big, thick morale/power bars??

[Lennalf]

I have been searching and searching, but I cannot find any minimalist skins with larger vitals. I find the morale/power bars to be too small, and the space around them is just wasted. It's cruelty to minstrels in my opinion.

I've seen Deewe's addon that removes the skin entirely, which is a major step in the right direction... has anybody simply replaced it with something very, very, very basic that doesn't cover the blue/green?

Thank you very much :)

[Lennalf]

actually, I have JUST found a UI just like the one I wanted; ArenaUI v3. It pwns.

The only problem is that if I scale up the vitals, there is pixellation of the actual text itself. Is there any known way to avoid this ugly pixellation?

Thank you :)

[Cleitanious]

actually, I have JUST found a UI just like the one I wanted; ArenaUI v3. It pwns.

The only problem is that if I scale up the vitals, there is pixellation of the actual text itself. Is there any known way to avoid this ugly pixellation?

Thank you :)

Nope.

Actual size adjusting of the health/power bars isn't possible and that ugly excuse for scaling is the only option.

[Lennalf]

Okay, that's what I feared/figured. I wonder if (and hope that) we will see more flexibility in the UI in the future. I would really like to be able to make a full conversion so that I can optimize my interface for my playing needs, and that involves having a cleaner way to display information.

In about 90% of custom WoW UIs, the most notable change from the default UI is big, fat health/mana bars that can easily be monitored in one's peripheral vision (especially when using a widescreen), and often the elimination of border graphics entirely. Until that's possible, UI customization in LOTRO is depressingly useless from a practical standpoint.

That said, there are certainly many very attractive cosmetic alternatives now, and I do appreciate those who have created them. I've found a few that I prefer to the default. They don't help the eye strain, but they look pretty.

In my opinion, the currently skinnable elements are the *least* important to gameplay... just menus and background images. It's a real shame, because half the point of UI customization is being able to optimize the way information is displayed.

The current UI skin engine is an enormous cocktease. Ironically, if there were no skinning at all, I wouldn't think about it nearly as much, but because there is *some* skinning, I'm quite irritated :) Guild Wars had a non-skinnable UI that scaled poorly as well (not AS poorly though) and I just accepted it.

I don't play WoW, but I have to admit that the degree of UI customization offered by Blizz does an ENORMOUS service to its community. I hope that Turbine will understand the needs and desires of a strong MMO community and open up the UI more!

I have a feeling they know what we want for the next incarnation of a UI theme engine, and just aren't prepared to tell us it is in the works until they know they have a finished product... or am I just kidding myself? :)

[Enfield]

I pretty wholeheartedly agree with you there Lennalf, though I wouldn't go as far to say that skinning in LOTRO is useless. It definitely is disheartening as a UI developer to bump into limitations that prevent you from accomplishing what you wanted to do. Personally, I'd love to see an MMO use vector-based graphics and have a good animation API for the UI, but that's just a daydream for now.

[Frosty]

You can rest assured that Turbine does recognize what a fully moddable UI can do for a game. I'm sure someone less lazy than me can point you to a number of threads I've commented in about our UI technology and some of the "challenges" we've had even allowing users to skin different graphics.

Back to my hole...
-P