Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

The deathspam wasn't that bad, either. The only obnoxious part was the Cyrodiil messaging for objectives/keeps flipping. Talk about some seriously blinding spam.

As a very long time daoc player, it was beyond awesome to have that option available. Made the zone feel like a living rvr zone.... /sheds a few tears.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Sure did take a lot of digging... but with manual frame-stepping and analysis, I finally have recovered the long-lost and fully-functional Elder Scrolls Online user interface that somehow became lost in space-time for the last two and a half years...

When will we get this back in-game!? The UI we have now is so much worse ...

Nameplates!! AND A MINIMAP with multi-quest tracking options!!!! And it looks great! All of it was toggleable, and minimalistic/concise!


A real backpack/inventory with category filters while showing vendor values of items, names, icons, and not being limited to 6-7 items on-screen at one time...!


The map window, with quest tracking options, more detail and color to the terrain, and quest descriptions/journal entries!


Numbers on the resource bars! You could actually know that you were hit for a given amount of health, rather than guessing and pixel-counting without addons... . You could even see your remaining magicka and stamina!


The skills window.. much more concise tooltips, bullet-point lists of effects and costs, unlock ranks at a glance, and the full skill line without needing to scroll up and down...!



Can we please get these options re-implemented?

Elloa wrote: »

The mini map was totally awfull in the alpha.
I really made you feel stuck in a little zone instead of making you feel the grandeur of the world.
I'm also very happy to not have nameplate, though I'd not mind them enabled in the game with the option of ticking them off.

A lot of decisions they have taken was the result of players behaviour annalysis. They discovered than mini map, quest tracker and all that sort of things you have in other classical MMO was encouraging players to go straight to the goal instead of encouraging them to roam arround, explore and have the feels of adventure.
The zones of ESO are quite small; Or they are a lot smaller than what they looks like. Zones are actually build in a smart way to make you believe than the world is big, while in fact it's not.
Those features that were allowing players to be "more efficient" was making the world feel smaller, and not enough "Elder Scrolls" like. A LOT of players felt betrayed and gave their feedback.
So I think that Zenimax toke the right decision. It was more important to give a good feel of "Elder Scrolls" and sacrifice efficiency to save this feels of adventure and exploration within the limitation of what they could build. For the players that do not give a crap about that feel, there is the possibility to add addons.

Cry_Wolfe wrote: »

Zenimax did not make the right decision in regards to UI functionality. This is not merely another TES game, this is ESO an online game for which UI's have various tried and true elements that allow for the social aspect of the MMO genre to flourish and bloom. There are quite a few MMO's out there nowadays which for all intents and purposes Should be dead and buried, the fact that they are happily chugging along with a dedicated player base is not testament to their game engine nor their graphics, it is the social element that maintains an MMO past the Anniversary period. Nameplates being taken out of the UI and LUA capabilities was a woeful oversight in regards to social cohesion

AngryNord wrote: »

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

IMO the two things (beyond standard MMORPG things) that stand out as to why LOTRO is still going relatively strongly are 1) Cosmetic Clothing - every single player could in effect be unique in how they look, 2) the in-game Music system - some guilds, especially on RP servers, dedicate one or two nights a week to "live music" band nights.

You forget the main thing that keeps LoTRO going: Because it's Tolkien.

Divinius wrote: »

For all the people (surprisingly few in this thread, actually) that are still clinging to the argument that the current UI is somehow "better" than the old UI shown in the OP, and who are crying that things like nameplates, mini-maps, etc should not be added... I want to ask a question:

Did you know there are chat bubbles available as options in the game now?

I remember before ZOS implemented the chat bubbles. Many threads were created on the forums asking for them, and each was filled with people screaming things like, "Ugly chat bubbles everywhere would kill the immerzuns! The game doesn't need them! If you add them I'll quit!"

You know what happened? ZOS added them anyway. With very little fanfare, and toggled off by default. Most people don't even know they exist, unless they were around when it happened, or decided to go digging through their menu options and noticed the toggle, hidden way at the bottom of one screen. Their addition to the game harmed absolutely no one, and was done so covertly that no one complained about it afterward.

What's my point? All those players that were crying about it, and trying to prevent ZOS from adding it, were ultimately not affected in the least when it happened, and totally forgot about it entirely after they were added. But the people that actually wanted them were ecstatic. Everybody won.

If these lost features were put back into the game, left toggled off by default (so the immersion-criers aren't affected), but made available to those that actually wanted them, it would negatively impact no one, and a great many people would be so much happier playing this game.

stevenbennett_ESO wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

actually therre is a mod for the garbage radial bar
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info258-GreymindQuickSlotBar.html

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

The quickslot wheel, @stevenbennett_ESO, is just one of many things that I get addons for (I have one that turns it into a bar, and I can keybind each slot individually to be "active" while keeping the "use" button separate). However, that's just another example of options that are so basic, they should be toggleable settings in the base game. Console users don't even have addons, as much of an issue as they often are.

Sadly, it does nothing for the real issue - the double-duty of the Q key. There is no way, programmatically or in settings, to actually disable the secondary feature of that key to bring up the radial menu. There is also no way to set the timer amount needed for the game to decide if you're actually using an item or bringing up that menu.

Since the timer is set to a way too short value, anyone who is rather fumble fingered like myself is quite likely to often bring up the radial menu when they actually want to use a quick slot item. I'd say that except when I'm out of combat and deliberately focusing on it, my ability to reliably trigger a quick slot item is maybe a 30% success ratio - and when I fail, because I'm often moving the mouse at the same time, I'm likely to select and then trigger a semi-random item from the list the next time. This is UI design at it's worst -- there should at minimum be a slider to specify the delay time before bringing up the radial menu, and ideally you should be able to separate the two functions onto two different buttons.

Further, there is no programmatic way to actually *trigger* a quick slot item -- you can select one, but you still have to use the Q key to select it. I can almost understand that one from a game design perspective to prevent players from getting a very slight macro advantage, but if that were truly the case, I'd be preventing changing the quick slot programmatically and only allowing triggering instead.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

And even with dozens of addons, none can add those optional nameplates/tags so I'm not milling around in a crowd of nameless, faceless random people in towns, having absolutely no clue if anyone I know is around or not unless I accidentally hover over them and notice an addon that color codes the pop-up healthbar/nameplate in the stock UI if someone's on my friends list or in one of my guilds (it can't differentiate which guild) has marked someone's name in the split-second they usually appear in the pop-up. I don't really have a way to recognize who is in any given guild with that, and if they aren't in one of mine, I have no way of knowing that "Amazing Athletic Adventures of Awesome Acrobatics" has a lot of active players that I see all the time... because I never see the name in the first place, let alone the players' names.

It makes the game world feel like I'm not in an online game outside of when I'm grouped with people in Cyrodiil for PVP or a Pledge/Arena/Trial run in PVE. For an MMORPG, which are often cited for community aspects (guilds, general socialization, and friendships) as some of the major reasons people enjoy them or stick around even if they're unhappy with some of a title's gameplay... that's not a good thing. I bought an MMO because I wanted to feel like I was part of an online world, not just running around a crowd of people that may as well be NPC's in cities, world PVE areas, and most other areas.

You make a very good case here for nameplates, although I could see displaying guild affiliations could be problematic given that players might be in multiple guilds. (Perhaps it should only show the guild affiliation if you're wearing a guild tabard…) I can, however, see some possible game design flaws with it, particularly in PvP areas. But I think those issues could be mitigated considerably if it only showed nameplates for players which are within close range.

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Cry_Wolfe wrote: »

Zenimax did not make the right decision in regards to UI functionality. This is not merely another TES game, this is ESO an online game for which UI's have various tried and true elements that allow for the social aspect of the MMO genre to flourish and bloom. There are quite a few MMO's out there nowadays which for all intents and purposes Should be dead and buried, the fact that they are happily chugging along with a dedicated player base is not testament to their game engine nor their graphics, it is the social element that maintains an MMO past the Anniversary period. Nameplates being taken out of the UI and LUA capabilities was a woeful oversight in regards to social cohesion

^ This.

An MMORPG that lacks the ability for players to socialise with ease and comfort will fail.

IMO the two things (beyond standard MMORPG things) that stand out as to why LOTRO is still going relatively strongly are 1) Cosmetic Clothing - every single player could in effect be unique in how they look, 2) the in-game Music system - some guilds, especially on RP servers, dedicate one or two nights a week to "live music" band nights.

Throw in things like fireworks, alcohol (and its effects) in-game and you have a great socialising experience. One of my fondest memories of LOTRO was the night my kin had an in-game marriage, the two characters had been flirting around one another for years and finally plucked up the courage to do it. 40+ of us at The Methel Stage for the ceremony and fireworks, and then off to The Green Dragon for the party and music. Two hours of total awesomeness and we weren't even an RP guild, just a social levelling guild.

ESO seems to be missing any hint of socialising that isn't tied to questing. That is a major fault and will impact game longevity.

All The Best

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Sure did take a lot of digging... but with manual frame-stepping and analysis, I finally have recovered the long-lost and fully-functional Elder Scrolls Online user interface that somehow became lost in space-time for the last two and a half years...

When will we get this back in-game!? The UI we have now is so much worse ...

Nameplates!! AND A MINIMAP with multi-quest tracking options!!!! And it looks great! All of it was toggleable, and minimalistic/concise!


A real backpack/inventory with category filters while showing vendor values of items, names, icons, and not being limited to 6-7 items on-screen at one time...!


The map window, with quest tracking options, more detail and color to the terrain, and quest descriptions/journal entries!


Numbers on the resource bars! You could actually know that you were hit for a given amount of health, rather than guessing and pixel-counting without addons... . You could even see your remaining magicka and stamina!


The skills window.. much more concise tooltips, bullet-point lists of effects and costs, unlock ranks at a glance, and the full skill line without needing to scroll up and down...!



Can we please get these options re-implemented?

fallensbane_ESO wrote: »

So many of those alpha options need to be added back in the game with on/off toggles. No Minimap, Lack of Text Chat (On Console), only one quest tracking on screen. There is no reason not to add those things in game. Hell you can even set the default to be off so people can enable things as they see fit.

Having the option of a minimal UI is great, but those who want things such as a minimap and chat should be able to have them.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Yep. Even things as innocuous seeming as the death spam channel option helped the socialization and community. Why? Glad you asked! It's both a gameplay nicety (Oh look, there's action going down at Nikel!), but also a matter of recognizing people out there and seeing that stuff is happening! "Oh man, that Death's Gift to Necromancers guy just took out another group!"... people build both fame and infamy when you can see who's who and what's going on in the zone. "Whoa, that's a lot of spam near Bleaker's... must be something doing down." You see that even if you're just chatting away at your Alliance's base camp. Instead of just staring out into the sunset and maybe being bored enough to bravely ask zone chat if anything's going on... you KNOW something's going on. It gives the zone life and makes you feel like you're in part of a world, which is the entire thing MMORPG's were created for .

Community is an extremely, exteremely important aspect of online gaming. If someone wanted to only ever be alone in their gameplay, they go to a single-player game which is not only more suited for that, but also can be paused, saved, and re-loaded at their convenience and theirs alone. Let's face it, no videogame is able to provide tens of thousands of hours of new and exciting things to do for years at a time. MMORPG's, way back when, were even marketed as persistent worlds and communities: the gameplay may not have new things to it 24/7, but you had fun and you socialized to boot. This same kind of thing carries over to everything else like seeing people marching around who are all in a guild, or that guy always advertising high-end stuff for sale that you notice as you pass him by in the city. Except right now, you don't. Everyone's basically a nameless drone and nearly may as well be an NPC unless you're grouped with them.

I still remember as a teen racing on foot across the Kelethin Forest tree city in EverQuest 1 after getting drunk with some friends in-game, setting a nice wager of platinum for whoever made it to the other end of the section first, falling to your death off of one of the rope bridges meaning you were disqualified. This wasn't some minigame that a quest-giver told us to do... we saw eachother in town while banking and someone jokingly suggested it. A couple of us laughed and thought "Why the hell not?" and had at it. A few of us hit the edges of the platforms since being drunk in-game distorted your vision a ton and even made your character stagger randomly, and fell off to our deaths 100 feet below. A couple of us made it, though I have no clue who actually won by now all these years later. It's probably no secret that I'm not exactly a hardcore roleplaying guy who's deep into lore and storylines, for anyone who's read much of my posting ever. But the little things like that, even, create an outsize amount of fun and random, spontaneous absurdity in these games, and it stays with you. I doubt I'll ever be into RP'ing in a tavern, but damn if I would ever say any proposed game features to help those who do, have more fun, shouldn't be implemented. I just would like for the same courtesy to be extended the other way, too .