UI Customization

Irvyn · 07-30-2005, 08:30 AM

I haven't read been able to find anything official about UI customization. Not sure if anything exists yet though.

I would be thrilled if the UI engine offered some real-time method of importing/exporting data. As a EQ/WoW UI modder, I was always dissappointed at having to create gimpy hacks to import and export data into/from the UI.

WoW's '/reloadui' in order to save data is clumsy and not well thought out.

I hope we don't have similar issues with Vanguard.

Anyone got any info on the UI yet?

Pirotess · 07-30-2005, 04:48 PM

Not that I've seen. They have commited to being able to reskin the UI but I havent heard of anything about whether they will allow the type of scripting that WoW did in their UI. If I had to guess though I'd say they wont allow scripting like WoW's since it can trivialize parts of the game.

Irvyn · 07-30-2005, 09:46 PM

Ya, I hope they don't allow any scripting access to in-game macros like WoW, but some sort of integrated DKP, guild roster, character manager, log parser type stuff would be kewl.

I dream at night of an in-game DKP system.

panjandrum · 08-02-2005, 01:07 AM

I dream of Shadowbanes UI still...omg I can put that button anywhere?!? Still seems to be the best UI I've seen in any game...too bad about the rest of it.

Pirotess · 08-02-2005, 08:52 AM

Not a big DKP fan myself and I'd say the MMO community as a whole is pretty split on the whole notion of DKP vs every other loot distribution system. I really dont see a DKP system being built into the game but the guild management, character profiler, log parser stuff could be a possibility. If not we have something to make ourselves useful with.

Korelin · 08-02-2005, 11:33 AM

I personally like the UI customization in WoW, to an extent... mods like decurser trivialize aspects of the game, while other mods like CTRaid should be what WoW had built for the raid aspect at the very beginning.

What I am hoping for:
Character Profiler - Perhaps on the web like EQ2 (but NOT for more money)
Guild Management - Give us more options, more robust!

Just a few things off the top of my head.

Irvyn · 08-03-2005, 11:27 PM

I am not a fan of DKP much either, but I wish the game would track raid loots by character.

Pirotess · 08-04-2005, 09:33 AM

Aye I built a system for my guild that did that. It had to be manually updated but we could view our raid loots several different ways. We could look at a specific character and see their loot history so we didnt pile too much gear on any one member. We could also view the loot dropped each time we killed a mob to recognize patterns in their drop tables. It was the system I cut my PHP/Javascript teeth on. Looking back at it now, it was some pretty crude work but it got the job done.

Irvyn · 08-05-2005, 08:13 PM

The closest I could get in EQ to having an in-game DKP system was to import the DKP standings from my website into the game. I wrote a simple program that raid leaders/officers would run on their computer to download the current DKP standings once a day. The program created a 'Story Line' file which showed up in-game so raid leaders could quickly see standings. The files aren't real time though, and you have to re-log to see the changes (think I heard they changed this somewhat though). The other problem is that there is no way to export any data from within EQ so all DKP stuff had to be typed into the site.

It was a bit kludgy, but it helped with awarding loots on large raids.

For WoW, I made an AddOn that allowed raid leaders to create a 'raid log' inside the game that stored the mob, attendees, drops and loot awards. The data was saved in a local file (the infamous SavedVariables.lua). Once the raid was 'built' users could load the file onto the site. I got bored with WoW and never finished the import part of the mod, but it downloads the DKP standings and writes them to the file so they can be viewed in-game.

Having to re-log (or /reloadui) to see any changes in the data made it kinda gimped though. The limitations of the SavedVariables.lua file made it even more painful to mess with.

Neither WoW, EQ, or SWG have supported any type of real time data storage/processing from outside the game. Essientally, UI customization has been aesthetic in nature until WoW. Of course Blizzard gave access to too many gameplay functions, but at least they are on the right track. I hope Sigil gives us a more meaningful UI engine.

Pirotess · 08-06-2005, 11:12 AM

It would be pretty cool it have a button on the item, character and guild screen that automatically uploads the relevant stats of an item, character or guild to a website. We'll have to see what hooks they allow us.