Thread: Hey Frosty(or any dev that works on the UI) any word on new art assets????

it been about 4 months since update one...no art assets released then...

with update 2 around the corner will there be any released?

or is UI skinning a thing of the past?

i know its the weekend.....but i am hoping you UI devs still read the forums...

hopefully come monday you all can give us some sort of heads up?

The UI panel changes are still only about half complete in this build of Bullroarer.

While it doesn't hurt to remind Turbine that the art assets and skin definitions should be published when the update is released, it wouldn't make much sense to do it quite yet.

Originally Posted by Fredelas

The UI panel changes are still only about half complete in this build of Bullroarer.

While it doesn't hurt to remind Turbine that the art assets and skin definitions should be published when the update is released, it wouldn't make much sense to do it quite yet.

well..the whole reason for bringing it up now...is becuase they forgot or neglected to release any for the last update back in November.

trying to remind them way ahead of time....

or...for them to tell us they do not plan to support this feature further

also...they could release the art assets from update 1 while we wait for update2

i mean...we can hope right?

Pretty Please!

I've been working on a brand new UI skin since August, and I'm starting to get it wrapped up, but I've been waiting on the latest update changes. If skinning isn't going to be supported any more with the new content, I'll be very disappointed. I've put many many hours of free time into this effort.

It would be very helpful indeed if we could have the newest art assets. If not for the November Update, then for Update 2.

Yes...newest art assets...please. Thanks.

Agreed. I especially want access to that new character panel. If the old one is the Boss...



...(who's sorta frumpy, but is undoubtedly functional), the new one is Elton John...



...(who may be functional, but certainly doesn't look like it).

I want to fix my old craft panel and I know others do also. Please release the new art assets.

It's best to wait after the March update to ask for them or when ever is the patch day is.

This why I longer try to fix currently my UI although it is basically updated.

Turbine in the past has changed the xml code for the UI after we get the patch that breaks the Ui that worked on Bullroarer.

I'm hesitating working on my dressing room mod cause of this.

In the past I had set my toolbar that was movable that worked on bullroarer but then when it went live it broke.

I had put many hours on that toolbar mod of mine for nothing.

Originally Posted by Bry2007

It's best to wait after the March update to ask for them or when ever is the patch day is.

This why I longer try to fix currently my UI although it is basically updated.

Turbine in the past has changed the xml code for the UI after we get the patch that breaks the Ui that worked on Bullroarer.

I'm hesitating working on my dressing room mod cause of this.

In the past I had set my toolbar that was movable that worked on bullroarer but then when it went live it broke.

I had put many hours on that toolbar mod of mine for nothing.

but the problem is....we waited till after update 1 and got bumpkus

so we started asking early once update2 got closer...

i and others have even sent Frosty PMs back around u1 and even more recently...no one i know has gotten a reply.

the way it looks to me is that Turbine no longer has the desire to support this part of the community...

we shall know for sure once update 2 hits whether or not Turbine has kicked ui skinners to the curb

As far I remember Turbine never actually or officially supported Ui skinning,they have mention that we can make skins but they do not support it officially capacity.

As far LUA,that's officially supported in a sense by the dev team of the LUA section.

Quote from Frosty:

All of the normal EULA stuff with regards to these images apply:

"Your use of the UI components for The Lord of the Rings Online™ is subject to Turbine’s Terms of Service and the UI components shall be considered “Downloaded Content” for purposes thereof. The assets in this file may only be used with your user interface and may not be distributed or used for any other purpose. This file is provided without support of any kind. "

And then the problem is Turbine can ignore us since it's not officially supported.

Frosty is such a nice guy that he went to Turbine ask them and the legal department about releasing the Ui skin packs for us moders,of course with no support.

whether it is officially supported or not has no bearing whatsoever on if they can or cannot ignore us.

if they want to ignore us they will...period.

the facts are that they created a game "feature" that allows one to skin your own ui.

that implied support.......

when they would make changes to the ui and release new art assets to the skinners...that is support.....

with update 1 they did not release anything....that implies they no longer support it.

with update 2 around the corner....

ALL we are asking for is some kind of confirmation that they no longer wish to support this part of the community.

ALL we are asking is whether or not we are wasting our time on a dead feature.

since as they make changes to the UI more and more skins will become unusable.

Hi!
I'm a bit late to the game, coming to LOTRO right at the December update. Most skins and plugins didn't wotk at the time, and since then only a few have been updated.
As an observer and potential participant, I will say that it sure seems like Turbine only wanted to provide token Lua support and regrets releasing skinning information at all. I feel this way because of the lack of communication on the topic, the fact that no art asset IDs (required information for the LotRO user interface modification xml) for any of the elements added to the UI since, what, September 2010? and the needless limitations on plugin capability (e.g. no keyboard support and limited target information).
Here is my speculation. Free to Play is actually Free to Play with Advertising (and VIP is VIP with Advertising) for the LOTRO Store. The first thing any skinner would do, given the ID of the advertising text and button elements, would be to reduce or eliminate them from the interface--we just would. Giving players a way to avoid the very advertising they worked so hard to integrate into the game just doesn't make sense on the face of it, so they'd rather not talk about it at all anymore.
Plugins weren't the topic, but I think still related. If a plugin were allowed to have toolbar buttons powered by keystrokes, you could eliminate the default toolbar from your interface, which would include the button for the LOTRO Store which takes up, I guess, about 5-7% of the toolbar area. So not allowing plugin toolbars to be keystroke enabled eliminates this issue. I don't agree that plugins are limited to reduce botting. There are other means of achieving that goal (just for example as is implemented, not allowing simulated mouse-clicks, reducing the importance of Gold as a currency, and not allowing players [those using non-companion classes] to automatically fight back when attacked).
I say it is all about the LOTRO Store Buttons!

Originally Posted by Darej

ALL we are asking for is some kind of confirmation that they no longer wish to support this part of the community.

ALL we are asking is whether or not we are wasting our time on a dead feature.

This kind of answer is against Turbine policy to provide. Instead it is the BLACK HOLE. In goes the request, nothing come out.

It seems like Turbine reacts this way in all their games for the last what seven years now. They got this internal sensor - the answer contains - NO or NOT - transmission terminated.

Once in a while you will get a NO or NOT answer if something like CoC, ToS, Eula issue. Even when it is something they do not think they will ever do they will use "We have NO plans at this time" - It is a no but a milder no.

IMHO - It is a lack of resources. Frosty probably is allowed to do it. He has to do it on his own nickel as free over time. He may very well be putting in more hours than he wants to.

I've run into this problem at my work. I am already exhausted from 80 hour weeks. I do not work this kind of hours any more. It was tearing my family apart. Killing me - literally - my health was degrading.

Hey guys,

I just wanted to give my support. I don't personally make UI's, but i do use DaimonUI (purple) and i love the work all you guys do one making these interfaces. It's very clear you all put a lot of time and hard work into them.

I think it's a real shame that you aren't getting more support with this and i hope that will change soon, so you guys can carry on doing what you're all so good at.

Come on UI Dev's, help out please!

I want to support all the talented Lotro UI makers!

I hope Turbine will realize how these guys make their game even more enjoyable.

Thanks for the support all.

Turbine just doesn't seem to realize how important part of the UI modding is for MMO's (or any other game, but especially for MMO's). Frosty knew it's value and perhaps his team but now him gone (?) it isn't looking good. There's a huge amount of work hours spent on those skins that the community has made. It would be just plain stupid to throw that all away.

At the moment at least I am pretty demoralized continuing the skinning as there's no official replies are they going to kill the skinning all together. We have wished for years for simple improvements but nothing. At least they have been following up what the community have done looking at the crafting panel for example that is almost an exact copy of one mod posted long ago in lotrointerface.com.

I see there might be a light at the end of the tunnel - this is only guessing but it might be that given enough time (probably years ) the UI could be redone completely by Lua scripting. That's just guessing though.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for what we have had and that we have been given a chance to skin the UI over the years. But I just hope a bit respect for the skinning community from Turbine.

We will see but I have a bad feeling about the future of skinning. If they only would give as a simple answer is skinning still "supported", yes or no would be at least something (pref. yes )

Daimon
Author of DaimonUI


ps. keep spamming this thread if you still want to see new skins!

i am really disappointed in Turbine over this....

i only use the defualt ui for mules...after 5 years i find it extremely boring

i have 14 active toons....at one time each and every one of them had their own custom user made ui that i was able to get from the wonderful skinners over at lotrointerface....

being able to have a custom ui for each toon really helps me 'get into' character...

eventually without support this ability will go away as the various ui's become unusable

i for one cannot imagine trying to play 14 toons all with the same identical ui....

please do not abandon this part of the community

Hey Turbine,

if you don't want to lose more customers i suggest you at least put the effort out with a yes or no of whether you are going to release this info.
One of the only reasons some people are still playing is they were finally able to change the plain, drab basic LOTRO UI.

Please help your fanbase out here and give some info. Info costs nothing.

UI interface artists I appreciate all your hard work. To bad a certain company doesn;t seem to as much.

I support this thread. I also would like to rant. The new character panel, imo, is horrid. It's too large, I don't like to scroll to see my stats, and I preferred rings, and bracelets to be beside each other. Would be great to be able to not have to use this terrible 'updated' panel.

Another update without a Skin Art Pack and I, for the first time ever, find myself posting on an official forum. Add another voice to the chorus of people requesting an update as I really quite miss tweaking the look and feel of the interface.

I realize that art asset and skin definition updates have occasionally taken some time in the past. However, the conspiracy theorist in me is running wild now, thinking that Turbine is more concerned about LOTRO Store button prominence than player choice.

./signed

Please give the people that have put so much time and effort into the skinning the ui updated info.

Originally Posted by Fredelas

I realize that art asset and skin definition updates have occasionally taken some time in the past. However, the conspiracy theorist in me is running wild now, thinking that Turbine is more concerned about LOTRO Store button prominence than player choice.

Your not the only one thinking this way.

On the skindefinition file and the skin directory file they do intend to expose those buttons code's and can be disable if some one was willing to tweak the code for every panel which I doubt.

But could be disable on the primary panels as in the character sheet.

This what I think that's why there reluctant to relase a skin pack at this moment.

Originally Posted by Bry2007

Your not the only one thinking this way.

On the skindefinition file and the skin directory file they do intend to expose those buttons code's and can be disable if some one was willing to tweak the code for every panel which I doubt.

But could be disable on the primary panels as in the character sheet.

This what I think that's why there reluctant to relase a skin pack at this moment.

well...nothing wrong with getting rid of the big coins and filigree...the button would still be there.

and while i can understand to a point their reluctance for this...

the fact remains.....we have been sending tells...and posting threads about this since update1

and all we are asking is....just let us know..are you gonna continue support...or not?

we just wanna know if we are wasting our time on a community feature thats no longer supported

I loved the idea of customizing my UI and seeing some my favorite user UIs like the hobbit shire one. I was even giving thought of creating one for my own kinship. I would love fr turbine to bring the art assests back to be able to make this possible so both my kin and my self can enjoy other people's beautiful and wonderful UIs as well as make our own.

i really enjoyed using UIs and it would be wonderful if you could bring the art assests back so we can continue to use them

I feel that everyone is different and that the UI should different for everyone too. I don't think its too much to ask for some individuality.

According to Frosty's profile on lotrointerface, he has visited and logged into that site as recently as February 8th, 2011.

So we know he's still out there keeping an eye on us, at least.

Even if it is too much work to get the whole set, I would love to just get the skin definition for the character panel.

In the meantime, I'll be playing around with the old one to see how many of the old panel components are still used.

Does anyone know whether there are any consistent naming conventions for the store buttons?

Originally Posted by slack_n_hash

Even if it is too much work to get the whole set, I would love to just get the skin definition for the character panel.

Me, too:

<Mapping ArtAssetID="big_honkin_class_i con" FileName="invisible.tga"></Mapping>
<Mapping ArtAssetID="big_honkin_shield" FileName="invisible.tga"></Mapping>
<Mapping ArtAssetID="fugly_blue_backgro und" FileName="invisible.tga"></Mapping>
<Mapping ArtAssetID="fugly_blue_header" FileName="invisible.tga"></Mapping>

Originally Posted by slack_n_hash

Does anyone know whether there are any consistent naming conventions for the store buttons?

There's no consistent naming conventions for anything. Why would the store buttons be any different?

Some of them do contain "MTX" in some form or another, but those were just coin icons, not the buttons themselves. I haven't found where (or if) they're used.

Originally Posted by slack_n_hash

Even if it is too much work to get the whole set, I would love to just get the skin definition for the character panel.

In the meantime, I'll be playing around with the old one to see how many of the old panel components are still used.

Does anyone know whether there are any consistent naming conventions for the store buttons?

Thinking with the picture I say we need them all, not just the new character panel. And it is probably easier for them to release it all and not starting to pick up a few parts here and there.

That's probably the reason why we haven't seen the new art asset pack as they are afraid we would remove the store buttons.

Must say now that I finally got my hands on the Update 2 the store button amount have sky-rocketed and with a vip account it is really starting to finally get to me. They are just everywhere now. I wouldn't probably mind them if they were smaller, like an small icon here and with all those huge buttons all around I'm really starting to dislike the UI.

If I had access to the buttons I wouldn't remove them completely as I can see their usefulness (being as Store itself is so annoying to browse - hardly can find anything there and it's so damn slow too) but I would make the buttons smaller and remove the unnecessary text from them (I mean really, do you really have to spell with a big text this is where you can buy a new outfit slot as it's pretty obvious what the link does even without the text - makes me think they think i'm completely idiot or something).

Seriously Turbine. Fix your UI more user-friendly and stop underestimating your customers. Hire some UI developers. The UI in MMO's is a very important part of the client. Blizzard knew this years ago and they knew how to take advantage of the free workforce they have in the form of the community. The game would have died long ago without that community.

Lua support in Lotro is a step to a better direction but it really isn't enough and looking how slow that project is moving along it will takes us years before we can make the UI we want it to be. Lotro was released 2007 and for 4 years we have had to stare the same damn old UI - and without the art assets we can't even skin it anymore.

Anyways. Back to the topic.

New Art Asset Pack. Please.

Originally Posted by DaimonUI

If I had access to the buttons I wouldn't remove them completely as I can see their usefulness (being as Store itself is so annoying to browse - hardly can find anything there and it's so damn slow too).

Same here. I much prefer to launch the store right into the item I want.

The first thing I would do would be increase the size of the panel (hi-res monitor) so that I can see all of my stats at once.

Then I would rearrange the avatar panel and slots, as I use a huge custom Dressing Room when I want to try things on. I could probably do the avatar now but there is bound to be something new that I don't know the name of and can't move.

Turbine,
please address this skin asset issue as you have alot of po'ed customers who are only trying to enrich the community and you are choking off creativity that would do nothing but improve the looks and increase interest in this boring,blah thing you call a UI.
Again, please, release the assets so others can help.
Cheers

+1

Give people the tools they need to work on the UI's.

Please release the art assets, my current favorite UI is DaimonUI Mini, I love minimalist UIs. Please help out the UI skinning community and release them!

We definitely need the new assets. My poor UI looks nasty with the new changes.

If they don't want to manually upload the new asset pack each time, then they should put a new folder in the patch downloads that includes the default skin assets and skin def files then we could just copy that folder each update to act as our template.

There's probably a big, ongoing fight/debate between devs and marketing right now...about.. giving players the ability to get rid of all those strategically-placed store buttons..
You blame them?

Big Brother (WB marketing) doesn't like their billboards getting graffiti..

Originally Posted by aleczander

There's probably a big, ongoing fight/debate between devs and marketing right now...about.. giving players the ability to get rid of all those strategically-placed store buttons..
You blame them?

Big Brother (WB marketing) doesn't like their billboards getting graffiti..

i doubt it

there has been more then enough time for them to discuss this.....