Classic-esque UI options are available. Should Rogean do it?

[AbstractVision]

These are all available on EQinterface and work.


https://i.imgur.com/hsHRf6V.jpg
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https://i.imgur.com/RFSGdjT.jpg
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https://i.imgur.com/DiivdfH.jpg

[Danth]

Not one of those looks even remotely classic.

Danth

[Jibartik]

I would love this if it was forced. Love love love! This. But you have to be able to swap between this and velious. That is classic mechanics.

The black screen is like a first pass version of one of these anyway heh what I think is this is better than black screen. Although you have to have a spell book that would fill up that whole area lol so maybe that would be insanely dumb looking idk

IDK That bottom one looks so good IMO and I think it looks very "remotely" classic. :o

As someone who loves old games but not bad play control, I would prefer this to official classic 6 buttons and 640x480 forced UI but hey I'm cool with no pet windows and for others that's where they draw the line, but this, this is where I would draw the line, personally. It's the perfect hybrid of classic feel, and modern controls, without giving the player too much power. That said I'd want the giant spell book for 1-35 in there :D

https://i.imgur.com/DiivdfH.jpg

[AbstractVision]

There is really no true way to get classic UI unless someone has an original disk laying around and wants to rip the .xml files for an .xml guru to pour hours of time into. These are ready to go working UIs available now.

[Danth]

-=IDK That bottom one looks so good IMO

I disagree. To me it looks like some person's fuzzy, partially-remembered interpretation of the original. Look at those spell icons! There's no character "mirror", elements are sized incorrectly (or shouldn't exist at all)...it's sort of vaguely classic-ish but that's about it.

I wouldn't mind the original interface, but only if it's really the original. Those things--ain't.

Danth

[Jibartik]

I disagree. To me it looks like some person's fuzzy, partially-remembered interpretation of the original. Look at those spell icons! There's no character "mirror", elements are sized incorrectly (or shouldn't exist at all)...it's sort of vaguely classic-ish but that's about it.

I wouldn't mind the original interface, but only if it's really the original. Those things--ain't.

Danth

yeah those spell icons got to go of course lol

But like, seriously would you like the original interface if it was 640x480 on your big ass 4k monitor? this little gameboy screen? Am I going to have to go buy an old monitor to play eq on waitaminuet.. (opens ebay tab)

but seriously, eventually we're going to have to admit there are lines to be drawn and some creativity is going to be needed. Right? I mean 1 chat window? Are we prepared for that?

That said, Im willing to go all the way with you guys just hold my hand :o

[Danth]

I don't have a 4K monitor (what's the point, my middle-aged 20/40-at-best vision isn't good enough to gain any advantage from HD anyway). Don't those monitors allow force-scaling of smaller resolutions to utilize the entire screen? My present monitor does that on older games like Age of Empires II that run in limited resolution. I still enjoy that game just fine. 1999 was a good year for gaming.

Also, see my note in the other thread, but the original velious UI does actually function more or less normally on modern monitors, as a quirk of how it was coded (no way it was deliberate). We've seen no indication of the original "periscope window" UI being simulated for "green," only the Velious UI, so it seems that's the "line" being drawn. That's good enough.

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EDIT: I still have an original, circa 1990-ish game boy in perfectly function condition. It sat in the bottom of my dresser drawer for many years. I take it out from time to time. The screen's a little harder to see than I recall from thirty years ago, and the games are easier than in memory, but its still plenty usable. The daughter likes it, although she likes her modern tablet (with minecraft, of course) considerably more. Going back further, my first video game system was a mid 70's-era PONG clone in all its black and white, beep-beep sounds, glory. Atari VCS (later known as the 2600) was a considerable upgrade, then later the NES felt like it changed the world. Much later I only got into EQ because it was a game the wife and I could both play well, as opposed to flightsims/etc where she couldn't acclimate to. Point being: I can tolerate a lot :D

Danth

[AbstractVision]

I am curious if we're going to be forced to use velious UI or if the default_old will be available? I hope we have a third options along the lines above.

[Jibartik]

This is what I would like would be for instead of a black window it changes UI mode to this:

https://i.imgur.com/RVWBCxJ.jpg

The controls I remember/had were:

E was set to change UI from: 1. That UI 2. The current Green UI bars 3. No UI and it would cycle through those.

F was set to swap camera mode: 1. outside camera view one 2. outside camera view two 3. Other camera etc etc (there were like 4 or 5) ( really dont remember the order)

But there was no mousewheel cam view, but there were all those other camera position views (maybe not the one above that you could look down and up with?)

But yeah, that's hopefully the destination. I'd love when you meditate, for it to swap to that UI with the closed spell book. And then when you turn off meditate, it swaps back to your previous set UI (which is how I remember it working on live in 1999)

I love mousewheel but I also used to tap F constantly and it did the job just fine.

But if it were up to me it'd be the UI that I shared above and 10 hot buttons, mousewheel and parascope cam modes available but that's my custom content server that doesnt exist.

But the classic stuff, yeah I hope we get those modes here.

[Danth]

Interestingly, the mostly black screen with a smallish spellbook in the middle is also what happens on the genuine (trilogy) Velious client when you meditate. That's because the spellbook itself does not scale with resolution. There have been in the past some people who would've liked to see P99 move to the Trilogy client, but it seems like it's getting there the other way 'round.


Danth

[Shrubwise]

How well would all these old ass UI's designed for square monitors transfer over to today's wide screens, though?

[Danth]

How well would all these old ass UI's designed for square monitors transfer over to today's wide screens, though?

If you had the actual original UI and forced a full-screen window then it'd simply letterbox the sides like any 4:3 program on a widescreen monitor. I already run P99 that way, anyway, because of how using widescreen resolutions on our client actually reduces the player's field of vision. You have to be careful with those pseudo-classic Ui's because you also need to manually set the viewport for them or else they end up covering half the rendered game screen, which the original UI did not do.

Danth

[Gustoo]

Yeah I enjoyed original UI back when it was an option because of how it did not allow you to cover rendered game screen with anything. Itl be interesting to see what happens with green ui.

[Nilstoniakrath]

I voted NO. This sh-t doesn't look very classic AT ALL. Not a fan of enforced UI's to begin with, it really has nothing to do with gameplay, how fast or slow it is to level, or class balancing. If they do, it really should be what the real thing was, not just "well, someone said their friend of a friend thought it was kinda like this, so we are running with that..."

Also, curious what the history of UI's were, as in, were you not allowed to use alternate UI's when EQ first came out? If so, when did that change?

[Jibartik]

I beg to differ, this would definitely effect your ability and speed to level to some extent :o

and Im alllllll for it lol

https://i.imgur.com/RsFRMRx.png

[AbstractVision]

Also, curious what the history of UI's were, as in, were you not allowed to use alternate UI's when EQ first came out? If so, when did that change?

You didn't get custom UIs until luclin.

[Nilstoniakrath]

You didn't get custom UIs until luclin.

Didn't get... as in, not AVAILABLE, or not ALLOWED?

[AbstractVision]

It was the Luclin patch which provided the infrastructure for custom UIs. Interpret that however you need to.

[Fammaden]

If spellbook medding is enforced then it really seems like a full art original UI should go along with it also. That fullscreen "velious" UI wasn't even an option until...Velious? Or did it come during Kunark technically?

Some of those examples look pretty good and don't seem to restrict your view of the game world too terribly, even if they aren't perfect. The spell book should take up the entire viewport somehow though. Not sure if that's possible with our variety of modern resolutions.

If something like this could be implemented with chat tabs on the chat window it might be a nice compromise. Allow chat filtering to other tabs but still restrict multiple chat windows.

[Danth]

If spellbook medding is enforced then it really seems like a full art original UI should go along with it also. That fullscreen "velious" UI wasn't even an option until...Velious? Or did it come during Kunark technically?

The original launch UI had a fullscreen mode, although not as customizable as the Velious UI. The Velious UI was in effect a heavy modification of the original fullscreen mode.

Danth

[Jibartik]

The original launch UI had a fullscreen mode, although not as customizable as the Velious UI. The Velious UI was in effect a heavy modification of the original fullscreen mode.

Danth

Yeah I used it, my best friend used the marble one, danth do you have any confirmed original screenshots of the pre kunark full screen UI? I Have no idea what it looked like.

[Fammaden]

The original launch UI had a fullscreen mode, although not as customizable as the Velious UI. The Velious UI was in effect a heavy modification of the original fullscreen mode.

Danth

Ah, gotcha, well then nevermind, the full art UI is probably more work than its worth then since most people wouldn't even use it.

[Jimjam]

There is really no true way to get classic UI unless someone has an original disk laying around and wants to rip the .xml files for an .xml guru to pour hours of time into. These are ready to go working UIs available now.

I doubt there are such xml. I am certain xml was a new system to present ui introduced with luclin.

[loramin]

I doubt there are such xml. I am certain xml was a new system to present ui introduced with luclin.

This. Honestly XML was kind of having a moment right about then in the dev community (due to XHTML and some other tech coming out at that time).

A couple years earlier it wasn't nearly as popular, and it would have been kind of weirdly prescient for the devs to use it.

[Soothsayer]

An option to use the classic, claustrophobic UI would be absolutely wonderful! I wouldn't even mind if it were forced, although it'd probably alienate a good fraction of the community.