DB Launcher
Feedback and Suggestions
First let me say I love the idea of launchers as it’s a good point of reference for the players on news and helps provide a single source for everything related to the game. I was actually working on one for ETF a long way back towards the end of the games time but I never got the chance to release it 
Below is my feedback on the Launcher and Suggestions as well. This is all opinion of course and I have no expectations of anything I suggest being implemented. This is just so I can share what I’m thinking when I use it.
I may expand upon the below as ideas come to me
Feedback:
- Speed - The application loads really fast for me and that is really nice when you want to get in quickly and join a server and check news
- Color Scheme - I love the Grey, Yellow and White colors. They really compliment each other. It’s very easy on the eyes
- Layout - This could probably be debated a lot of how a launcher like this should be laid out. I think it actually works well with the menu bar as its simple and does the job well. You can get carried away with design and lose all functionality in a UI, but this one does not have that problem. There is also plenty of room to add more section (I talk about the sections I would love to see in my suggestions) if needed.
- Functionality - As it is right now it works well for news on changes (I will assume the News section will be expanded upon when released) and finding servers to join with players for testing. There will need to be more options (Ideas I have are below in the Suggestions) added to make the launcher the single point of access to all things DB.
Suggestions
- Friends/Buddy System - It would be really nice to be able to have a system where I can add friends and have a list of these friends visible in the Launcher. I would imagine this could be a section in the menu bar and even a separate window for a friends list in the same fashion steam does theirs.
[ul]Profile - A screen with a high level profile where my name, avatar, clan association, some stats, time played and so could be visible. It would be nice to be able to view my friends profiles from the Friend/Buddy list as well as see players profiles that are on a server (See suggestion of server browser)[/ul]
- Play/Server Browser - The ability to drill down into the server details on data like what players are on the server, map rotation, game type rotation would be good information to have when selecting a server to play on. The option to mark a server as a favorite so you can easily locate servers you played on and enjoyed.
- Statistics - A section that would provide stats on players and clans. Information I would be interested in would be who the top players and clans are and the stats around each one.
- News Section - I’m wondering if the news section can be stubbed out to provide sections for different categories like general news, updates, outages, announcements and so on. This is the one section that I think could use a little graphic work to help point of key news items that players need to be aware of.
- Party Invite - The ability to form parties from friends list and join an available server with the players in your party.
[ul]Shop - I don’t know the full details around how things might be sold in the game so please forgive me if I mention something that has already been discussed. I think it would be awesome to have the ability the search the store for cosmetic items for the game or anything else that could be sold. You could even possibly list what I have purchased on my profile page.[/ul]
[ul]Clans - Create clans and invite players (There would need to be a lot more discussion around this as it could get very detailed)[/ul]
- Alerts - This might be helpful for clans in that they can schedule alerts for their clan for things like practices, scrimmages and matches and a alert be sent out via the windows tray notification to their members. Other types of notification could be explored as well like cell phone texts and emails.
That was just some of the things I had on my mind. I would love to hear some feedback and get a discussion going.
Look forward to the responses.
