Aion's User Interface

[Saito]

Few ideas i had on the aion UI

User Interface:

Probably the most annoying thing in a mmorpg is not being able to (fully) customize your User Interface and with that I don't mean being able to put in your own skills in your skill bar even the ability to choice the number of quick bars is way to limited.

Basically what we want is a fully customizable UI and I don't mean we can move around most parts and windows I mean we are free to resize any window and part of the User Interface as we see fit.

For example, you have a pm box up and you're chatting with a friend but you really don't need a box that shows you 10 lines of the chat going since in 90% of the cases seeing 2 or 3 lines is plenty now if we couldresize the window that would solve the problem and we could choose our selves how much text we can see from what chat. Same goes for every other part of theUI it should be re-sizable and removable including things such as party status, radar thingie and basically any other window or part of the UI.

Same for the public/clan/ally etc chats they should also be freely movable and re-sizable. The tabs used in lineage 2 for example areok and you can even drag them to a other part of the screen but you can't resize them or anything else. Now if we could drag our PM's in to that adding more tabs we could scroll trough.

Also something that really annoyed me that we couldn't change the chat colors in lineage 2 (at least not without 3rd party programs) but the basic was really hard to read at times.

But it would be iffy to include all those features for editing the UI in the same interface as the one you play in. I was thinking why not add a user interface editor mode ingame, basically your game turns some shade of gray and you can't use your mouse etc to move around or interact with others but you can move and edit objects on your user interface. So lets say we are in this editor we could move our radar to the other side and maybe make it a little smaller and by right clicking on the radar we would get more detailed options such as changing the colors and behaviour of the object.

some basic idea's about common objects in the UI:

Skill/Quick bar:

Moving (individual) parts of it around placing them anywhere you see fit so instead of being stuck to 12 or so quick slots we could detach lets say one or two of the quick slots and place them somewhere else. By right clicking on the object you can change its color but also make custom quick keys to that function. For example you can detach onequickslot resize it to be very small and put your HP potions in there and set the quick key H for it so every time you hit H on your keyboard when playing you use a healing potion.

Radar:

Besides freely moving and re-sizing it by right clicking and choosing the color editing option you can change all parts of the radar including what is show on the radar for example if you want monsters nearby to show as yellow you have the option to change the default red to yellow same goes for all other objects show on the radar such snpc's, clan and ally memebers etc.

Chat box:

Free to move each part (public, shout, trade, party, clan, ally and pm's) to other parts of the screen and resize them as you see fit with a simple right click options such as changing chat color can be changed. All chats should have the option to be minimized so they are out of the way and of course the object used for the minimized chat window is editable.

Addition to chat box is 3rd party services Lineage 2 made a nice step in this direction by adding a MSN client but you could take this much further. For example voice chats are really becoming more used also in mmorpgs especially during raids or pvp ventrillo or teamspeak are common. Personally I'm a avid user of IRC (internet relay chat) our clan and ally has its only channel and its annoying to always play window mode or alt tab between the two while playing. Now at some point some guy made a mod for the l2 client and it changed the trade channel to aIRC channel but its features where limited.

A full featured IRC client would be so cool and I'm sure greatly appreciated by many people I'm talking about features such as joining multiple servers making and moderating channels of course joining multiple channels also things as kick, ban, ignore (forirc) etc maybe even some simply scripting but thats probably too much to ask.

Even though people here don't use AIM and ICQ much but some other parts of the world do so adding them as well would be nice.

Warehouse, clan warehouse and inventory:

sorting options, yes! thats probably the one most annoying thing about Lineage 2 it really takes ages your busy trying to find all materials and parts you need to craft anything.

My idea for lineage 2 was as followed you would get the same window as you do when you open your (clan) warehouse except now you get a few tabs on the left side of your window all these are filters ones for weapons, armor, jewelry, materials and "etc" items. Those are the primary filters now on top of your warehouse window after clicking one of the first filters you get more detailed filters such as sort by grade or show full or parts only option then maybe a little search box to find the exact item(s) you want.

I'm sure the people in charge of the UI can think of much more especially since I don't know exactly what parts will be available in Aion.

my 0.02$

[Rapsodia]

Add a button on the skill bar that locks it from putting on or removing skills by acident too like in L2

[Lytle]

yeah UI look for me is important some games have boring lookin UI and it takes from the game

[lyankyj]

hope chat will be same like GW, easy and fast. + itd be cool if we could separate the channels. I dislike chat (the way u have to switch between channels all the time)in wow or lotro or.... kinda troubling compared to gw

[Monarch]

Honestly... they should just make the entire UI modular, like Guild Wars did.

It was nice to just be able to hit a few keys... then I could pick up any interface element I wanted. I could resize them, move them around the screen or just get rid of it altogether. I liked it.

For me, I like to have as little on my screen as humanly possible, while still getting all the required information. This means tiny, itsy bitsy dialogs that most normal people can't read. It just works for me. (I have absurdly good eyesight, and I memorize all my skills based on keystrokes rather than using a visual hotbar.) But I know some people who just love to have gigantic boxes right in the middle of the screen, too. I figure a modular UI takes care of everything.

[Mizu]

I totally agree with you Saito. It would be so cool to edit your UI the way you want it!

Shame that that is just an idea though >.< Maybe there could be some downloadable feature that contains this 'program' later on. Perhaps even pay a tiny bit to be able to download it, I think it would be awsome ^-^

[Saito]

Well I'm hoping to get reply from one of the NCsoft staff and get some more details about how far they will let us customize the UI

[Deryck]

I'd like to see a Fully Customizeable interface as well, sort of like wow. make a place in the forums or something that people can post new interfaces and everything. would be hot.

[Pancak3s]

yea.. mmo's need full time customizable GUI like many fps's.... they have always been lacking in this department

[plasma06]

a lot of people have custom ui wow it makes the game look beter

[Ipmia]

but wow UI is the suck if a UI is well designed it doesnt need customization ( expet for the resizing an windows moving )


Leo said

Well the Developers have stated they want to use the best of both western and eastern MMO's ideas for Aion and I imagine that would carry over into it's UI and control schemes.

anyhow the WoW idea isnt that good.. it has a lot of issues with the game and you need to keep you re addons update or you might just crash everytime you enter in an instance and so on. Not to mention that lot of addon used actually SPOIL the game play ..only a very few actually imrove the UI itselfs

[Saito]

Originally Posted by Ipmia

but wow UI is the suck if a UI is well designed it doesnt need customization ( expet for the resizing an windows moving )

I don't agree with that at all. There will be many instances where you really like something where someone else thinks its horrible.

People will always have their own opinion about what works best for them and also different classes might want different things in different sizes on their screen.

For example a healer will want to have a good overview of the parties HP, MP and buffs etc where as a archer won't need all that they just need to keep track of their most important stats, skills and arrows. They may want to have a slightly larger radar so they can see mobs coming from a longer distance.

[Ipmia]

Originally Posted by Saito

I don't agree with that at all. There will be many instances where you really like something where someone else thinks its horrible.

People will always have their own opinion about what works best for them and also different classes might want different things in different sizes on their screen.

For example a healer will want to have a good overview of the parties HP, MP and buffs etc where as a archer won't need all that they just need to keep track of their most important stats, skills and arrows. They may want to have a slightly larger radar so they can see mobs coming from a longer distance.

hance the resizing /deplacing feature .. read better

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by Ipmia

hance the resizing /deplacing feature .. read better

But still, he does have a point.

Like I mentioned in my post: We all have different tastes. I like to clean everything out of my screen as much as is possible, but some folks like having bars and switches right in the middle of their screen.

*shrug* Takes all kinds, I guess.

[teldath]

no no no no no no no no no no no no please NO. Having a Fully custimizable UI like in WoW is one of the Worst things a Game can do to itself IMO, let me explain.

Once you get UI customization started, you have Treat meters, status Gauges, Boss timers, Decursers, buttons that Do your Job for you. it flat out takes any Form of Skill from the game and puts it all on the capabilities of your UI. for example, a threat meter.

a Treat meter makes it so that People dont have to be carefull about hate at all, they can just blast away until they get to high up on the list.

a Boss timer makes it so you dont have to predict anything, you can just see whent the Ability is comming and Move. it makes it less like a fight, and more like a Pre-Programmed battle.

I am against Player-made interfaces, customization A-la Vanguard, or lineage 2, where you can Drag everything is great. but no Mods.