Tanaka says UI code revamp in the works.Follow

First, there is no sarcasm at all in this, so turn off the detectors now, I am very happy about the love that XI's getting!

I am however amazed they're spending all this time and effort on some aspects of the game, the UI in particular. Given that anyone who's played it for more that a few months has come to at the least accept the 'legacy' nature of the UI and mechanics surrounding it .. personally I came to really like it .. I wonder what SE's motivation is for 'updating' it to something more modern.

It's one thing for them to do all the content changes and new game systems and their continued work on more end-game stuff, that I can see is something that readily translates into retained or even new players and more Yen into the coffers (which are under great strain from FFXIV I presume) but something like a re-worked UI and graphics rendering would, to me, seem to be far more difficult to see on a balance sheet.

Yes, improved presentation will help to attract new players I assume, but I really do wonder what sort of numbers of gamers who haven't played XI by now will ever take a look at a game approaching its 10-year birthday, in comparison to bright young things such as SW:TOR, maybe GW2, Rift or slightly older ones like LOTRO, and even the 800lb gorilla from Blizzard.

I have to say that all this new energy they have been throwing at XI for the last many months makes me really sad they didn't adopt this new 'open' and 'player friendly' approach many years ago: seems the train-wreck of XIV was needed to wake them and realise their original "STFU and love what we give you" approach to player concerns was counter-productive and probably lost a good number of players for good.

I don't know if I am more surprised SE is looking at this change, or that Lobi has actually been rated up.

However, in order to maintain balance players will be required to obtain 15,000 Heavy Metal Plates to get the UI changes and will only be able to log in to FFXI once per RL day.

I just hope they leave the commands where they are. I LOVE having the arrows for camera, and the numberpad for movement on the keyboard. They destroy this, and I will stop playing. FFXIV's camera controlls suck for not having arrow keys for camera movement. Though I will give them they have improved the camera's ability to follow which lessens the need for camera correction.

UI = User Interface

UI is short for User Interface....which is pretty much what you see how the game is designed and what you (the user) can use. In terms of the code it's just saying they going to change/enhance it.


Kind of like moving from Windows Vista to Windows 7
Both Windows Operating systems....but the interface of them are different...

Streamlining of menu traversing should definitely be the next thing they should work on.

Oh and more than 3 options per page.

a agree with the fear, there is definitely some things that are clunky about FFXIs UI, but I absolutely love how little is on my screen, that being said I'm still optimistic that this overall will entail improvements without removing what is already great about it

HIP HIP HOORAY

and those capable of running XI to their 1080p televisions REJOICED!

I'm a little excited and worried at the same time.

One of my issues with a lot of MMOs is the clutter. Sure you can move stuff around, but it's still cluttered regardless of how you do it. I love the way things only appear on screen when you need them. My only real issue with the UI as it is would be the responsiveness of the macros.

Higher resolutions are wonderful, and for those that like smaller chat screens (I do not) it will be great for them.

Just please... make mouse use optional. I'm terrible at other MMOs because I really hate mouse controls outside of RTS or Diablo lol.

No! We will still be hiding in your lunch box.....

Can we turn this into a verb now?

Like .. you Tanaka'd that all up.

Elliander, though it's not really against forum rules or anything except in severe situations (like spam), please try to avoid necroposting in topics. Though we respect your opinion as far as the UI changes, to post in a topic that's been inactive for nearly 5 months is generally frowned upon.

They had this as part of the announcement:



That's not to say that they wouldn't do such a thing as try to kill some of the third party apps we have now, but taken at face value it looks like they're offering support for at least some of them.