Thread: New UI interface

Hi,
There is something I would like to tell about the game.
I think it's a really great game but there is just a little problem for me and a lot of players I know, it's the UI/Interface.
It's a major problem in the game that make it feel old and not friendly.
The best idea I think could be to make it younger, more responsive maybe too, but the most important is that it should not make the game feels so old.

The graphics of the game are ok, even if I would love to have a patch with more defined models to make the game even younger too, especially on the 3D graphic engine, but I think before that a little renew of the interface (so we don't have to use some add ons to be able to play with all our powers and stuffs) could be a great idea.
Maybe it could be great to make it younger when "The Hobbit", the movie, will come out.
It will be a free commercial for your game but if the players feel that the game is too old they won't stay and it could be interesting, I think, to grow a little bit the community of lotro and make it alive again.

This game could easily kick Wow or other MMOs out of the market with a young feeling when players will come here after viewing the movie.
I hope this will enter in your schedule
Thanks for this great game anyway.


Eldaan


PS: your new commercial for the Rohan expansion is REALLY great ! It's better than in game footage for me. It's inspiring and makes people want to play !

What do you consider a "young" feeling? I don't want LotRo to become a teenie game. I am 39 years old and I like the UI the way it is. The UI for a computer game needs to be practical so that I can configure it the way I want it to be and that I find everything I need. The LotRo interface has got both aspects for me - so no, I don't want it to feel younger. I remember with horror what Bioware/EA did to Dragon Age with DA2 in order to make it more appealing to people who didn't play the game yet. No need to do that.

Hi,
When I say young, I don't mean that kind of young. In fact I'm a fan of realistic games, I don't like the cartoon style and every manga MMOs.
When I say young I think about the actual games. This interface is meant to be a diablo like for example. More graphic with more details, less austere and less pixelated. For me I think it's not enough customizable for example, you can't move your toolbars the way you want, organize them. I know you can do that with some plug-ins but it's kind a pain in the rear ! It should be part of the game. Add some rolling menus for the portals, many things like that.
Don't you feel it's a little bit old ?
Look Warhammer, it's a great MMO with a large background like LOTRO, you can do the best MMOs ever with this kind of resources ! But this one died month by month because the peoples were thinking that Warhammer was not enough responsive (one of the best point on blizzard Mmo)
It's really hard to explain but I found THE video to explain what I'm waiting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBC_ig73aMs

Look the first point of the video, I know it's for GW2 but it is so right !
My experience tell me that people are leaving mmo cause they are tired of it or because of an old gameplay.
I think Turbine began the fix of all these problems with the animation options they made. It's fixing fluidity, responsive of all the buttons and powers, but I think they can do more on that !
That's my point, let me know if you understand better what I think and your feeling on it after that

PS: I'm younger but not that much. I'm 25 years old, don't worry I'm not 16

Well, I never saw Diablo or WoW, so I can't say anything about that. I watched the vid about GuildWars you
linked here. Sure, it's a bit more flashy and shiny and colorful, but - well, I guess I just want the LotRo UI
to stay the way I am accustomed to

The GW UI shown in the vid is not bad, but I just don't really need everything bright and colorful.
What really bugs me in playing LotRo is the amount of time I have to dedicate to inventory management.
When I'm crafting, doing tasks, and carrying some healing potions and buffs with me, my inv gets
cluttered very fast, especially in inis where you get lots of loot.

The other thing is, the quick bars should be bigger. Now that I am getting near the level cap,
I really have to decide what to put on the quick bars and what not.

Maybe it's just a matter of personal preference whether a person likes the current UI or not.
I agree that configurability could be better, but it's not too big an issue for me.

Regards,
Gildoriel

It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but Lotrointerface has a lot of custom skins similar to the layout/style of the UIs shown in the video.

TonicBars

customizable quick bars that can have what ever size you want pretty much. Can also do extensions to "hide" elements. For example, all my mounts are on 1 extension bar that is displayed as the size of one quickslot until I mouse over it.

Yes, can be a bit overwhelming at first, but now I wonder how I did with out the plugin.

You can get it at www.lotrointerface.com along with other skins.

Hi, and thank you for your answers.
To Gildoriel: Yes I think you are so used to it that maybe you love it ^^ but I can fully understand your feeling.
I know that I'm a casual gamer that's why I'm not fully in the Lotro interface cause I have seen many other kind in other games, that's may be why I have this feeling. That's why I was asking for this kind of improvement so maybe they could have more casual gamers and maybe more players from other games because with the actual one they have this feeling.
Like you said : "I agree that configurability could be better, but it's not too big an issue for me." a little bit more on this could be great.
"It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing. "
I think it explains what I'm feeling on that ^^.

To StavroMuellerBeta and Ecsmyth: Thank you I have tried these plugins and yes they really make the interface better but I think and it's why I created this thread that Turbine could make their own interface with these kind of ideas. They could take all that stuff and makes it part of the game and maybe even greater with some fancy things like elven graphics design and not such old box design. I think it should not be plugins for the game but game interface ^^.



One other thing I'm thinking as an idea, it could be great to being able to sell things directly from our bags and not the selling interface. I think it's easier to identify and sell what you want (if your bags are organized like mines) than searching for the item in the list.