Was this game always meant to end up with us all having UI's that are so complex that it would confuse space shuttle pilots? It might just be me, but when I cheer as Auto-Grant gives me more passive abilities, and mutter under my breath to see the words "when activated" because it is requesting a certain amount of real estate on a screen/hotbar that is already groaning under the weight of what it carries, I think we need a change. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what the button clicking will look like as you add more AAs to be activated. I would have thought we were at our saturation point long before now, and to look at people's SS of their setups I cannot imagine how they cope with tracking it all. Is our future even more buttons to cram into as yet found free real estate? More hotbars? Perhaps, as a suggestion to cut back on a bit of the frenzied hummingbird on the buttons thing, is to have future AA ranks of an ability make an active AA become a passive one, where it just fires off without the player's action (as an example, /autoskill kick has been one of my favourite things ever). Just a thought to address the complexity of the latter stages of the game, but I would love to hear other (likely better) offerings Many websites offer custom UIs that provide us with nigh-innumerable ways that this game could be experienced. The UI is our window to this game, and the experience in starting a new character makes me wonder how any of us got to level 2. Perhaps it is time for a bit of modernization and hopefully making it sleeker to rid us of some of the more egregious dead spaces that exist on our screens (the bugbear of the chat windows giving a double header comes to mind) so more people do not feel the need to download from outside sources. What functionality from custom UIs should be included in the default EQ UI? For me I would love some toggle switches that permits a certain amount of customization. Some toggles I would turn on would be: Show Spell Name Show Buff Name Stickmen Graphics On (to cut down lag) p.s. While you're at it, maybe pay Brewall and Goods Maps a royalty or something and have that be included by default (with an option to turn it on/off for those EQcartographers out there). p.p.s. Perhaps GINA could get some royalties too, since it is all but a requirement to raid in this game. p.p.s.s. Would it be possible for items like Mod Rods and the Clicky Reflect Anguish Mask thing to send me a tell when they are ready to be clicked or removed?
Your concerns have been ours for many many years. It's been beaten to death. We can only hope that they look into a universal UI in the next Dev round table !
JChan has in the past said she would love to find an EQ UI Expert so if anybody knows one tell them to contact her via the board here or to send their CV to Accendo to forward it on. Someone who really understands game / mmorpg UI's in general and the EQUI specifically and how to drastically streamline and improve it for all of us would be absolutely awesome. Less clutter pertinent info snap-to functionality resolutions above 1080p ability to have full-view and abbreviated view on some key aspects better implimentation of key indicators increase real-estate by removing wasted space on UI pane boundary and UI border fluff fully scalable UI elements functionality to remove the "close pane" "x". That's just a few off the top of my head I would love to see looked at and worked on. And for them to give professional feedback and advice on "hotbutton bloat" so maybe some commonsense combinations of abilities can be made natively avoiding players needing a PHD in macros to save space on hotbars. 11 hotbars is ridiculously necessarry and ridiculously bloated for most classes
seriously , you mean like what they did for banestrike . and the auto skill for kick/bash . i'm sure there are a few more I'm missing .. they way EQ is now I doubt we will get anymore new AA's .. just upgrades of the ones we do have .. and the dev's have been trying to consolidate the AA 's over the past few years .. I do not know what you mean here ? double header ? I believe you can turn borders off , if that is what you are referring to .. show spell name : if our playing your class you should know your spell icons , same when looking at them on the buff window .. However you can hover the mouse over each buff either in the spell bar or on the buff window and it will tell you the name or even hit your ALT key while mouse is near it and will show all the buff names or spell bar spells you have memed ... Stickmen graphics .. those can be set in your ini. if im not mistaken .. take a little initiative .. why put more work on the dev's on something you can do yourself and only takes a few simple steps .. Brewall and goods do this cause they want to , however I'm sure they have a donation section or you can pm them and they would gladly accept donations .. EQ provides in-game maps its our choice to use brewall and goods maps (btw thank you Brewall and Good's for all you do on your map packs) why would DPG pay them royalties for something they provide .. Same with Gina .. from what has been mentioned in other threads GINA is not a requirement to raid . seriously, mod rod and clicky's you want a tell just to tell you when to click them again .. can you see , are you blind (if you are my apologies) put the mod rod on 1 of your hotbars and when you click it it reds out or greys out with a timer or if you put it in a macro /use item mod rod /timer 300 that would also give you a visual .. heck you can also I think put in after the /timer 300 /pause 300 /g time to click that mod rod .. be creative and try to do some of this on your own .. these little wants just ties up the devs and takes them away from actually making content for the expansion ..
Not everyone has 7 chat windows and their map open. You are making things harder than they need to be lol
What they need to do is upload the xml schema some where so we can plug it into our xml documents and have free reign on designing UI's out of the game. Having to load up the game, make a change and reload the ui is a pain. I build applications and deal with xaml all the time, it's nice being able to use visual studio to design my xaml pages.
While I use a number of custom UI pieces, the default UI is completely usable so long the default layout is reasonably implemented for varying resolutions. Way back in the day, I created some default layouts using the default UI and text/message filters different resolutions around the same time I wrote this guide for newbie berserkers. I know I had all the standard resolutions covered from 640x480 (remember that one?) to 1920x1080, but I just don't remember where those were posted. I think it'd be cool to refresh those for tabbed windows and more resolutions. My personal layout is very similar to Elyssanda's-- windows and buttons biased toward at the bottom and group window and buffs to the right with a big open viewable space in the middle (not a pinhole like the OP image). I think the main difference is that I use tabbed windows more and don't have all my clickies viewable at all times. I have a couple clicky hotbars, but use the pages to store less-frequently needed ones (like my gate/port clickies and long-term buffs). I have one chat window with 4 chat tabs and 1 spam window with 3 or 4 different divisions of that spam. The one I have in focus 99.99% of the time would usually just have damage I'm doing and damage I'm taking, but the recent change to certain filters means I'm also seeing a lot of damage that others are taking. Bleh.
I use a custom UI that uses a few different windows . first being the player window shows alot of info including %'s for experience and aa experience and merc xp .. second being the Actions window has my main inventory slots viewable and able to click bags open without having to actually open my (i) window also has 7 tabs .. for socials/armor slots/ abilities/combat/stats tabs.. the 3rd window is for my merc and its just a smaller condensed window like 1 1/2 inch by 2inch long wish i could actually link the pics but have not figured how to do that .. i know its been discussed before and ive tried other sites to host my pics but just cant get the links to work .. and finally the other change is the EQ button and SC button now DB i think its called .. and it just gets rid of the DB part on bottom and just have the 1 EQ button .. to open my marketplace i just open EQ button and select marketplace or type /market
I have.. I won't do it again. So I don't "play" on my latop.. I only use it for tradeskills when I'm not home.
Some do not have that option. It is an aging player base, and while some people can rock Verdana 8 on massive monitors there's others, like a friend of mine, who plays pretty much at /chatfontsize 200, so even with a larger monitor he still has hotbars that are huge in the SS he sends me. Perhaps the example I posted was a tad hyperbolic, but your chat screens are about big enough for 7 sentences by the look of it, you don't have a map open, or your tracking window, a tiny extended target window, you're having to minimize your merc screen and your loot screen, and a raid window, and an expedition window and.... If you do not see a problem with hotbar bloat, or feel that the default UI needs work, I would hope you agree that it is a lot, even if it not a problem you have personally.
The Default UI is fine, you can make it look anyway you want. See mine is a little different than most lol I have one big Chat window, Channels are color coded so I know whats important. All other battle spam and the like are pulled out and either hidden or in the upper window with all damage. Funny screen shot is from 3 years ago and my layout is almost exactly the same. ( still working on Evolvers in this photo )
Oh hun, I never said the UI was not in need of an overhaul. My merc window is shrunk because I wasn't using him when I took the SS. I use chatfont 7.. on a 24" monitor. I took the pic in POK so no need for map or tracking.. but even when I do use them, it's sparingly.. and I close them when not in use. I also have the music player window minimized once I load it up, or IF I load it up. you could say I don't have overseer or achievements open either.. again.. those are use and close windows.. no one keeps those open all of the time. and I don't box, so full screen mode gives me more room I could, and have, pared the Hotbars down a little on my other bard Kata.. I think I managed to go with 9, not 10. I would also say, you can pare down your chat windows if you start using tabs. you have what 9? even with 2 shrunk, that is excessive.
I was gonna say the same as Elyss you could do some work with your chat windows if you use tabs .. I have 3 chat windows up 1 (the main window) has 5 to 7 tabs ranging from all general chat channels to my hits , my pets hits, spam, my spells and guild chat. then I have a seperate chat window for /say and misc stuff like experience messages , randomes , /who, system messages, event messages, ooc, shout.. then my final chat window is for Group and Tells .. I keep my main chat window(the 7tab one) open to guild most the time . and my group/tell window right in my view so i can see it .. and my /say window is larger than any window so i can see if anyone is talking to me (perhaps a Dev ?) and i'll catch it .. I box and i can see all my other toons window clear enough to tell if i get a tell on a certain toon also with AT i can hear a tone.. I have all 11 hotbars open on most of my toons my warrior / pally / SK usually are the ones that use up most of them .. they also range in size from 100% full hotbar down to 50% size .. I have them all mostly lined up on the bottom of the screen then the chat windows are on the left and all my player info etc is on the right of the screen .. I wish someone could walk me thru posting pics on here ..
ok im gonna try this .. hopefully this works .. this is a pic of my cleric sitting in GL I just dusted her off so alot of her hotbars are non usable but this is the layout i use for most if not all my toons .. the empty window space above my player window is set aside for my toons with pets.. also the group/tell window usually is off to the other side , i just have not split it off yet ..
Been tinkering around with my UI since custom UIs were implemented. I think I've got rid of as much fluff as possible and it's pretty streamlined. https://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=4585
