Making a new UI.. what do YOU want to see?

Agathorn · #1 11-30-2005, 03:12 PM

I NEED to make a new UI suite lol. I'm just itching around here wantign to do another one, but I want to know what people want to see. The last couple UIs designs i've played around doing no one seemd to really care for the style. I make these as much for others as I do myself. I like to make things that others enjoy using.

So let's hear what you'd like to see. What sort of style. I'm not talking about minor changes to existing windows, but a new visual style. New graphics, new skins etc.

I just saw in an other post someone lookign for somethign more SARS from EQ1 styled and thats certainly doable but i'd like to hear what others think as well.

Muscular Beaver · #2 11-30-2005, 05:16 PM

I would love to see a less clunky UI. Without too fancy graphical borders (hate the default ones on top of every window), no futuristic health bars, gauges etc everywhere. I want to feel like in a fantasy world, so the UI shouldnt have digital numbers or steel blue colors or healthbars from star wars computers. Graphics, healthbars, etc need to be simple but not too simple... well fantasy style, you know. Like a leaf border I saw on someone elses UI or like the nice celtic Tking style for EQ1 windows (why doesnt he make EQ2 UIs anyway?). Windows have to end where the graphic stops. No invisible borders anywhere. Windows should fit together, so you can customize the size and spot of everything in a clean way and it actually snaps in (visually).

I dont need my stats displayed all the time I play. They are good in the persona or inventory window when I really want to know them. They dont change often, so theres no need for me to see them all the time, just like my money or bags. They are good on the inventory screen, which can be opened with just 1 keystroke.
If it would be only for me I would even only need an experience bar in the inventory window, because looking all the time at your experience bar after each kill makes leveling appear much slower.

I love to have everything clean, no thick black boxes at the top, botton or sides of the screen blocking the view. The game needs to be the experience, and so the UI has to fit in. And btw, I get headache if something is blocking that much of my screen (no ****). :P

Something I would really love to see is the target/player/group/pet in one window in the middle like XYM did in her EQ1 UI. It made things so much easier. Though I think it would be a problem fitting in the implied target, but I doubt it would hurt if it would be something more wide.
Heres a screenshot. http://www.eqinterface.com/downloads...now=1133386665
See the window between the 2 chat windows? Thats it.
It could even be made transparent so you could only see the border and healthbars. It was awesome.

A little "radar" map like WoW has would also be nice, but I am not sure if it would be possible without sacrificing the visibility vs clunkyness too much..

As my friends told me they want an UI which is mostly what I just said but also good for resolutions below 1280x1024. They told me the default and most of the custom made ones have much too big windows for a resolution of 1024x768 for example. In EQ1 many UI designers did multiple resolution versions of their UI or made everything resizeable (which isnt possible in EQ2 with every window, IRC) because of that.

Agathorn · #3 11-30-2005, 07:34 PM

I was playing around with a sort of stone look today. A dwarven sort of style. Anyways I was wondering if I could get some comments on the general style. This doesn't show anything much really, just sort of what the hotkey window would look like (minus the hotkeys themselves, minos the hotkey selector, minus one hotkey slot because I miscounted

) but you get the idea lol.

drychnath · #4 12-01-2005, 10:16 AM

I like the stone, but the rough cut looks more stone-age.

I LOVED TKings steamworks in eq1 with the animated gear borders. I tried to port it into eq2 and got discouraged early because it was my first and I'm lazy

He'd also made skins for Metalworks but never finished it, which was a chromed version of steamworks. I preferred steamworks, myself.

I'm not saying "use tking art!" he's got his stuff coming out. WHat i'm saying is that I'd like to see something animated and fantasy style.

I've been doing some modeling of frames that I'd eventually like to use to make my own skins, but since I use ProEngineer to model... it's going to be a while, and then I'll still have to make the data work. I might start posting some pics of simpler frames that I have already modeled (they aren't animated in any way yet), because the tortured angel frame I have been working on for months is still months away from completion...

Agathorn · #5 12-01-2005, 10:25 AM

Yeah the rough cut didn't work for me either. I've been working on a more refined cut but still stone look. I'll be posting some shots of the window elements later today for feedback.

As for T King style animation and graphics -- No way. I'd love to lol, but he is about 4 zillion light years ahead of me in skill.

Arremis · #6 12-01-2005, 11:10 AM

I like that interface that Muscular showed....I'm a nature fanatic myself and curvy natural look like that one would be really nice....I've seen too many stone looks lately, it gets overrated....we need more royal fantasy looks....dark colors for those who like to play evil toons and light colors for those who like to play goody two shoes like me hehehehe

I use a lot of chat windows, I don't like tabs, so I like the interfaces that are streamlined a little and no dead space....smaller is better for me because I like to actually see the game and not a big bunch of windows in my face

Arre with a smile

Agathorn · #7 12-01-2005, 11:52 AM

Too many stone looks lately? I haven't seen a single stone look but maybe i've just been blind

In that case no one will probably like what i've been working on today, but oh well. Here is the basic style I was working on. It isn't anywhere near done of course, as many of the interiour window elements havent been made, but the general feel is there I think.

Muscular Beaver · #8 12-01-2005, 11:55 AM

Too thick borders taking away too much space. Guess its more for people who have plenty of space on their screen, like the 1600x1200 folks.
But thats just my opinion.

Muscular Beaver · #9 12-02-2005, 06:33 AM

Oh man, why didnt you say you already did something like that XYM thing I mentioned!
http://www.eq2interface.com/download...fo.php?id=4107
Its awesome man!

I had to edit the target and implied window a bit since they always reset to the default size as soon as I selected a new target, but I figured it out.

Rabble Rouser · #10 12-02-2005, 02:28 PM

Muscular Beaver, you seem to be looking for exactly what I've been looking for.

So far, no luck here, but I think there are probably a lot of people who feel the way we do.

Someday, someone in here will listen and be able to put together something simple and compact, that will let us see the world we're traveling around, and size it for 1028x768.

I'll keep checking back to see.

Muscular Beaver · #11 12-02-2005, 04:02 PM

Yeah, Im actually surprised that there isnt a bigger choice of UIs for EQ2. It has more players than EQ1 had for the most time and still the choice of UIs is much, much smaller than for EQ1 when the customizable UI was out for 1 year.

Well anyway, Im trying to learn how to do a UI, maybe Ill do something like that as soon as I know how to do it. :P
But I am no graphic artist so it will most likely either be very simple graphics or none at all and just simple borders etc.

Agathorn · #12 12-02-2005, 05:36 PM

Have you guys looked at Serenity?

question · #13 12-21-2005, 09:16 PM

I would like to see a nice remake of the EQ1 Velious interface, it's tiny, nice and not clunky which i love