Upcoming changes to the UI
 

I just listened to an interview with Alan Crosby who stated that there were some major changes to the UI coming up. Does anyone have any idea what he is talking about? He talks about streamlining the interface, but no details.

well I sure hope its not anything like lua. I tried warhammer for a whole week and ditched it based on the crap UI's found for it and the fact it used lua. Dark Ages of Camelot also used this and if you think working with XML is hard this LUA is got to be the crappiest thing I've seen especially when a lot of hacks were done to warhammer using that scripting system

Link
 

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/s...2/videoId/1469

Here's a link to the video. It is from E3.

Well, I didn't hear anything about the UI in this video.

However, LUA would be an improvment to UI scripting. If they wanted to limit certain functions of the UI, they can do it. If other games fail to do so, then they're not implementing a very solid system.

Anyhow, I look forward to more big, much needed addition and changes to the game. EQ2 really doesn't need MORE content, as much as it needs updated and improved content :)

We don't wanna lose any more player base :(

You might want to listen again. Specifically, he said "Right now we are looking at tightening up the user interface. That's one of our next big projects. Although, it is pretty tight, we want to stream line it even more."

I wonder if this has anything to do with the alternate default UI that Rothgar proposed.

http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=12117


Oh, and what is LUA? God it has taken me years to figure out the current XML coding. Is that a new programming language?

Not a new one, but a real one (see lua.org). :)

And a real possibility: http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/s...3&postcount=39

The first time I loaded the video, only half of it streamed, and I didn't even notice. :o

Well that's cool. Seems a pretty bland/open statement. But again, I'm looking forward to any changes/additions.

I'm liking the game optimizations for graphics a lot.

I'm headed to fanfaire hopefully I can find out more details there.

Why only shader 3.0? Isn't there like 5.2 now?

I'm sure they want people with somewhat dated 3DA cards to be able to use the new system and 3.0 will be such an improvement over the current system.

I've been in the game to check out the new features and as for the shadows, well eh. The new shadows only respond to the sun and the moon. So when your inside there are no shadows and if your outside at night is shows your shadow from the moon but not the much brighter street lamp your standing next to. But of what there is I do like the GPU shadows much better than the CPU shadows.

They're working on it. Shadows based on other things are a different story than just the basic ones now, from what the Dev working on it has said. Just because it's not done yet doesn't mean that it won't be done ;)

As for the quote, I bet Rothgar knows. I say we corner him at Fan Faire and make him talk, eh Dolby? ;)

Pixel Shaders > 3 are for directX10 and above. This would gray out a lot of customers that would be able to play the game with their video cards.

Pixel shader 3 is not found on a good amount of cards that can still play EQ2, but it will be wonderful to have it implemented I guess as an option (if that's what they're planning on doing).

Here's a pixel shader run down....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_shader

Well based on that I would say that the majority of people have at least a GeForce 6+. Modern average computers now a days are usually GeForce 6800 quality+ and they are 3.0.

Another question is if they are not going to change the lighting and all that then how is it really going to change? Is there going to be a performance decrease and what are the core differences between 2 and 3? Does EQ2 even use 2? Because as far as I know it doesn't even use blur or any other 2.0 pixel shader effects.

My 2nd computer had an AGP video card with 256mb VRAM, and it only supported pixel shader 2.0. It ran EQ2 fairly great...

What I'm getting at though is you'd be surprised what a lot of people actually play EQ2 with. Not saying it's a good thing, but it's still true :p

And I have no idea what EQ2 utilizes now.

I work at Best Buy in the electronics/computers section. We sell average computers. All computers use an Intel or ATI or NVidia card. I'd say about 95% of the computers/laptops we sell have the NVidia 6 series+ (and same with ATI and Intel), which support 3.0. The worst computer's graphics we have are the studio laptops/computers which don't need great graphics cards and even then they still fall under the 6 series.

Yeah but that's new or newer computers. I'm talkin' computers already in circulation. Fixing computers is one of my part time jobs.

If you are familiar with the Steam client by valve, they do hardware surveys each month, where users (optionally) upload system stats and fill out surveys. We all know statistics aren't perfect, but it's a good round-figures idea of what's circulating in the modern gaming world:

Results:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

May 2009:

Don't know whether it can be any indication for EQ2, but EVE Online wanted to drop SM2 support earlier this year. That caused an uproar from a considerable number of people using SM2 hardware and they had to bin that plan.

My guess is if they add shader 3.0 support it will be optional, like GPU shadows. Which is really the best of both worlds from a player perspective... it prevent alienating existing customers with old hardware while updating the look a bit for customers with recent / higher end hardware.

Now I realize that generally updates are about adding more content, but personally I prefer updates that improve the game play. Whether that means adding things to the UI or revamping an old zone to bring it up to date with the newer zones. I would love to see Qeynos and Freeport given a major overhaul. They have become ghost towns on the Oasis server.

Well. They have different devs for different things. We have a PvP dev, class dev, programings devs, tradeskill devs, live event devs, graphics/engine dev, and so on. I doubt the class dev puts his resources into fixing the graphics engine...see where I'm going with this?

I still feel like the game is losing direction even so. In my perspective, it falls into the view of EQ1 and old content losing both it's place and usefulness in the world. Cities used to be pretty sweet, now they're mostly just filled with a bunch of non-used NPCs and lower level quest characters.

But to stay on topic for the UI, pixel shader 3 isn't really along the line of the topic :D

It's pretty obvious that the interface could do with more possibility in the way of scripting. The most we get from Live Update to the next, is more Dynamic Data (sometimes) and more functions. A lot of the time.... we are getting what we thought we should have.... a long time ago :o (fixes, strange processing of current scripting). And I'm just talking UI modding. Yes, we get new windows and new features from time to time.

Without more expansion to the scripting system, or an implementation of a new one (ie, LUA)... I think the current UI will always be behind it's time.

Okay, so do they have an old zone revamp dev? I would think that they must have cause they recently revamped Lavastorm.

I think general design of the game, whoever does Live Events and organization of the world come together during Live Updates to update older zones.

I would say focus of the game is usually marginal to one area, while other things that are being fixed, or what have you, deals with like class balancing and spells, and encounters, etc.

About the UI changes. I just had a quick chat with Brenlo, they just plan on looking at the various UI elements and tweek them and possibly adopt some things interface authors here have created. Nothing like the auto heal macro's like profit but small things that make sense for every one.

Any more info I hear I'll be sure to share it

Has been happening all along. :)

If that is true, why don't I ever remember any, I don't know, credit for the idea and the original work. I mean really if there is anyone who can be said to be innovative it's you GM9. I don't think anyone here is expecting to get any sort of monetary reward for the work they've done, but a little credit would be nice. If EQ2 has in fact been adopting ideas originating here.

Yep. Was just letting you know what he said to me in our quick 2min chat. :)

it's the authors here that really shape the UI. I just wanted to clam any fears that they were draticly changeing the UI.

Sorry typein this on
my phone while in the eq2 panel

Oh, my comment was not meant to be understood in that way at all! Personally I'm more than happy if the default UI sees improvement, regardless of where the idea may have originated from, and I know many if not most other modders here feel the same. Also my comment was encompassing all of eq2interface and not specifically aimed at my work.

And do we need express credit in the patch notes? In my opinion we do not, no more than features suggested via /feedback or forum discussions. In addition there have been some acknowledgements on the forums and/or in private conversations.

PS: But yes, of course the EQ2 dev team is aware of what is happening here. You know some of them post here. Many also use some of the mods from here when they play the game. Of course that influences what they do, in the same way game mechanics or class balance discussions on other forums won't go ignored. And that's a good thing, it just shows that the devs are in touch with the playerbase. If you start demanding credit or even recompensation for that you might just scare the SOE legal team. ;)

At the EQ2 future panel they talked about more UI changes.

Quest window will see some love and the default window will change side by side. I've been using the side by side mod so long forgot it wasn't default. They are also changing around the tabs and the quest window will hold the new achivement/trophey system.

Character inspection window will have an achievment system tab

they are working on adding multiple quests in your active quest window on the HUD.

Don't get me wrong. I was in no way "demanding" that anyone should get credit. :o I do understand the possible "legal" issues. And if you have gotten some sort of back channel acknowledgment then that's cool. I was just saying that it would be "nice". I don't think I'm to far off in thinking that everyone likes the occasional pat on the back.

Nah, no doubt about that. ;)

Well, ideas can originate here and become popular over time. If a feature becomes useful, and the idea gets around.... then other people start requesting it, in say the eq2 forums, and the idea catches on.... well. Then it's just a good idea that got passed down the river. :p