I posted here because there doesn't seem to a suggestions/feedback area. Please do not respond trying to assist. I am aware of my options (and lack thereof). ____________________________________________________________ As someone who has been playing EQ for many years, I often take long breaks from the game. I love EQ to death, but coming back is harder each time. The barrier to entry (and re-entry) is overwhelming. My number 1 issue, is and probably always has been… the UI. This is true for every person I’ve ever helped too, which has been around 20+ people over the years. Guess how many are still playing? If I didn’t have all my ini files backed up, I probably wouldn’t come back either. Logging in for the first time gives you some semblance of UI, I guess. Half of the elements are off the screen and they aren’t placed in any logical or aesthetically pleasant manner. Resizing the UI is a rabbit hole of excessive adjusting, Googling, and working around everything else you can’t fix. I understand EQ is an old game. The UI should scale based on resolution. The elements should be anchored and dynamically adjust and not reposition/resize themselves in an awkward manner. Further, there should be a setting that allows a person to scale the entire UI at once for the current screen, independent of resolution! Have you seen a computer literate person try to setup a fresh install lately? The UI has been fleshed out with so many tacked on features, but has been neglected on the most basic level. The bags/bank stack in a manner that are useless by default. Switching from windowed mode to full-screen throws your stuff around. These things shouldn’t happen. I honestly don’t think the look of EQ is all that bad, graphically. Sure, it could use a makeover but it’s nothing compared to how clunky the UI is. The game actually looks pretty nice in 4k. Speaking of 4k, there have been a few years to plan for higher resolutions. I have 3 x 27” 4k monitors at home that sit on 1080p because of the EQ UI. It's not exactly bleeding edge anymore. I don’t pin this on DBG because they only recently acquired EQ, but I will implore them to strongly consider making it a huge focus. The biggest barrier for new players is (and has been) the UI.
I find it to be the largest problem for myself and others. When compared to a modern and clean interface, the EQ interface is laughable. I'm curious if you've played other MMO's? All of the elements are separated and spread all over, adjust strangely, or have only partial adjustments. Why do I have to adjust all my bags in inventory and bank when I get a new one? Why does the general options tab have a scrollbar by default? How come the UI can't scale right for 4k monitors? How come there are so many different UI elements that are rarely (if ever) used? If I have positioned my UI, why do I have to adjust it all over again if I want to change resolution? Why can't UI/macro settings be uploaded or stored on the server? A whole lot of things can be corrected by the user, but the thing is - they shouldn't have to be. There needs to be a massive consolidation/overhaul. Getting a different UI off a site that gets maybe 10 updates a year is not sufficient, and still doesn't fix the underlying scaling problems. The default UI should be better, or there should be more default UI's to choose from. It's the first thing any new customer/returning player sees.
Usually suggestion type things end up in the Veterans forum. That is the catch all forum for things that do not have specific forums. And in addition issues for the Live servers by default. At least traditionally.
Yeah, I considered that and I probably should have. Oh well, it highlights the lack of feedback/suggestions area. Many people like to have a place where they can give constructive criticism (or just rant) about the game systems/framework without getting buried by DPS discussions.
You're asking for them to make adjustments to something that people have customized so much over the years. Any major overhaul of the UI system is going to cause bigger issues for them than you would expect due to messing with all of the custom UIs Best bet I would say is just stick to downloading a custom UI package that has been kept up well over the years. It's difficult for them to bring some overhaul this late in the game really.
All that's really needed is for them to use some telemetry to determine the most commonly used resolutions and adjust the default UI layouts for those resolutions. I'm guessing the default UI layout is 10+ years old and uses the most common resolution from then. It's a mess when you get the default on modern monitors. A huge bonus would be scaling or at least locking the UI if you change resolution to a larger screen size that the previous one fits in. Would love a button to unlock all locked windows to make adjusting a screen much easier after changing screen sizes as well.
Face it, DBG doesn't have the technical expertise to make UI modifications other than tinkering around the edges. They would have to hire someone like Joe Thaler of Lavishsoft who actually has some coding ability.
EverQuest gameplay is actually pretty fun, and there is a lot of depth. Many things got complicated and compounded over the years, but that's to be expected with an 18 year old game. I've seen a few old (circa 2001) MMO's get large updates in the past few years and it gives me hope that somewhere in a hidden room, someone is working on a big update/upgrade for EQ. A nice upgrade with actual new and modern features would bring players into the game. That's what we want, right?? The UI is a major hurdle for many people, and usually the first hurdle too. I think a lot of people don't realize just how difficult it is because they're familiar with it now. There would be little to no current subs lost if there was a (proper) upgrade. Most current players would figure out a new UI without much trouble. Again, it has to be done right. They could even experiment on test, and/or in the loadskin option to see how the community feels. How about a poll? There's already a UI component for that too. A healthy population is the goal. Done properly, I think you'd be surprised at how many people became interested.
So the basics of it is, if you play the game on higher resolutions such as 2560x1440p, 3840x2160p etc the UI becomes that small it makes EQ beyond playing? I guess this effects 21:9 ultrawide also? I've not played EverQuest since 2010, but was looking to come back, I've used 1920x1200p for many years and it worked fine, not much difference to 1080p.
The UI can be modified for 4k. You might dig around on eqinterface.com and see if someone has modded for 4k.
First of all, I love EQ. You have to in order to keep playing since 2000. That said, I also agree the UI is a stumbling block, not just for new but continuing players. Example: I play two sessions of EQ on one computer with 2 monitors. Not all the time, but randomly, when pulling up a third EQ session on the same computer, my UI will get "blown out". This from an account that has saved specific UI settings, etc. In this example, I have to go and reposition all my opened inventory bags, and even lock/unlock windows to replace them where they were previously. And I agree it has been frustrating even pulling my left monitor session to my right and vice versa. And before you ask, no, my monitors are not the same. So, I also feel your pain. And, I agree. Younger and/or new-to-EQ gamers would not put up with this at all, simply de-install and move on to the next Steam download. I work with an avid gamer who is currently playing a different game and we share many full-on-nerd stories of our gaming adventures. He has indicated he would be interested in EQ with it's huge world, tradeskill and quest-scape but the UI (in looking at youtube videos) turned him off. Which makes me sad. It would be great (but probably never happen) if DB would consider opening up the game to 3rd party addons if they honestly don't ever intend to address these types of issues.
I don't see a problem with the current UI. Sure, it can seem overwhelming at first, but then if you can't take the time to get used to the UI, how are you going to get used to simply playing EQ with all of it's complexities in the game itself? I've got a layout that I like to use right now. When I start a new character, I just copy that layout and adjust as needed (like spells vs no spells, etc.). Yes, when switching from full screen to windowed mode, it doesn't stay the same. This is because windowed mode has a separate UI file from full screen. I used to play in full screen, but now I mostly play in windowed mode on a second monitor. I copied the layout of the full screen to the windowed screen, and made some minor adjustments. My second monitor is much larger than my main laptop screen, so when it's displayed there, it keeps they same layout as if it was displayed on my laptop screen, only that it spreads things out. Seems like it does it by corners. So everything in each corner of my screen stays the same, but the space between vertically & horizontally increases. Point being, that once you take the time to get what you like the first time, you can copy that layout and do some minor adjustments if you change screen sizes. If I was using a large monitor and had small UI features set, I would hate going to a smaller screen only to have everything automatically shrink down in proportion to a size that I could not read and have to resize it all. Although the suggestion of being able to increase/decrease the size of all UI parts at once would be nice to have. The thing is that a new player doesn't really need a lot of the UI up. But as they progress, and the player grows, you'll end up using more parts of it (like adding in more hotbars) and you can tweak as you play along.
Just give me 4k display support in the UI too many elements cannot be properly sized to be easily viewed in EQ.
Actually I would also like all settings per chat window to be saved too. I have to manually set /chatfontsize 8 to most of my windows each time I log in. With a 4k display if I don't do that I have to squint to see the text. Also noticed that the timestamp setting does not always reliably save for each text window.
Can confirm, the UI is horrid, and I've been playing EQ since 1999. At the very least give us tabs for the chat windows (Combat, General, Guild/Say) like every other MMO out there. Having 20 different windows just clutters the screen and removes a TON of screen space. Scaling would be really nice as well, but they really need to do something about the UI it really hasn't changed much since it became modular back in 2000/2001 ish. Viewing EQ through a clutter of windows is horrid, but we all have adjusted to this reality. A good point is the UI used to be a lot more manageable because there was no Extended Target, Auras, etc... that have been added over the years. I think that is why old EQ (Project 1999) has some much charm because it is streamlined. I played on it a bit for nostalgia, but the thing I liked the most was the actual immersion I experienced because I could actually see more of the game world. Just my 2 cents
Not the solution you are looking for, but using the /viewport command might make the UI a little more palatable and will allow you to keep from having all the UI elements covering the game view.
