EQ2 icons = teh poor

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>Why do EQ2 icons look like theyve been designed on a vic20 ? compare these 2 well known games</p><p> <img src="http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/4540/uigu2.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="1680" height="429" /></p><p>Would it ever be possible to do a icon and UI revamp ?</p><p>Is it possible to mod the icons, like the UI can be modded ?</p>

[toxe14567]

I'd say the icons are fine. They are just a different style.

[Ozymundas]

I prefer the eq2 icons.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>you must have faulty eyeballs if you prefer the eq2 icons</p><p><img src="http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/748/spells04cn8.jpg" alt="" width="511" height="256" border="0" /></p>

[Nulad]

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>you must have faulty eyeballs if you prefer the eq2 icons</p></blockquote>Or possibly just a different opinion to yours <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Killerbee3000]

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>you must have faulty eyeballs if you prefer the eq2 icons</p></blockquote>no, some poeple love eq2 for its no bs down to earth more real graphics compared to the neon green hello kitty with spikes and floating bs approach of that other game.

[Terron]

Overall the EQ2 items look better to me.They are generally simpler and clearer.

[TimUK]

WoW's icons remind me of SWG icons, and that aint a good thing

[valkry]

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>you must have faulty eyeballs if you prefer the eq2 icons</p></blockquote><p>Actually, thanks to LASIK, my eyes are much better then they use to be, but....</p><p>The non EQ graphics, while fancier, are also much fussier and could be harder to see clearly. Maybe at your age and with your eyes, that is not a problem (and it might not be an issue concidering the average age of the players of that other game). At 41, I do have a problem with eye-strain after a day of looking at the computer for hours at work, then also using computer for my free-time. When it is not uncommon to find the 'mature gamer' on EQ, I can see the logic for keeping cleaner graphics and avoiding the need for Mario Bros-style keystroke. Gaming should be inclusive, not limited to folks with great eyes and super-fast reflexes.</p><p>/Shakes her cane, "Now see here, you young wippersnappers get off my yard. Back in my day we didn't have any fancy-smancy computers, we had to game with paper and pencil, dragging around backbooks full of heavy books, and that was the only exercise some of us got, that & climbing the stairs out of our parent's basements to go on soda runs..." /wanders off muttering about the 'old days' of gaming.</p>

[Zehl_Ice-Fire]

I think the majority of eq2 icons are blah and outdated. They are also so limited for making macros, how about putting any icon in game in the macro chooser.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>Project is underway to replace icons <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>It's my opinion that Icons should have a huge importance placed on them when designing. I mean your looking at these icons everyday, in everything you do - wether its looting, broker, bags, spells, weird and wonderfull icons should be everywhere.  Instead Eq2 uses the the same icons over and over on multiple items and it really makes it dreary. </p><p>More importance on different and colourfull icons plz <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p><img src="http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6425&d=1210785340" border="0" alt="" width="1400" height="892" /></p>

[Iseabeil]

<cite>Zehl_Ice-Fire wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the majority of eq2 icons are blah and outdated. They are also so limited for making macros, how about putting any icon in game in the macro chooser.</blockquote>Well, seeing how you already can use any icon for your macro, I fail to see the issue of it. Just drag the icon you want on top of the current when creating the macro.

[Aurumn]

I also prefer the EQ2 icons for convenience reasons. While the fancier icons provide a bit more eye candy, their busy backgrounds would make them too undistinguishable when shrunken or when similar ones are placed close together. If I only needed say 2 hotbars up then I'd say "go nuts" with the graphics on it. However my current 8-bar set up that's shrunken as small as I can get it and still not mis-click things would not be benefited by looking smudgier due to busy backgrounds. I'd much prefer that the art efforts are put into the game environment, characters and their interactions. A cool looking spell with a simple icon is much more interesting than a blah looking spell with a flashy icon.

[Dragowulf]

Something new and different is always good <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>gonna take forever <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p><img src="http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/1491/eq2000023lh3.jpg" alt="" width="1574" height="357" border="0" /></p>

[Valentina]

I prefer the EQ2 icons as well.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>redid the adept 1's</p><p><img src="http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7477/eq2000027sg1.jpg" alt="" width="1680" height="986" border="0" /></p>

[Maelwys]

I like the idea of new icons. Not copying the WoW ones, but something to make them stand out more would be nice.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

They should use the artwork from the new LoN cards maybe.. hmmm

[Rothgar]

Nice job on the icons so far!

[Pitt Hammerfi]

<p>well they're from WoW so i dont know if its legal or .. i mean i didnt draw them or anything, but yeah they are nice.</p><p>I would try to use LoN cards as icons, but they seem to be in an unreadable format all squished into 1 file.</p>

[Rothgar]

Bah!  See how much of a WoW newb I am?  I think I tried it for about 4 hours one night, it didn't interest me.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Some of the icons are nice, but a different style from EQ2 for sure.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

Yeah i'm the same - just tried the 15 day free trial, and thought some of the icons were well designed

[Te'ana]

While they other icons may be prettier when enlarged, at the small sizes on my computer screen the simpler EQ2 icons are much easier to understand <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Dasein]

One thing I'd really like to see are more icons for potions, especially the cure potions. Perhaps have different looking potion bottles for the different classes of potions (cures, heals, buffs, etc.), and then color-code the potions to differentiate the type and tier. Maybe add the sparklies rare harvests have to indicate the mastercrafted potions.

[Finora]

<p> I agree with Lateana & Dasein. </p><p>I have my hotbars/maintained/effects all pretty small & the busy icons like WOW has would just be tough to make out. </p><p>Color coded potions would be nice.</p><p>I do like the simplicity of most of the EQ2 icons... then again I have many times wished for the ability to label macros with just text in the hotbar box instead of an icon. /shrug </p><p>I like the world beautiful and my UI to blend into the background and be less noticable. </p>

[Eriol]

Ya I'd say that using WoW (or WC3, which is where MOST of the WoW icons came from) in a non-blizzard game would probably get you in trouble.Maybe grab T.King from the Vanguard team.  He redesigned most/all of the spell icons for EQ1 after they allowed moddable UIs (<a href="http://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/index.php?cid=27&dp=0&sh=full&so=desc&sb=lastupdate" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AMAZING icons</a>), and then later I heard he got on Vanguard.  No idea where he's ended up since (since somebody else is maintaining that UI now I think) but they were really a cut above, while keeping the spirit of the originals.

[Hamervelder]

<cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Overall the EQ2 items look better to me.<b>They are generally simpler and clearer.</b></blockquote>Agreed.  The WoW icons are just too busy.  They're fine when they're scaled up to a large size, but what about when you shrink them down to fit several hot bars on your screen?  They become too busy and complicated to be effective.

[cuendillar]

<p>Wait a minute, wait a minute... no one is going to comment on the fact that he used a VIC 20 as the example computer??</p>

[Neiloch]

People seem to have a REAL hard time distinguishing graphical power with graphical style. I tend to differentiate the graphical power and just call them graphics and call the style 'art.'Taking me a while to even be able to tell what those 'other' icons are. They look very ambiguous even if bigger, they seem to be designed as if the icon room they are being used can barely contain them, which is just ignorant. Since I'm over the age of 12 I've outgrown cartoons, so those super happy rainbow icons just don't do it for me.

[Dragowulf]

<cite>Eriol wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya I'd say that using WoW (or WC3, which is where MOST of the WoW icons came from) in a non-blizzard game would probably get you in trouble.Maybe grab T.King from the Vanguard team.  He redesigned most/all of the spell icons for EQ1 after they allowed moddable UIs (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/index.php?cid=27&dp=0&sh=full&so=desc&sb=lastupdate" target="_blank">AMAZING icons</a>), and then later I heard he got on Vanguard.  No idea where he's ended up since (since somebody else is maintaining that UI now I think) but they were really a cut above, while keeping the spirit of the originals.</blockquote>lol.  Did you know that T.King also designed the UI layout that we have in EQ2?

[Drodin]

I cant say pretty icons really matter too much to me either, the Eq2 ones are fine for the most part.  The only addition I would like to see are a few more "functional" macro designs.  In particular I would like just a simple alphabet A-Z and numbers 0-9.  Would be handy if for example, I wanted to make a macro to cast Spell X on Joe, Bob, Tim and Sandy at random times.  Currently my options are target them all directly, or make macros - either with 4 of the same icons, or 4 arbitrary icons like a book, a smiley face, a treasure chest, and a shield, and try to remember who is assigned to what.Now if there were macro icons for each letter, I could have a big old J, B, T, S sitting in front of me and things would be just a little bit easier to recognize.Of course I get by fine without that, but it would be nice.

[Albrig]

<p>EQ2 icons are 'poorer' - but the icons are not poor.</p><p>I played a Hunter on WoW (hell, who didn't) and the icon that I hated the very most was the one in black and grey - the one that marked your target. It stuck out so badly it really bothered me.</p><p>Forgive me for being a dick about this, but I hated that icon so much I could barely stand it - I mean First, it was simply a crosshair with the view that you were going to blow their head off of something that looked like a hooded guy you see on a kidnap reel: and Second, it didn't match the entire range of icons surrounding it (it had neutrality written all over it).</p><p>And with the Warlock there was the Amplify icon - which also just stuck out like a sore thumb.</p><p>I keep thinking that if I was designed these icons, I suddenly get an urge to think "I'm filled with a sense of neutrality. Grey and formless art here we come."</p><p>EQ2's icons have never done this to me.</p><p>The Ice Comet spell effect itself on the other hand - that was a shock. </p><p>I suggest to SoE that they go fire up Oblivion and then apply the Midas modification to it and then fire off a Ice Comet on that.</p><p>Yeah. THAT'S the way to do it.</p><p>Nice icons at least.</p>

[Fired]

I realize this is stuck back at page three, and therefore isn't terribly likely to be noticed, but I'd just like to add this-The EQ2 icons seem to be just fine to me, except one glaring detail- there aren't enough of them. It would be nice to be able to differentiate between, say a stack of vulrich meat and elephant meat without having to hover over said stacks. In terms of efficiency, there is much work to be done. This isn't to say that you can't repeat icon usage, this is a time honored tradition. However, at least as far as tradeskilling/gathering goes, it would be handy for like items on the same tier to have unique icons for simple organizational purposes.

[LordPazuzu]

Just for the sake of complete dissent, I prefer Vanguard's icons.

[Nakaru-Nitepaw]

T King made some nice UI's but most of them seem a little too fancy for me. They take up more screen space then i want. However they do look nice. Right now i use profitUI for EQ2, and the default UI for EQ1 with some modifications made so the XP AAXP gauges show in the player window. I like a little eye candy but i like performance more. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />