seems, though (or not a very high priority), since it isn't exactly a common game feature (I've tried demos of a couple Xbox games that looked quite promising, but found the text too small to read). In Beyond Divinity the text was a little small for me at the highest supported resolution, but the text and game were fine one notch lower.


Welcome to the forum.

I was about to write the same thing Raze said, so there's little to add, but yes, we're making sure that controller (& corresponding UI) support is present in Dragon Commander. There was a similar post on another forum (I think it was RSP but I'm not sure) that triggered a lot of "ah yes, of course, we need to think about this" comments in the office, so it's something we'll aim to do in the future for all games.

Whilst I appreciate the replies (and I do), that's not actually what I meant. It was less the controller being involved, and more the actual UI size.

See, I'm visually impaired, and it's not something that can be fixed with glasses.

Now, usually, console ports are fine for me because the UI remains big. But there have been some instances where a game ported from a console has had the UI changed where text and certain details are made so small they become imperceivable to me. Dragon Age: Origins is a fine example.

My worry was that in the development of the PC version of the game, they may replace the UI. That is to say, the UI may get replaced with one that's been made more PC-centric, designed for PC users. But often, such UIs are useless to me.

The Withcer 2 is an example of one game I couldn't play due to microscopic text.

I'm not worried about the UI scaling, either. I have no issues with running the game at a low resolution. I run Skyrim at a relatively low-ish resolution and the UI, being console-like with bigger fonts and such, is fine.

All I'm hoping is that if Larian does add a PC-centric UI to Dragon Commander for the PC release, that they'll include an option to go back to the console version of the UI, which will undoubtedly have larger visual elements and fonts. If a separate UI is not being developed for the PC version, then that's a non-issue.

Anyway, sorry about that. I realised that I might not have been quite so clear in my original post. Hopefully the clarification will help.

Your original post was clear, and even without a definite answer the replies contain (AFAIK) the best publicly available info on the subject. Lar may wish to be more specific (if details of the UI have been finalized), but not much has been mentioned about it. I don't know if the PC's controller mode UI will be the same as the console version, or something closer to the default PC mode; there would at least have to be some changes to the UI to allow things like inventory management, etc, to be efficient with a gamepad (hence the mention in the quote of the interface adapting to the choice of input).

The game may support using a controller and keyboard/mouse at the same time (ie switching back and forth depending on the task, or mostly using the controller with the keyboard for extra hotkeys, etc), so the UI mode may be selectable.

The PC and console versions of Dragon Commander are being developed concurrently; one is not a port of the other.

I mentioned resolution in my first reply because that is often the only way to change the size of the UI in PC games, which may or may not be adequate.

Indeed, when I mentioned controller (& corresponding UI) , I meant that on the PC version we will have a console like UI if you select controller support.

Oh, okay.

That's fair enough.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the replies and I understand what's being said there, now. Thank you!

I am sorry to have to pester like that, but... frankly? Dragon Commander is one of the most interesting games on my personal radar right now. And I suspect that as more is released about it, it'll work its way to the top. I do like dragons. Hell, I know a lot of people who like dragons. There just aren't enough games like this.

It's the games that actually matter are the ones that I ask about.

So thanks again for the replies. I appreciate them.