Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitefang
Regarding #2 above - my only concern with a HUD based UI is the amount of screen real estate it would use up - one of my major grievances with the EQ2 interface from the beginning has been the absence of a EQ1 style "viewport" command - I would love to see the ability to keep UI elements from covering up any of the game world during play.
I realize this is not a small thing, but I think it would help the "immersion factor" immensely.
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I dont think the two ideas are mutually exclusive. If we decide to go with a HUD-based approach it doesn't mean that it has to take up a lot of screen real-estate. Some of the windows that I think would work nicely into a solid HUD are windows such as the hotkey bar, compass, XP Bar, target and implied target info, casting bar, etc. Id like to see a HUD element at the bottom of the screen that incorporates these types of windows into a clean and space efficient area. Due to the way the client works, they will still have to be separate windows, but we can make it so they are not movable by the user and locked by default.
I also think we could have an upper bar to incorporate other parts of the UI. Then windows such as the Group window and spell effects could appear on the side and are only visible when necessary.
One of the problems though is that I'd really like to design the UI around 1 chat window with tabs because it will leave a lot more room for other elements and look a lot cleaner. Most advanced users will probably want more than 1 visible chat window, but I think for new and casual users 1 window open by default should be enough.