Mother's Fantasy UI

Updates 09-Dec-23
Recently discovered (when recreating my eq2 UI from scratch) that the quest helper window could not be moved or resized. Quest helper window can now be resized. In addition, the main quest window has a toggle labelled Helper Handle which pops a handle on the left side of the quest helper that can be used to reposition it.

I reformatted my computer (trying to get Starfield to run in Linux). I copied out the eq2 folder I had been using, but found afterward reformatting that it had copied the folder but not the contents so I lost a lot of half completed windows and fixes.

I'm really surprised to see the download counter over 4000. Makes me suspect that there is a vanity counter aspect to eq2interface, LOL. But if anyone is enjoying this UI, good on you!

The interface is nearly complete to my mind. I'll probably have to take a swipe at the character window though it actually doesn't bother me much but it does look odd next to the other windows I have modified. Heroic opportunities are still on my list and the other day the knowledge book caught my eye.

How to use the features of the UI
The ones which might not be obvious anyhow.

The XP bar is a separate window from the menu buttons. I modified the Menu Button Bar so it can be shrunk down to hide all of the XP, and only show the XP in the other window. Unfortunately, I've had no luck moving tool tips or context menu to the new window, so if you want to switch XP display to Tradeskill or back again, that is done by right-clicking on the menu icons.

The Active Quest Status (Quest Helper) window. If you like the background fade effect instead of a solid background, that's on the sliders for the window frame as there was no frame on that window. The solid background is on the background sliders. To move this window, open the quest journal and toggle the helper handle option on.

TankFinder[tm]. The position marker in the group window is a radio button just to the left of their name. If you click there, you mark that player as the tank and a the position marker will turn from flack text on white background to white on black.

To target the tank, make a macro:
Code:

TankAssist[tm] Technology. Just like TankFinder[tm], but does a /assist instead of a /target. Hey, it was a request.

To assist the tank, make a macro:
Code:


Old Guy Rant
I've been away for a minute and been playing other MMOs in the meantime. I am currently playing FFXIV with my wife. And I do have some problems with FFXIV, but it's the MMO my wife plays and so while I'm not forced to play with her, playing with her is definitely a highlight and I'll be doing that as my main MMO.

Anyhow, every MMO since EQ2 has left me feeling flat and I keep chasing that high. Recently, as I became aware that EQ2 still exists, I decided to log in on a free account and see if the game was all that I remembered or if it was just deep time lacquering over all the rough edges. It has mostly felt like coming home and I want to keep playing.

I had already changed my UI in FFXIV to make it as close to how I felt an MMO UI should be as I could, but it has limited configurability. Since I currently plan to play both games, I decided to whip up a little something that makes switching back and forth as intuitive as possible for myself.

So in instances where the FFXIV team made some weird choices... why is my health show up twice on screen, once as played, and once in the group window? Well, I don't know but unless it actively made EQ2 worse to follow their lead, I just went with it.

Ok, so what're the changes/What you trying to do?
One of the big things I've focused on is sizing up different UI elements. I'm on a 2k monitor, so I believe I have about 4x the screen real estate I used to. Many things seemed too small for me, or I had to crane my neck looking to the very edges of the screen. So, I've made a lot of things bigger and invited them into the screen a bit more.

The second thing I did was replace the fonts on most of the windows. I'm sorry, Arial, you have done a lot of work for a long time, but you need to move on. I removed a lot of the drop shadows, adding a sort of a bloom effect to the text which softens the jaggies even more.

EQ2 can recognize system fonts but I am at this moment rocking Linux for my OS and the font names will not match up to anything in Windows. I used Google's Public Domain Roboto font for everything. I included the files for the fonts I used in a fonts folder in the .zip, and I believe it is as simple as putting them into the C:\windows\fonts folder. I put them there in my wine install and it worked fine. But if I'm wrong the internet has the answers and if you inform me I'll be sure to update the instructions here.

Finally, I desaturated many of the UI elements, muting the colors and using fewer of them. Looking at my older work, I find my young self screaming "Blasphemy!" at me, but alas I like the more muted look. In some respects, I may have taken that to extreme, but when working with the EQ2 client, I had trouble creating bright text and colorful text at the same time, so I went brighter even if it washed it out a bit.

Video Guides
Using Quest Windows

Installation
If you don't have and UI mods currently, unzip this file into the UI folder of your EQ2 client.

Mine is at C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\Everquest II\UI - your mileage may vary.

In addition, go into the UI\mother9987 folder and rename the file currently called eq2ui_custom_example.xml to eq2ui_custom.xml. (This extra step prevents people who are installing this mod with other mods from losing the other mods custom styles.)

Finally, take the fonts from the fonts folder and put them in you C:\windows\fonts folder. I'm unaware of anything nefarious that could happen by trusting the fonts I included but if you want to download them yourself, it's Roboto by Google in the public domain. The UI uses Roboto Medium, Roboto Condensed Regular, Roboto Dark and Roboto Regular. (Roboto Dark doesn't appear to have made any difference and I may remove it. I was trying to make the popups thicker but the game client seems to mostly ignore it so far. Still working on it.)

Inside the game, you will have to adjust the size of the fonts in each chat tab (Mine are set at 18pt). And you'll have to adjust the size of the hotbar icons if you want to achieve the same results in the screenshot.

Any other tips for bouncing FFXIV to EQ2?
I bound the 'i' key to open bags, and unbound KeyPad 8 and 2 from go forwards/backwards. Changed a bind for KP8 to pan camera up, 2 to pan down, 3 and 9 then do zoom out and in respectively.

I turned on the "Always show my name" option as well.

Good luck.

--Mother