Let's talk about hotbars, quest logs, buff bars, ability chains, mini maps, compasses, Health/Endurance/Mana bars, group windows and HUDs in general. If you could only pick three (3) UI elements that you could not live without in MMORPGs similar to EQ/VG/Pantheon, what would they be and why?
I am really interested in hearing what you like and want to challenge you to refrain from mentioning what you don't like ;)
https://www.facebook.com/pantheonrotf/posts/1675440272670506
Health/Mana bar is a no brainer. Have to have that on clear display to know where you stand in a fight.
Hotbars are a necessity for spells and abilitites and item clickies.
And I guess Buff icons would be third. Need to be aware of which buffs youre missing. And if youre grouped with a Bard, the buff icons will let you know the quality of player youre with. A two song twister you can dump. You find a bard twisting 5 songs, you become the bestest of buddies for life.
Malsirian said:
I am definitely of the "less is more" mindset. Health bars, target windows, hot keys, chat windows and a compass with the ability to put them where we want and size them the way we want and I'm good. I also like to have the option to not display UI aspects if they aren't in use. For example, a casting timer or breath meter only need to be displayed when you are casting or underwater. They don't need to be cluttering up my screen otherwise. :) Come to think of it, I usually have as many elements as possible fade away when not in use. So, Minimalist UI design for me please. :)
Nice Malsirian, I like a nice minimalistic UI most of the time too, unless I am raiding/grouping then I usually fill half of my screen with things to help me min/max, the more information the better! lol ;)
Homercles said:
Health/Mana bar is a no brainer. Have to have that on clear display to know where you stand in a fight.
Hotbars are a necessity for spells and abilitites and item clickies.
And I guess Buff icons would be third. Need to be aware of which buffs youre missing. And if youre grouped with a Bard, the buff icons will let you know the quality of player youre with. A two song twister you can dump. You find a bard twisting 5 songs, you become the bestest of buddies for life.
Yeah smart choices Homercles, I would choose something similar but maybe toss up between crit chain abilities/buffs. :)
If I was limited to only three:
Over all I do like a minimalistic UI approach as well. I like to see more of the world and events happening around me :)
Edit: FYI, the WYSIWYG editor is not keeping my numbered and bullet lists.
3 things i cant live without in a UI
1. hp/mana/end bar
2. Maps (even if i have to create it myself) Not a Minimap just the normal hit M for map
if you dont consider #2 to be part of the UI then i would replace it with fully customizable chat boxes.
3. hotbars (I B a Clicker)
I would love it if a way could be found to centralize the basic resource information (health, mana, energy, etc...) in a way that is visible without having to look off to the edge of your screen without being overly invasive in regard to the content you are looking at within the game.
Not just for yourself - but for your group - raid - and mob.
I go through phases where I feel like those "glances to the UI" are more "playing the UI" than "playing the game"
I know it's utterly necessary... Just something necessary that I would somehow like to lessen the impact of.
Hmm, just 3 then.
1. Group Interface that is easy to read. Not to large.
2. Active spells with names and timers.
3. Chat window that is easy to add/rename tabs and has a highlight feature if there is "action" in that specific tab.
I would also like to add my 2 favorite UIs of all time. You get the idea of what I like if you look at those. :)
1. ProfitUI (Everquest 2) "http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/full4710.jpg"
2. CoreUI (Vanguard, Saga of Heroes) "https://forums.station.sony.com/vg/index.php?threads/rufins-coreui.68767/"
The original creators of these UIs are not the ones updating them anymore. The guy who made ProfitUI was called Profit I believe. I forgot the creators name for CoreUI)
Nizzdal said:
If I was limited to only three:
- An Avatar of some sorts that would incorporate Health/Mana/Endurance/Buffs - You need to know the level of resources you have in order to make the best choices with your actions
- Hotbars - You need them for both attack & utility based abilities. I would clarify and say have 2 main hotbars:
- One for attack (contains main action, crit chains covert your icon to the "crit icon", much like VG)
- One for utility (buffs, clickies, etc. Also crit buffs icons convert as well, like the attack ones)
- Chat windows with tabs that can be configured to show damage, group chat, guild chat, say etc.
Over all I do like a minimalistic UI approach as well. I like to see more of the world and events happening around me :)
Edit: FYI, the WYSIWYG editor is not keeping my numbered and bullet lists.
Nice pints Nizzdal and yeah, the site doesn;t play nice with formatting, not much longer until the new site though ;)
Gawd said:
3 things i cant live without in a UI
1. hp/mana/end bar
2. Maps (even if i have to create it myself) Not a Minimap just the normal hit M for map
if you dont consider #2 to be part of the UI then i would replace it with fully customizable chat boxes.
3. hotbars (I B a Clicker)
Nice selection mate, I like a map too, but it would be even better if it was blank until I discovered places and added markers and notes to it while gaining skills in that area :)
Wandidar said:
I would love it if a way could be found to centralize the basic resource information (health, mana, energy, etc...) in a way that is visible without having to look off to the edge of your screen without being overly invasive in regard to the content you are looking at within the game.
Not just for yourself - but for your group - raid - and mob.
I go through phases where I feel like those "glances to the UI" are more "playing the UI" than "playing the game"
I know it's utterly necessary... Just something necessary that I would somehow like to lessen the impact of.
There definitely can be a centralised information if you choose to have it mate, the UI will be customizable and you will be able to move it around and set it up in the centre if you like. When I play a healing character I centre a lot of my HP and group members so I can heal more efficiently.
StormCloud said:
Hmm, just 3 then.
1. Group Interface that is easy to read. Not to large.
2. Active spells with names and timers.
3. Chat window that is easy to add/rename tabs and has a highlight feature if there is "action" in that specific tab.
I would also like to add my 2 favorite UIs of all time. You get the idea of what I like if you look at those. :)
1. ProfitUI (Everquest 2) "http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/full4710.jpg"
2. CoreUI (Vanguard, Saga of Heroes) "https://forums.station.sony.com/vg/index.php?threads/rufins-coreui.68767/"
The original creators of these UIs are not the ones updating them anymore. The guy who made ProfitUI was called Profit I believe. I forgot the creators name for CoreUI)
Yeah, nice points StormCloud, I loved using custom UIs in VG, it really did make it more personal and helped me immerse more without giving me an advantage over anyone else.
Rufins CoreUI3 mod was pretty cool although I mainly used an old guild members UI called DroxyCore that I updated myself for the last 3-4 years but I did try many UIs until I found the one for me. :)
Medawky said:
I think I am most anchored to having highly customizable unit and target frames. Overall I like a nice clean UI that I can scale to fit my current needs and having some sense of control over my visual interface with the world is very important as well.
Absolutely Med, control to adjust and rearrange my UI/HUD is an important part of immersion, especially in MMORPGs.
If I had to have 3;
1) highly customizable group and personal unit frames. Health bars are like important right?
2) a well functioning map and mini-map. My map is open prolly 65% of my play time.
3) active buff and debuff indicator. I play support (bard) every chance i get and knowing when my buffs drop is crucial.
One more very important UI element that needs to function well is the auction house's UI window. If this is poorly designed it is a headache and/or a nightmare.
NoobieDoo said:
If I had to have 3;
1) highly customizable group and personal unit frames. Health bars are like important right?2) a well functioning map and mini-map. My map is open prolly 65% of my play time.
3) active buff and debuff indicator. I play support (bard) every chance i get and knowing when my buffs drop is crucial.
One more very important UI element that needs to function well is the auction house's UI window. If this is poorly designed it is a headache and/or a nightmare.
Yeah, nice NoobieDoo (I love saying your name btw lol) buff bars and hotbars including HP/End/Mana are important to me too and I like the map if it starts off blank and I create it through my journey kind of like a basic map with fog of war hiding basic landscapes and paths (not all of them) and I have to travel a certain length of it to then remember it and be able to have it marked on my map :)
I would really like to see the option of less UI. The UIs above, while clean, are just too much. I'm playing EQ2 now for the PvP progression server, and I end up disabling so much of the UI because, 99% of the time, it only serves to clutter the screen. Much of it can be keybound or all accesible under a few Windows key type of buttons. By all means, give us options, but the current trend is minimalistic and I think its also more conducive to immersion.
Dullahan said:
I would really like to see the option of less UI. The UIs above, while clean, are just too much. I'm playing EQ2 now for the PvP progression server, and I end up disabling so much of the UI because, 99% of the time, it only serves to clutter the screen. Much of it can be keybound or all accesible under a few Windows key type of buttons. By all means, give us options, but the current trend is minimalistic and I think its also more conducive to immersion.
The reason why those UIs are so good is due to the fact that you can hide every single aspect of them, resize them and move them to anywhere on the screen that you like (it isn't showing all the options either, you can literally pick and choose what style etc you want), giving everyone the option to fully customise them the way we like.
So if you want an even more minimalistic UI, you can change it to suit your personal preference and if not, that was one of hundreds of community created UIs, I personally liked a couple of other ones that I used as my main UIs but the choices and options were awesome for all of them as they were each created by passionate community members who all have different tastes and likes/dislikes, so it was about finding one you liked and then tweaking it even further to suit your preference.
If players wanted a UI like that above and couldn't get it due to it being too minimalistic, it would be something that would turn a lot of people off a game, so having these options is very important, you can cut it back to almost nothing if you like, while others could turn every element on and fill their screens with boxes, groups, buffs bars etc. and it wouldn't hurt either group or have an impact on each others gameplay in the slightest to do this. ;)
It all comes down to personal preference and what some like, to others it's game breaking, so we need to provide options for both, then you guy's set it up how you like.
In my opinion, VG and the VG community handled this perfectly.
Zandil said:
Best UI for Customization I have seen is SWTOR UI, every inch of it can be re-sized, backgrounds turned off, flipped, moved, turn on or off any part of the UI you desire, best of all it's built in and no mods required.
Yeah I didn't mind SWTOR's UI either, I personally still don't think it was as good as VG custom UI's because they gave 100% total control to edit the HTML yourself if you didn't like the setup or options but liked the style but SWTOR definitely had a good UI layout for a forced one that restricted you to just use and customise it.
Kilsin said:
StormCloud said:
Hmm, just 3 then.
1. Group Interface that is easy to read. Not to large.
2. Active spells with names and timers.
3. Chat window that is easy to add/rename tabs and has a highlight feature if there is "action" in that specific tab.
I would also like to add my 2 favorite UIs of all time. You get the idea of what I like if you look at those. :)
1. ProfitUI (Everquest 2) "http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/full4710.jpg"
2. CoreUI (Vanguard, Saga of Heroes) "https://forums.station.sony.com/vg/index.php?threads/rufins-coreui.68767/"
The original creators of these UIs are not the ones updating them anymore. The guy who made ProfitUI was called Profit I believe. I forgot the creators name for CoreUI)
Yeah, nice points StormCloud, I loved using custom UIs in VG, it really did make it more personal and helped me immerse more without giving me an advantage over anyone else.
Rufins CoreUI3 mod was pretty cool although I mainly used an old guild members UI called DroxyCore that I updated myself for the last 3-4 years but I did try many UIs until I found the one for me. :)
I didn't specifically use Rufus Coreui, I just wanted the screenshots that had the original elements of CoreUI in it. If my memory serves me right, I believe I used DroxyCore myself in the later stages of Vanguard after the creator of CoreUI had left the game. CoreUI was truly amazing!
ProfitUI for Everquest 2 was just as revolutionary for that game as CoreUI was for Vanguard, almost like I get the feel that it was the same creator behind both just with different names being used. ProfitUI had something that no other UI had, the huge XP percentage display. You can click it and it would switch between the different xp types. When it first came, I was amazed.
1) Must be g13 and at least 5-button mouse compliant. Period. If I cannot map 4 hotbars to 1-7, alt1-alt7, ctrl2-ctrl5 (use row 3 button 1 as ctrl+[ for PTT on voice comms), and ctrl-alt3-5 to mimic my keypad setup on a g13, I won't play the game. Period. I cannot MMO without a fully bindable, customizable hot bar set up that reads a g13 gamepad. Same for the 5 button mouse. 5 clicks + wheel must be bindable and the game needs to be able to read the input or I won't play it.
2) ALL UI objects should be fully customizable in size, location, locking, snap-to-grid or not, etc. Chat window and hotbars especially.
3) Option to turn off graphics I don't want or need.
Past that, I don't care about style. figure it will be standard "middle earth-y, fantasy-esque" UI that I swear must be a library in DirectX at this point. I know for certain that g13/gaming mouse compatibility is 100% binary deal breaker. If it is compliant, I'll play, if not, I won't. I am not the only MMO gamer that thinks this way, btw. First thing I test is control inputs and g13/razr compatibility, and I dump any game that fails.