But, now that I have finally sat down and fixed everything up (except for my damn minimap, which has resisted all the addons I threw at it) I am much happier. I even went one step further than I have ever gone before in customizing my interface - I moved my self and pet portraits down to the bottom of the screen, directly above my chat box. Now I can monitor my health and chat without moving my eyes, YAY. Not sure if this bit will stick or not. I'm having a hard enough time getting used to having my target and target of target boxes at the bottom of the screen. It's convenient in that I can monitor whatever I'm healing or killing without looking away from my skill bars or too far from my own character, but it's inconvenient in that I keep SHOOTING SHEEP because I can't see my target as well when i'm selecting targets without assisting someone off a main tank list...
Ideally, all these changes will begin to feel normal soon and I will stop fumbling around trying to find everything. I'm pleased that I managed to fit nearly every hunter skill neatly on the screen (minus a few melee skills - lawl raptor strike - and unused aspects) as well as a small variety of mounts and vanity pets!
A streamlined but informative UI is one of the most important parts of an MMO. Lineage II managed to master the art of the minimal interface, forcing all users to make due with the same skeleton interface. It was awful, but equally awful for everyone. Unless you used mods (banable offense) that told you the hp/mana/level/location of players every player had the exact same amount of information on every other - even if you were in the same party. There was a small sliver of extra information available to "trusted players" such as the clan listing a character's level. Otherwise, every interface provided the exact same information - there was nothing extra to be squeezed out of the game and displayed to players so there was no need for things like recount. Fortunately, the interface for Aion seems to have taken some much needed cues from WoW's in terms of layout and design - whether customization will follow or not remains to be seen (aside note: I want my beta key now).
I'll definitely be revisiting the topic of interfaces when I finally manage to weasel my way into Aion. I might even have to dig up some old footage/screenshots of older games to really make a broad analysis of the differences. After all, my ultimate passion will always be semantics and semiotics. MMO's are virtual worlds where every pixel is created for a reason. Every symbol and sign communicates buckets of knowledge to those who can interpret it, making each gamer into an unknowing semiotician. My last treatise on the topic ran a whopping 64 pages (hey, there were pictures too) and was for a research methods course for my master's degree. Hopefully I'll be able to speak more succinctly on the topic when speaking for an initiated audience (nothing like having to explain what a "mana bar" is to a bunch of professors...).
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