Hobbit skin "Delving Hills"

[Wicked Mouse]

Thanks ^_^

[djet13]

Just downloaded it and I am lovin' it! Keep up the good work!

[Kirsche]

I gave this a run on my Hobbit Hunter and it is very nice! I ended up replacing the toolbar with an invisible one I made, despite how well you made yours. I just prefer having nothing but an xp bar and a focus meter; the toolbar/bag buttons and the autoattack button are useless to me as I use keybinds for all of those things.

I only saw one glitch in my short time playing with this skin. The image for the copper coin is a pixel too short, causing it to tile (a mildly noticeable copper-y pixel or two). Adding another row of invisible black to the bottom (to make it 27x22 like the other coin images) fixes it.

As for suggestions...I think the player vitals frame seems a bit plain. I like the NPC frames (including the plain one), but since the player's frame is *always* on the screen, I think it could use a little something. Perhaps some sort of pattern (wood-burned?) in the middle of the wood around the portrait (like the deco in default frames) would liven it up a little without being overbearing. I also had a look at the toolbar before I replaced it with my own. I think that the xp bar would look nicer if it looked a little more like it was carved out of the house rather than stuck on like a decal. A little black inner glow could probably do the trick.

There are so many nice little details you put into this skin. I think one of my favorites so far is the butterfly on the secure trade screen. I hadn't looked at the files prior to loading it up in-game and that was such a nice surprise. I'm definitely looking forward to the future updates! Despite the suggestions I made, I love this skin and it has my hobbit's seal of approval.

[Supermax]

@ Kirsche

I personally dislike toolbar art in general, so I replaced the toolbar with an invisible one I made.

I think Wicked Mouse has done a great job with the toolbar. I believe that Wicked Mouse, like myself, uses the toolbar art as a center piece and a basic summary of what the rest of the skin should feel like. I believe that drawing heavy emphasis on the toolbar is necessary to capture what the artist is trying to convey. Also, I believe you have the most freedom when designing art for the toolbar as compared to borders which are rather small and can become easily cluttered (I found that out the hard way.)

Wow this sounds like an attack but it really isn't trust me. <3 <3 lol...

I guess my question is, aside from the obvious screen clutter purposes, why do you dislike toolbar art?

[Kirsche]

Originally Posted by Supermax

@ Kirsche
I guess my question is, aside from the obvious screen clutter purposes, why do you dislike toolbar art?

I explained it better when I was editing to add in something else. Basically I don't want to see anything on the bottom of my screen other than my chat, my quickslots, my focus, and my xp. It is a product of having used a heavily customized UI in WoW for years and being used to seeing (and not seeing) certain things in a certain configuration. I like my quickslots and my keybinds to be just so, and atm both are as close as I could replicate. It is completely personal preference.

I think that the toolbar art for this skin was well done and I agree that most themes start with an idea for that then branch out, and that the toolbar is usually the "anchor" for the theme. I always try out themes right out of the box, thinking "maybe this time I won't hate the clutter". Then I usually end up making a small toolbar variant (if one wasn't provided) and trying that...but I usually end up scrapping the toolbar art all together and use my invisible one. If I could make the art fit the way I arrange/use my quickslot bars, I'd probably keep it. I may even try to do that myself at some point, since I am better at tweaking and editing than creating in photoshop. I'm getting ideas for it just by talking about it, heh.

[OarisJM]

I tried the beta version yesterday and today, instant use on my hobbit!

I agree with the person a few posts up who said the wood border around the character portrait is a tad plain. I like it, but I wouldn't mind seeing it a smidge fancier.

I absolutely adore the bottom art, in all of its incarnations (even the very first one you posted a pic of, it's changed a lot!) I would prefer a bottom bar that did not have the options and bag buttons (just trimmed down to the art around the combat toggle and buttons) but I remember you said you weren't planning on making one like that, so I'll deal.

The backpack backgrounds seem very light, but not unusably so.

Overall, this is so well done that calling it a beta seems needlessly humble. Beautiful, beautiful work.

[Wicked Mouse]

Thanks for the heads up and constructive feedback, guys.

- I know that there are huge fans of minimalistic toolbars. But as I was still discovering the art of UI skinning for LOTRO just yet, I didn't want to dive into repositioning too. Getting all the art work done was "hard" enough for me as it was/is =)

- I'll look into something more 'special' for the player vitals, making it stand out from the normal mobs.

- Copper coin 'glitch'. Well spotted! Before 'launch' I corrected the gold and solved coins already. But guess copper had one too Will sort it out.

[The Scyphozoa]

Actually... I kind of think that the player vitals level number looked better with the wood frame than the ribbon. But everyone else seems to like the ribbon, so do what you want.

[Wicked Mouse]

For those that do not pay attention enough on the download section: I've updated the skin

[OarisJM]

Loving the new border around the character portrait, that scrollwork is just what it needed.