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  #31  
Unread 04-24-2009, 01:04 PM
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cipher_nemo cipher_nemo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wicked Mouse
Going back ON topic: I'm pleased to see that the LOTRO UI isn't like in WoW. This way everyone is equal in its tools.

(...)

So everyone has the same tools, so everyone is treated equally and no need to download and update all kinds of mods and add-ons.
UI Mods, and especially ones written by the community, don't have to add features unavailable in the original UI. People associate "mods" with something like WoW has, which is a completely open UI.

Mods could be handled quite differently, allowing a lot of different ways to show the same information available to everyone, but without offering mods the ability to create their own information.

As for trying to associate game-play "fairness" with the same UI for everyone, that's a big failure. Everyone likes their UI a little different, just like everyone wants their UI elements moved around and placed differently. Is it unfair that I run LOTRO with 3 monitors via a Matrox Triple-head device? I get far more real-estate for moving UI elements out of my middle monitor. Some might consider that unfair, but that's life. I put more money into my gaming rig than you. Alternatively, do I complain that teenagers play LOTRO who have better reflexes than I and are generally better at PvP? No, that's their advantage.

Don't argue "fairness" because there is no level playing field for it in an MMO.

Last edited by cipher_nemo : 04-24-2009 at 01:08 PM.
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  #32  
Unread 04-25-2009, 08:47 PM
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Wicked Mouse Wicked Mouse is offline
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I'm talking about opening information and ways that isn't available without it. I don't mean rearranging existing UI elements. That you can do already.
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  #33  
Unread 04-27-2009, 03:57 PM
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cipher_nemo cipher_nemo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wicked Mouse
I'm talking about opening information and ways that isn't available without it. I don't mean rearranging existing UI elements. That you can do already.
You can't take your morale/power along with everyone else's in a raid/fellowship and display it in any way you want without a mod. Sure, you can skin it, move it around a little, but that's about it.

Can you display percentage instead of numbers? No. Can you get an average outlook of the entire raid's moral in one simplified bar without a mod? No. Can you have a dynamic, updated display of clickable names for those who are low on power or morale without a mod? No.

These would be mods to use the data you're already given and display it in different ways. That's the definition of a mod. As for WoW mods, Blizzard opened it up to grab data the regular UI doesn't use. It doesn't have to be that way with Turbine's LOTRO, but it can be much more dynamic than the current UI.
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  #34  
Unread 07-04-2009, 03:02 PM
OddGamer OddGamer is offline
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Hope this comes in.

I'd love to see this sort of scripting. There's really only two mods I ever cared about from WoW that I'd love to see here.

One was the inspiration for this whole thread, Auctioneer. When I pick up something in the field I generally have no idea what to sell it for at auction, and other sites find it impossible to collect that sort of information. This makes figuring out a good price almost impossible for a lot of items. More than that, for most people this is a game, not a way of life. It'd be nice to have a more reasonable idea of the realistic value of an item, what people are actually buying it for, than just guess-work or a lot of experience.

The second one has to do with bags. There was one called Bagnon that allowed you to rearrange you bag display a lot and, more importantly, allowed you to treat all your bags as one huge thing so that when you were looking for something it wasn't a pain in the neck trying to remember which bag it's in, you just opened them all at once and saw everything. It also made it easier to rearrange items in packs. One could choose the number of items in a row, the size of the display (I routinely made it smaller), the background. Another thing it did was allow one to see what they had in the bank from a distance, which is mostly a time saver since that way you didn't have to go back to town to find out if you had X or not there, you could just look.

I guess I used couple more a lot as well, Reagent info and Mob info. Reagent Info tells me what something is used for, but LotRO does that already. MobInfo, though, gives a good guess at HP, resistances, and whether or not they run, as well as things they commonly drop. I could live without those, though, since LotRO gives the HP which is mostly what I cared about.

Anyway, if here's hoping that scripting shows up in the next expansion! I'd like to see these sorts of things there.
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  #35  
Unread 07-06-2009, 06:21 AM
rushl rushl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OddGamer
The second one has to do with bags. There was one called Bagnon that allowed you to rearrange you bag display a lot and, more importantly, allowed you to treat all your bags as one huge thing so that when you were looking for something it wasn't a pain in the neck trying to remember which bag it's in, you just opened them all at once and saw everything. It also made it easier to rearrange items in packs.
While LOTRO doesn't allow any scripting, you might be interested in my bag mod. It dramatically reduces bag real estate, and appears as a seamless inventory. You can check it out here!

rushl
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  #36  
Unread 08-20-2009, 03:27 PM
Miskaton Miskaton is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frosty
Full on scripting of UI's ala Auctioneer, Outfitter, or any other WoW mod involves having the game engine and the UI plugin communicate. The Turbine engine is not currently set up to do that - you can't just flip a switch and "hey, look at me scripting UIs!"
Some things I'd like to recommend that you think about as this rumbles around at Turbine World Corporate HQ....
  • Don't write your own language (talk to the folks that did Second Life for how that turns out)
  • LUA is, of course, a great option, which is why Blizzard chose it. But there are other embeddable scripting languages.
  • Start small. There's no reason to support every aspect of your UI on first release. I think auction house statistics trackers and bag mods are probably the two things people will clamor for the most... consider supporting those first.
  • If there are security concerns, just drop support for the areas of concern until they're worked out. I'd rather have scripting capabilities where it doesn't break the game and get the other stuff later.
  • Consider creating your own distribution and repository system that requires a particular licensing scheme that is reasonable for collaborative development and external hosting of project development where that might help. This avoids lots of community angst and drama.
  • As far as auction house mods go, please do a better job of providing basic stats to mods than WoW does. Having to "scan" the auction house is a load on the servers, and a pointless bit of busy-work for players.

I'm heartened to hear that this is being planned. I'm in the middle of writing a fairly lengthy review of LOTRO for my blog, and while almost all of it is positive, this is one big area that I find unsatisfying. I'll definitely make note of the future possibilities, now.
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  #37  
Unread 08-20-2009, 09:50 PM
Murazorz Murazorz is offline
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I most wholeheartedly agree with Miskation in this thread and what's mentioned in this thread.

I really hope they bring scripting into the game in the next expansion. In my experience it creates a community and Turbine can actually "outsource" part of the UI work to that community.

What I don't want is boss-mods a la BigWigs. Having boss-mods is actually both good and bad, it enables the developers to make harder or more advanced fights, because players can rely on the mod to catch it all and warn you, while it would be almost impossible to keep abreast of all the factors without a mod. The bad thing is obviously that people don't have to learn the fight the hard way and so on, and it dumb things down. And I must say that I like that the fights are a bit less hectic in LotRO than some of fights in WoW.

One of the things I liked the most about WoW's modding was the ability to track buffs/debuffs in an easy way, so I knew when to refresh them without pearing at a 4x4 bitmap. And of course the ability to completely modify my UI.
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  #38  
Unread 12-06-2009, 01:28 AM
Farinhin Farinhin is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 7
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miskaton
Some things I'd like to recommend that you think about as this rumbles around at Turbine World Corporate HQ....
  • Don't write your own language (talk to the folks that did Second Life for how that turns out)
  • LUA is, of course, a great option, which is why Blizzard chose it. But there are other embeddable scripting languages.
  • Start small. There's no reason to support every aspect of your UI on first release. I think auction house statistics trackers and bag mods are probably the two things people will clamor for the most... consider supporting those first.
  • If there are security concerns, just drop support for the areas of concern until they're worked out. I'd rather have scripting capabilities where it doesn't break the game and get the other stuff later.
  • Consider creating your own distribution and repository system that requires a particular licensing scheme that is reasonable for collaborative development and external hosting of project development where that might help. This avoids lots of community angst and drama.
  • As far as auction house mods go, please do a better job of providing basic stats to mods than WoW does. Having to "scan" the auction house is a load on the servers, and a pointless bit of busy-work for players.

I'm heartened to hear that this is being planned. I'm in the middle of writing a fairly lengthy review of LOTRO for my blog, and while almost all of it is positive, this is one big area that I find unsatisfying. I'll definitely make note of the future possibilities, now.
I was thinking something on the lines of a very limited amount of support. This could be done by forcing the mods to be called through a built in filter, and if it has anything not supported it will inform you and close the mod. I am not really wanting a ton of mods out there. They were both the best, and the worst thing about WoW after all. I do think it would be nice to have some informational mods though. I would be happy with things like auction statistics, a list of what is in my bank at any given time (for tradeskills), and maybe a modification to the craft window that will show (maybe in parenthesis) what finished product I could make out of the raw materials I have (bank and on hand would be nice).

Last thing I would like is a shopping list type of concept (could be part of the quest/accomplishment tracker). Basically, you could select an item to track in your craft panel and it would calculate the materials needed to make it, and then keep a list of what you need up.

Example of how this would work is as follows.
Lets say I want to make "Heavy Cloth Armour." I tell the game to track that recipe. It then quickly calculates that it takes the following.
  • 1x leather binding,
  • 2x leather pads,
  • 1x bold of rough cloth,
  • and the crit item (could be excluded if master level not attained).

It then checks to see what I have of the listed items. Let us say that I have 1x leather pad. It would then display that I need the following
  • bought:
    0/1 - bold of rough cloth
  • crafted:
    1/2 - leather pad
    - 2/4 - Piece of light leather
    0/1 leather binding
    - 0/2 - Piece of light leather
  • Raw:
    2/6 - light hide
  • Crit Item
    Whatever it is now

As the items on the raw list are attained they would be checked off as it does with accomplishments/quests. If I were to buy one of the crafted items needed it were to reduce the "Raw" needed by the necessary amount and check off the item. Let us say that I get another leather pad from an alt. It would then remove the item from the list (like a quest does), and change the raw materials to "4/6 - light hide."



Now these do not need to be made by the community. I would be perfectly happy with them being made officially and released in a volume (3 would be good) or expansion.


Just my 2-cents.

@Frosty,
If you can only get one done, please consider the idea for the craft tracking. It will make crafting less tedious (which is the reason I have given up on it for now).

Last edited by Farinhin : 12-06-2009 at 01:32 AM.
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  #39  
Unread 02-12-2010, 04:08 AM
Mirarkitty Mirarkitty is offline
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Personally I'd be happy just if I just could buy stuff from the crafting window - or filter the vendor on the current recipe - instead of browsing through the vendor shop eternally.

Not that I would mind a really, really useful crafting solution...
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