So I did it again. Guess they call it Evercrack for a reason. Reinstalled from scratch and logged in with my old account. So... a bit of UI feedback. I did remember that the default UI was "not good" but what I got presented with as a "new player" (the top image) was a bit of a shock: (1920 resolution) The bottom image is how I rearranged the UI to have the frequently used and "operated" elements together. The original buff window is unacceptable. Squeezed in as it is it will stop working (not showing all buffs) very soon and then you can't up-size it in that spot. You also can't go horizontal with it because of the way the text popups are coded. It has to be vertical and 2 columns will be good for a long time. The default window background texture is not usable with slightly transparent windows. It gets way too bright in a zone like PoK and bright text on a bright background is a no-go. I set them all to solid black with 97 (or so) alpha. With a little bit of transparency you get more "peripheral vision" and the UI does not appear so ancient and bulky. I would have liked to keep the chat windows smaller but I know from experience how bad combat/raid spam can get and you need that buffer to keep up. A default setup like this (zero code changes =) might not scare off a new player because he is not constantly zig-zagging all across the screen. The "relevant" UI elements are closer together and closer to the action - the center of the screen. This reduces eye and mouse movement. (Yes, dear other players, there are many ways to do that and your setup is way better. =) I'm merely talking about a bit of rearranging on the default UI.)
Yeah, a popup on login that had you select your default UI from a few created for different resolutions would probably be a much nicer entry into the game.
Yep, the default UI could have been arranged much better, there are even overlapping UI-elements there, thats just sloppy! Old screenshot, ignore the potion belt. Thats for 1680x1050, but you get the idea. Might be a better default setup.
Yeah, there are several windows actually overlapping each other and that's the first thing you see when you get into the actual game! Mind-blowing. I'm certain that no designer ever actually looked at that. The UI pig just pooped windows all over the screen. =) That is the look of an abandoned game where there either is no QA team or they have stopped caring. (or being listened to) Not a first impression you want to make. And like I said, yours and many other setups certainly work, but how can you read the mouseover spell/buff names when holding Alt? (old spell icons are much more... iconic and easier to tell apart but that only matters after you have memorised them all) I'd guesstimate half to a full day of work to get the default UI in all resolutions into a shipable state. If that is such an unreasonable wish, ask the fans to do it! =) Sounds crazy but... some people do care a lot about the game. Post a general layout (not default =) and ask for submissions in different resolutions. I'm sure you can get pixel-perfect setups... or at the very least not-obviously-broken ones.
yea the default UI is very ugly very obtrusive, and like you I belive that no QA was ever done to make sure that the UI works in every available resolution. its huge and did I mention obtrusive so yea not fun it took me a full day to find a UI that works and my setup is rather scary when you look at it but it makes sense in the layout. I have some screen shots but I am unable to load them here right now but I will get them loaded so you can see what I mean default=garbage dump it as soon as you can and find a UI or at least try to arrange it in a way that is sensible.
I found a UI that displayed the name next to the buff / spell icon so instead of holding Alt I can just glance to the right of my screen and scan which buffs / spells i have loaded. I tried using the new spell icons but they look so blurred that I quickly went back to classic spell gems. I was lucky that when I came back after a long break I found a copy of EQ including my UI setup. It must be frustrating for a new player to have to wrangle the default mess into a nicer setup.
After having worked with some eq ui mods i have nothing but pity for the dev saddled with updating them, and hope they are never tasked with any major ui revamps.
I would say that an UI revamp is needed. Browsing in the tech-support forum, you get the impression that the default UI lack scaling fonts and scaling elements for hi-res monitor support... Imho, the default UI should at least be functional in all resolutions, relying too much on UI-mods is a bad strategy by DBG. They recently updated the spell-icons to more hi-res friendly versions, that could be an early first step towards a scale-able UI. And as S33k3r mentioned, "ALT-inspecting" buffs just "barfs" overlapping blue text boxes all over you monitor, thats not user-friendly at all. Im generally wary of inspecting buffs, because I have to click on the buff-icon, as I often accidentally remove the buff instead of inspecting it... Instead they could make it so that holding ALT down and mouse-over the buff, displays the buff-info-box next to the mouse-cursor or something...(and the spell-icon in the buff-info-box still overlaps the text! Fix it! )
Please don't make the UI better. It's one of the myriad methods we use to keep the riff-raff (aka paying customers) out of the game. You know how the current crop of gamers are used to tiny little phone screens where the games are bright and simple, we wouldn't want anything to make them think that EQ isn't something archaic like their grandparents used back in the 19th century.
If they don’t revamp the UI next expac/20th anniv, it could be arranged as a competition with voting and prices... But let us hope it does not get to that...
Raid mobs are like: Newbs keep dyin, got to encourage them and remind them of Fippy: Got to be like Fippy, keep raiding Qeynos and never give up and never give in.
The problem is that the default UI is coded to some long antiquated screen resolution. The client doesn't scale to resolution changes in a smart way. It just plops windows all over the place. I'd be happy if it would just leave windows in the same place if the resolution is increased and no layout exists for the bigger screen. You'd just see a bunch of open space to the bottom and right and people could drag windows to fill out the screen. And please, add a unlock/lock all windows option to make moving stuff around after screen resolution changes much less a pain. Your example of a suggestion is a good way to highlight the difficulty in revamping things. I personally think your layout is a cluttered mess with ill-fitting windows puzzled together and the main focus in the wrong place. What works well for one person, does not necessarily work well for others. Coming up with a clean, functional UI layout that looks good and appeals to many is not trivial. There's also the question of how many hotbars to put in the default, different layouts for casters versus non-casters (for the spell bar) and if to reserve space in the layout for more hotbars. What might work well generically for those starting at level 1 is likely very different than those starting with heroic level 85s or returning players at any level range.
Oh, absolutely. It is a design problem but one that must not be ignored. "Kinda working" doesn't cut it with the first thing that a new player sees when finally logging into the game. Dated graphics are already problematic but if you get slapped in the face by this when entering the game, I would assume that many go and uninstall this "abandonware" right there and then. Quests, lore and all the other things... you have to make a player stick around for long enough to get to those!
What they should do is make 3-4 "default" UIs and when you login a character without an ini file (so new characters or old ones when logging in from a fresh install), it prompts you to cycle through those options and choose one that is functional from a couple of different styles. Then put some system text in AFTER loading it explaining how to load a custom UI with a generic "Build your own, or search online for custom UIs created by other players!" to prompt people to do a google search. Or something along those lines. The default UI really is unacceptable.
