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Anyone else tired of the UI?
vinceh
Member Posts: 208
I've been playing LoTRO for about 3 weeks now, and I've been enjoying the game thus-far. Some little nick-nacks could be fixed up, but lately it's been the UI that's been annoying me.
To me, a game's UI is hugely important to me, since I do have to use it all throughout my experience in the game. A decently designed UI can improve your experience ingame alot. I have no problem with the layout, it's perfectly fine; people say it's a copy of WoW's, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. But here is where Turbine screwed up:
I play in windowed mode - this allows less lag and convenience (msn, looking up quests on the internet, etc.). However, when I play in windowed mode, the UI doesn't SCALE down, it stays the exact size it was when I played in full screen. So now I have overlapping bars and boxes everywhere, and it just looks messy? I mean if you don't get a "scale UI" option, at least allow the UI to scale itself in respect to the current resolution. Was it really hard? This problem only recently came up since I'm rolling a minstrel and I like having my target box and my party box somewhere in the middle so I can focus on what's going on by looking at the battle and the health bar at the same time. However, I have to look to the left of my screen (I have a 21-inch LCD) and then look back towards the middle; this decreases my efficiency as a healer, and it's actually got me killed a few times, because I couldn't tell a mob was running after me.
What about font? I mean why does the floating text have to be huge? It doesn't scale down either when I play in windowed mode, and why can't I change the font? Or at least the size? To be honest, being in a world of CAPS words gets agitating. Why am I forced to turn off floating text when I go into Bree?
What about combat text? Why do we only get the "ON/OFF" option?
What about the ingame /who command? I press "O" on my keyboard, and the filters are hardly acceptable, and half the times I don't believe the numbers, or I'm left wondering, "Why does it show people in Northern Downs when my filter clearly says "Bree"?
I mean these few things I've brought up are small, but they contribute to a big picture. They can spend so much time and money on the graphics, or the storyline, or the lore, but they can't get these little details right? How much effort does it take to add a "scale UI" option? Or allow better/simpler /who commands? *sigh*.
Honestly, if none of these features are polished by the expansion in June, I'll probably call it quits.
-Vin
To me, a game's UI is hugely important to me, since I do have to use it all throughout my experience in the game. A decently designed UI can improve your experience ingame alot. I have no problem with the layout, it's perfectly fine; people say it's a copy of WoW's, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. But here is where Turbine screwed up:
I play in windowed mode - this allows less lag and convenience (msn, looking up quests on the internet, etc.). However, when I play in windowed mode, the UI doesn't SCALE down, it stays the exact size it was when I played in full screen. So now I have overlapping bars and boxes everywhere, and it just looks messy? I mean if you don't get a "scale UI" option, at least allow the UI to scale itself in respect to the current resolution. Was it really hard? This problem only recently came up since I'm rolling a minstrel and I like having my target box and my party box somewhere in the middle so I can focus on what's going on by looking at the battle and the health bar at the same time. However, I have to look to the left of my screen (I have a 21-inch LCD) and then look back towards the middle; this decreases my efficiency as a healer, and it's actually got me killed a few times, because I couldn't tell a mob was running after me.
What about font? I mean why does the floating text have to be huge? It doesn't scale down either when I play in windowed mode, and why can't I change the font? Or at least the size? To be honest, being in a world of CAPS words gets agitating. Why am I forced to turn off floating text when I go into Bree?
What about combat text? Why do we only get the "ON/OFF" option?
What about the ingame /who command? I press "O" on my keyboard, and the filters are hardly acceptable, and half the times I don't believe the numbers, or I'm left wondering, "Why does it show people in Northern Downs when my filter clearly says "Bree"?
I mean these few things I've brought up are small, but they contribute to a big picture. They can spend so much time and money on the graphics, or the storyline, or the lore, but they can't get these little details right? How much effort does it take to add a "scale UI" option? Or allow better/simpler /who commands? *sigh*.
Honestly, if none of these features are polished by the expansion in June, I'll probably call it quits.
-Vin
Comments
Next issue is the text. Go into a crowded area and your screen is filled, i mean FILLED with player names. What the fuck was Turbine thinking? It's Lotr, they have made a pretty nice looking gameworld, but it's basically not viewable if you have more than 4 people on your screen. You will just be looking at player names. They should atleast add a option to scale the font. And maybe some sort of culling that only makes the names in front show up, while the ones behind are hidden.
It's nice how they made almost anything moveable. But they should have added a way to scale the windows too. They are a little large at times. Also the ui takes up large parts of the screen, obstructing your view of the world. Something that imo is really important. Specially with Lotr.
And like you mentioned, small things like the /who command are really annoying.
Atm the ui is really something that is bothering me with the game. Fine game besides that, but this is really killing me.
Turbine has stated they have plans to expand on the ui and make it even more customizable. However, they have split the project into three parts and basically told us it may take a long time before their eventual goal is reached (which is to offer WoW's level of addon support).
I'm just hoping they have at least one dedicated ui guy working on this stuff and that it isn't just some issue completely on the back burner with no active development.
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I agree, they really need to work on the /who command. It automatically fills in the level range according to your level. So when you use the /who, it won't show anyone outside of this level range without manually changing the filters.
I played the game since BETA and uninstalled it last night. I sat at my computer and was like...I keep doing the same crap over and over again. This is boring.
1. Enter Town, get quests off of NPC's, Get fellowship quest.
2. Solo NPC quests...getting boar tails, lion eyeballs, monkey balls, etc. Turn them all in.
3. Find people to do fellowship quest. Do Fellowship quest
4. Watch short movie.
5. Go to next town, rinse and repeat.
Crafting sucks, Monster Play sucks. There is nothing there. It's not interesting. Exploring is tedious and not fullfilling.
This is just my experience and opinion with the game, i don't intend on hurting any fanbois feelings. It does have pretty graphics, but that alone will not keep me interested in an MMO. I will wait for Warhammer Online and Age Of Conan. I quit WoW for LoTRo unfortunatly, but I was getting sick of it too. Now i'm playing EQ2, until something better comes out.
It desperately need better filter options.
I am sure they will be fine tuning it in the future, so, it is just an annoyance for now.
I agree, the character text needs some changes, /who is pretty useless at times, and AH filters need improvement. Actual look and feel of the interface is fine with me actually, so I don't bother with skins.
Actually, what I'm tired of is the remarkable lack of User Intelligence that I constantly observe, but that's pretty much universal in any MMO.
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In agreement with you there! I was use to the EQ2 auction window (whatever it is called my mind went blank). I don't know how it is in other games but I love the way EQ2 does theirs. DDO has pretty much same type of auction window LOTRO does.
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The UI devs post on www.lotrointerface.com so you can always get a feel for what they're doing/thinking over there. Basically from a recent post they've already got a road map for UI improvements. First will be scaling, and that will come soon. Probably the patch after Evendim. With the scaling they'll also enable font edits and things of that nature. That should make a LOT of people very happy. If you play at extremely high or very low resolutions it can be difficult if you don't have everything memorized to a hotkey.
Second they'll be adding a UI SDK similar to WoW's. The first iteration of it won't be quite as advanced as WoW, but they've already stated they ARE working on being able to intercept data being sent to the UI for fully customized Mods. Very similar to WoW here once completed. They haven't given a time frame for this, but as they still have an entire team dedicated to improving the UI and the game has shipped, I doubt they have much to do but work on that.
Just thought you guys might like to know.
I agree, they really need to work on the /who command. It automatically fills in the level range according to your level. So when you use the /who, it won't show anyone outside of this level range without manually changing the filters."
I've actually been to that website several times after logging off the game in frustration. However, there are a very limited amount of interfaces available and they're all crap. Bad design, bad layout, just bad. All they basically do is make the graphic a little different, and I haven't even seen one that changed the target window, still the same round thing with a box beside it. Maybe when a decent interface comes out with good options, I will download it.
The "ctrl + " button is a really bad attempt at adding "customization". All you can do it move things around...I've reworked my UI using that command to a point where it looks even messier and I just wind up going back to default.
The only thing about the UI that annoys me is the Auction House search interface.
"It desperately need better filter options.
I am sure they will be fine tuning it in the future, so, it is just an annoyance for now."
Yes! That's another thing too, the Auction house is very tedious. The filters are stupid, and they don't even work properly. You tell it to list by "buyout price" and it only lists it by the current page, so if there are 10 pages, I have to go through each page and look at the highest buyout price item, then make my decision. Is there even a "useable only" option? If there is, I don't even know where it is, or how it works. What about searching for only a certain grade? I don't want to see white items popping up every time I search for an axe.
Actually, another issue came up is the keymapping. I like to use certain shortcuts to my skills that are different from default, but every time I change the keymapping, it overlaps onto all my characters...so all my characters will have Row 2 Slot 1 as "shift +e".
That means each character does not have it's own .ini or .txt file that has the separate customized UI.
-Vin
i used a WoW skin, when i played.
I know what you're thinking, but it was a clear nice interface:
http://www.lotrointerface.com/downloads/info25-WoWStyle.html
The LOTRO default is awful, is it an icon for jelly or inventory... or is it some sort of half smudged poo pile.
/who <pattern> <min level> <max level>
/who Minstrel 20 30
/who UberKinship 50
/who Bree 1 50
etc
<pattern> is anything like a zone, class, name or Kinship. Using only /who <pattern> defaults to your level range (+-3 levels or so).
Don't know if this will help you, but using the correct syntax is a step in the right direction
-
Currently playing:wow/war
Retired:,runescape,swg,
everquest2,lotro
Anyway, I heard they are doing only MINOR modifications to the UI, not a total upgrade...which is disappointing (I was reading in the official forums and saw it, can't find it now, plus I'm too lazy).
I just hope some decent UIs pop up in the future that actually LOOK good.
There's only like 23 completed custom UIs at lotrointerface.com, and there are no featured UIs.
-Vin
Although unlike Wow you can move almost everything by default.
Although unlike Wow you can move almost everything by default.
True, but also unlike WoW, the UI is un-modable. I would completely trade move-able UI for a mod-able UI, since with modded UIs you can move the stuff..
I don't understand how this isn't almost top priority, and they say full improvement of the UI will come way later. If I can't get my UI looking the way that pleases me, I'm going to quit, hands down - that is how important it is to me.
-Vin