Feedback on New Escape Menu

[DaPainWayne 469 / 9,402]

Hi all.

 

As most of you are now aware, I have installed a custom Escape Menu on all our GMOD servers (and if you aren't aware, hop online and check it out!). This is one part of a current long term project I started, in an effort to bring some uniformity into our division. I got inspired while looking at other communities, and seeing their servers use a lot of the same aspects throughout their network (ex: HUD's, F4 Menu's, Pointshops, Loading Screens, etc). This sort of aspect is something that I aspire that we as GFL should adopt long term, to try to further connect our servers to each other and be seen as more of a centralized community, rather than having each of our servers be completely different in pretty much every way. And while I do hope to achieve this long term, I also want to make sure that what is put on our servers is something that the community as a whole wants to see.

 

With that being said, I am looking for everyone's feedback on the new Escape Menu. There have been several people reaching out to me directly about it (which isn't a bad thing), but in an effort to also not loose track of thoughts, I want to try to bring them all here. One thing I'd like for people to keep in mind, however, is that I would like every server to have pretty much the same format and design, to accomplish the goal of uniformity. I am open to any and all feedback about the Escape Menu, as I want to further revise it into what you all want to see.

 

Here are some current revisions that I have planned as of now:

• Adding custom background images for the menu, that are linked to the theme of each server
  • For instance, Prop Hunt will have an image depicting like, hunting props. CWRP will have clones of sort, etc.
  • This part is just awaiting our wonderful, amazing, super talented GFX team to get back to me. Clavers has already given me a sneak peak of a few, and I think they will look fantastic
• Adding a Server Information tab
  • Like how there is the tabs for our Servers and Discords, there will be an additional one, but this page can be edited by our Managers to include information specific to their server. Thank you @The1337Gh0st for the idea.
• Revision of the initial fade time
  • There has been several comments about the fade being too fast or too slow, or that people don't like the fade at all. Something I am thinking of exploring is adding a clientside setting (not sure how yet), where players can choose how fast or slow, if at all, the fade can be.
  • A different option I can explore, is just adding a config option for our Managers to simply edit, where if a majority of their server want the fade either removed or edited, the Managers can change a simple value (This comes about because some of the fade opinions seem to be within the same general servers)
• A better way to collect information for the Servers tab
  • Currently, this data is pulled from GFLBans. However, as we currently see, GFLBans frequently shows servers to be offline, causing the addon to be unable to accurately pull data. This revision is a lower priority honestly, since the tab does function appropriately, it's just a matter of it depending on a third party (GFLBans), which is no one's fault, but would be nice if it could more frequently be able to display real time information.

 

And again, I am very open to discussions about the menu. As I said, this is a project I began for the Community. Please feel free to share your thoughts here. One thing that was already fixed was an issue brought up about the menu opening when trying to close chat, thank you to our Rotation server for bringing that to my attention. I've never closed chat using ESC, so I never thought to look for that bug. 

 

Thank you all for your time, and anticipated responses.

[Lvl 88 Gaius 15 / 975]

I think it'd be cool to be able to disable this custom menu. I personally don't like it and would just rather use the default ESC menu.

It'd also be cool if you could type !servers in game and it would directly bring you to the servers page for this new custom menu.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lvl 88 Gaius

[SirQuaren 13 / 600]

Going off of what Gaius said, I think having a menu tab for options such as speeding up/slowing down/disabling the fade in, turning off the custom background, or disabling the menu entirely would be nice. I do think though that the menu should be made a chat command so if you turn off the menu but want it back you can get the menu open again to change that. (That and/or add the !servers command Gaius mentioned)

 

With regards to the fade, my issue is less the speed of it and more the fact that it goes by menu item. While this does look kinda cool, it can be a little annoying having to wait for the fade ins to reach the bottom to see where the lower menu items are. (You can click them  before they show up but if you click the wrong one it takes longer than if you had waited, and if you accidentally click disconnect you have to rejoin)

 

Other than that my only other suggestion right now would be to replace the server name with a logo instead of just plain text where applicable. The menu right now is kinda bland, and while I know that is because the backgrounds haven’t been added yet, having a logo instead of just the plain text, or even just adding some color to the server name text, would be an easy way to improve that somewhat in the short term.

[Agent L 109 / 2,475]

While I don't dislike the new escape menu, I don't personally like it for myself, because usually if I'm using escape it is to close Gmod, and the new menu doesn't have closing Gmod as an option, making it take longer just to close Gmod, especially with the fade in. I think it would be cool to have the menu be a command on the server, possibly similar to !motd as something that could be bound as a key. Correct me if I'm wrong, but players could then bind it to the escape key I think.

[Auralanity 1,097 / 19,948]

I think the menu is pretty good for being the first instance/version. I would love to see some more customizable features as described above though! 

[Daedra Daddy 78 / 3,842]

Agent touched on this, but a close gmod button would be appreciated ❤️

 

[Cpt.Haxray 774 / 13,605]

I got a whole list of issues with it personally.

 

1. A lot of people hate it as it gets in the way of accessing gmod options, such as settings. It is unexpected, gets in the way, and makes accessing normal Gmod menu take a lot longer than normal. I feel since a lot of the options are only useful for a super dedicated GFL member(Examples: Game Tracker, Discord, etc), that the menu should be toggable, and it should default to being off.

 

2. The Fade in, while looking nice, is an active detriment to the menu. It makes it take even longer to access options. Want to exit to the gmod menu to change a setting? Better hit esc, wait for the option to fade in, then click on it. Oh, and don't confuse it with the Close Menu option, because that doesnt bring you back to the main menu either. 

 

3. The order of options is kinda confusing. Logically the main reasons someone in-game would be hitting ESC would be:

1. Leaving the server.

2. Changing an option inside Gmod.

Having those as the last options on the list makes people take longer to find said options, which is infuriating. Ideally the first option should be to just access the default gmod menu, with second option being Disconnect and third being to close the new menu.