Gnu wrote:
Just pretend a game had none of that and no inventory screen and no visible stats. Just click on whatever is lying around to equip and then you take off whatever you had on and leave it there.
No indication of your HP. No map. No clues what to do or where to go.
Would you play that game?
I would give it a shot.
I think the UI-Less concept is very interesting, but for an MMO it would be ridiculous.
It would be basically like Dark Souls, but even tougher.
---
In short you have to replace the UI with
something. And that something, to me seems like relying on other senses to convey what the UI should be conveying.
And this is only truly possible with something like, motion sensing, haptic feedback, alternative visual representations of feedback (like a purple screen for poison), UI replacement, like a journal, or a log, and just good old fashion trial and error. Also voice and voice commands would have to play a strong role as well.
For example, for things like spells, you wouldn't have MP, but rather you'd know by trial and error, that you can only cast 3 spells in succession before you can't. I can see a Skyrim model here, where the more you use an ability the better it becomes and you would learn that.
---
However this begs the question, it would be an interesting experiment, but would it be fun? Also this would be a monumental task for a single player game, but for an MMO, it would be almost impossible. Well a small irony is that communication might be easier in an MMO, because of voice chat; until NPCs are smart enough to have conversations, you would be relegated to just yes or no answers.
I think by the time any of this happens the MMO genre, will probably be dead and gone, or morphed into something else entirely.