Preview Version of New UI

[srand]

IMPORTANT: Please read this post and the subsequent posts thoroughly as they contain important information and testing instructions.


Another preview version of Project: Gorgon's new UI is available for testing today. We're planning to retire the old UI in the next major update -- which is in two weeks! It's important to switch over quickly, because we'll be able to develop MUCH faster when only one GUI needs to be supported.

So we would love for you to spend some time with this preview build, at least a few sessions. Report bugs, of course. But also, tell us what problems really annoy you, that you feel NEED to be fixed before the old GUI is retired. Give us a general idea of how you're feeling about the new GUI after a few sessions: what works, what needs help, what's terrible, what's amazing?

If you'd like to participate, there are instructions below. Before we get to that, though, heed these warnings!

WARNING:

• Switching to this new build will require a full patch download.
• If you find a game-breaking bug that prevents you from playing, you can switch back to the old UI. But doing so will require another full patch download.
• Lesson: Do not try this yet if you have slow download speeds! (You can participate in the next phase when there is a lower chance you will have to re-patch.)

Now for the instructions.

IMPORTANT:

• These instructions are written for the Windows version of PG. You can test this very rough preview build on Linux or Mac, but only if you are completely comfortable with modifying these instructions for your OS.
• Remember, this is a voluntary test of a very rough preview. If these instructions don't make sense to you, you should sit this one out today.

So. You're going to add a special flag to the end of the command that runs the patcher.

1. Find the patcher icon (for example, ProjectGorgonLauncherWin.exe), right-click it, and choose "Create Shortcut".
2. Right-click on the newly-created shortcut, and choose Properties.
3. In the properties window, find the Target field. Add a space on the end, then -fileversion 289g. So, for instance, my Target field reads:
   

   "E:\Gorgon Live\ProjectGorgonLauncherWin.exe" -fileversion 289g

4. Press OK, then double-click the shortcut to run the launcher with those parameters. It will patch over the old download with the new experimental build.

REMEMBER to start the game from your new shortcut for as long as you want to test the very rough preview build, because when you use the non-shortcut version, it will patch right back to the mainstream live build.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM:
There is a confirmed bug in the launcher that can result in corrupt downloads in a few specific situations, and this build is one of those situations! A corrupt download can result in weird issues, including audio drop outs, crashes when loading into certain areas, and missing monster graphics.

This is not a bug in the new UI, but rather a bug in the launcher itself. So we'll have a new launcher available for download soon for both Windows and Mac. (The linux launcher doesn't suffer from this bug as far as I know.)

Until the new launcher is available, you can work around the problem with the Validate Installation feature. Here's how: when you see the "Play" button in the launcher, don't click it; instead click "More...", then "Validate Installation". When it's done, you're all set and can press Play.

You need to do this whenever you switch versions, either from old-UI to new-UI or from new-UI back to old-UI.

Reporting Bugs

We're going to handle bugs for today's test a bit differently than we usually do. If you find a bug in today's preview build, please post in here - in this thread! (The normal in-game reports don't know what build you are using, so keeping these separate today is going to save us a lot of confusion.)

When you post here, please label each bug you report with one of these keywords:

Bug: Something is obviously not working right.

Cosmetic: Something looks wrong, dumb, or very confusing.

Feedback: Suggestions, first impressions, and anything else we need to hear!

[srand]

Major Changes in This Build:

• New feature: You can show tiny health/armor/rage bars above all monsters' heads. This option is off by default but can be enabled in the settings, on the GUI tab. Look for "Show Vital Bars Over Monsters' Heads?" checkbox.
• New feature: Quests and favors that require a specific item now show a mini-icon of that item on the quest panel. You can right-click the icon to get More Info. PLEASE LET US KNOW if you come across quests where showing this icon seems like a spoiler.
• Fixed the key-binding screen so that you can correctly assign new keys to commands.
• The player-vendor screens now work. Theoretically.
• NPC chat has been separated from player chat so that you can turn them on/off separately. When you edit a chat tab you'll see a check-box for "Nearby" (which is player chat) and "NPC Chatter". Both are enabled for the Nearby tab by default, so default behavior is the same as before. NOTE: If you had previously configured your chat window tabs, they have been reset to their defaults.
• Vendor screen: Tooltips only show up when you hover over an item's icon, not the whole row.
• When mousing over the ability bars on the bottom of the screen, ability tooltips are shown in the upper left corner instead of near the mouse. (The tooltips are actually shown overtop the player-avatar window, wherever that may be, but by default it is in the upper left corner.)
• Abilities in the "Skills and Abilities" window are now organized into rows, with a separate row for each base ability. (So Punch 1, Punch 2, etc. share a row, while Kick 1, Kick 2, etc. share a different row.)
• Added a line at the bottom of item tooltips that says "press Alt to compare with your current equipment", because that's how to compare items and it wasn't very obvious. (On macs, you can also use the Mac key.)
• To prevent accidental item loss, we've reverted the feature that lets you drop items on the ground by dragging them from your inventory and dropping them in the 3D world. To drop items on the ground, either right-click them and choose "Drop Item", or drag them onto the new "bag" icon on the inventory screen. (To re-enable the earlier behavior, you can add "EasyDropItems" to the Special Settings window of the settings screen.)

Known Issues:

• Many types of monsters don't display properly in the monster-selection box, or are out of frame (either all the time, or when they are dead).
• Ability icons are sometimes grayed out when they will actually work (e.g. when targeting an invalid target that will auto-select a nearby valid target). Despite being grayed out, these abilities still work when pressed; this is a cosmetic issue.
• When trading with other players, there is supposed to be a "T" icon overlaying inventory items you're trading, but it's not implemented yet.
• You may need to manually configure your icon sizes in the Settings window, because the old GUI interprets those numbers in a different way. If your ability bar icons seems teensy, just go to Settings->GUI->Icon Sizes and make them larger. 48 is the default for all icon sizes.

[srand]

Other Changes:

• New improvement: You can change the size of the spell-effect icons, in the same way you can change inventory and ability icons. Note: the default size is slightly larger than before; if you prefer the old size just change it from 48 to 40.
• The notice that you have more than 4 characters is only shown if you have more than 4 characters (not exactly 4).
• If you select yourself (with the target-self key, F1 by default), the button now appears to let you examine yourself.
• When you die, the "Respawn" and "Enter the Light" buttons are now hidden until they can be used.
• Fixed visual bug when closing a window while dragging items.
• Fixed situations where book-GUI screens (such as from "/who all", skill reports, etc.) would appear blank because they were scrolled off screen by default.
• In the Recipe UI, the Skill selector dropdown in the sidebar is now taller to match the rest of the window.
• Fixed bugs that let you fly forever.
• Fixed a scenario where players could be rocketed into the sky and die from falling damage (probably -- it's hard to repro, but we think we fixed the underlying cause).
• The Settings menu now defaults to the System tab.
• The "Auto-Move To Interact Via Right-Click" preference is now honored correctly. In other words, right-clicking NPCs works.
• The "special override" to disable screen flashing now works in the new GUI. (But the flashing is more subtle in this GUI anyway.)
• Fixed scenarios where the Edit Chat Tab window could stop being shown.
• You can now join secret chat rooms.
• You can right-click items in storage to view the More Info screen.
• Fixed flickering when using vault screen.
• Fixed various glitchy issues with vault screen drag-and-drop.
• Fixed scenarios where the "lock" icon would disappear from locked items if you put them into storage and then retrieved them.
• Looted items don't disappear from the screen if you fail to pick them up (e.g. because you don't have any more inventory space).
• Erasing a loadout has a confirmation box.
• The assignable hotkeys for switching between loadouts now work.
• Fixed bug when switching between loadouts that use the same active skills as the ones you already were using.
• Fixed some issues with View Stable screen.
• Revised the npc-interaction window. If there is a menu of options, the menu is now shown in a special sidebar. The main window is correspondingly smaller, which works better when there are no menu-items (such as when looting a corpse).
• Fixed bugs in the item-info screen pertaining to NPCs that like items with specific skill prerequisites: those NPCs would sometimes not be listed.
• Fixed bugs in the item-info screen pertaining to NPCs that like items with specific cash value ranges: those NPCs would be listed for many inappropriate items.
• Fixed the "hide unusable" button on vendor screen.
• On the vendor screen, you can now type in the amount you want to buy rather than having to use the up/down arrows. (Not yet implemented for player-vendor screen).
• Training a recipe would not remove that recipe from the training UI until you zoned or logged out.
• You can now explicitly disable the quest tracker feature in the options under GUI. (You could already implicitly disable it by un-tracking all your quests and telling it not to track new quests.)
• Canceling quests works!
• Fixed bug where group members' health/armor/power bars would appear to be empty when they were not.
• Fixed numerous issues with the "Party" tab of the social window.
• The assignable hotkeys for targeting members of your group now work.
• Removed "You are now in Guild XYZ" messages when switching areas.
• The guild message of the day is only displayed once in guild chat, right after you log in. (Unless, of course, the message of the day changes, in which case it would show up again.)
• Fixed many typos and cosmetic issues.
• You can now leave a party without re-logging.
• Animal Handling attack abilities will no longer retarget from the enemy to the pet.
• The Skills & Abilities menu's default position is now completely on the screen.
• Fixed sound effects for some abilities, including bard and necromancy attacks.
• Fixed a bug with the XP bar incorrectly reporting the skill and level.
• Abilities with buffed stats are now green instead of red.
• The cooldown timer is now more noticeable.
• Fixed bugs when using the same combat skill on both ability bars.
• Fixed bug scenario where abilities on your active bars would change when you logged in or switched areas.
• Stacks of items dragged onto the sidebar now show their stack size.
• Beer kegs show remaining doses in their tooltip.
• Items' Enhancement Points are displayed in the tooltip (if they are not at max).
• The tooltip for recipe scrolls correctly indicates whether you've already learned that recipe or not.
• Items and recipes with skill limitations that you do not meet now indicate that in red text.
• Rare+ loot glows in corpse inventory screen.
• Item tooltip colors are now the same as old GUI. (Getting this color reflected in the chat item links will happen soon.)

[Arterius]

Bug: Didn't play for long but my quest tracker kept getting really small and than would blow up taking up a quarter of the screen.

[xerandus]

1) Cooldown timer is definitely more noticeable now
2) "Show Vital Bars Over Monsters' Heads" is alright. Maybe because of the size of the bars to me it doesn't really give a lot of granularity.

I don't know what the name of the message for things like "You bury the corpse" is, but I'd like to move that or have it less obtrusive.

Edit:

Filling bottles at the well still requires one click per bottle. Wasn't there supposed to be an improvement in that?

Missing Functionality: Kind of. Previously after you gave someone a gift, you could click "give gift" immediately to be able to give them another gift. Now I have to click "You're welcome" before I can give another gift, doubling the number of clicks. That makes giving lots of individual gifts (like furniture to Kohan) more tedious than it already was.

[xerandus]

Bugged Functionality: Cannot change "Overhead Name Fade Distance". When I move the slider, the "Save" button does not become clickable. The change in the slider does not get saved when the window is closed and is back at 25 when I open it again. Also, with the slider at 25, the name over people's heads fades away at 50m and doesn't appear to be less bright until I get to about 45m away. So I am not sure what "25" is supposed to signify.

Bugged Functionality: While hovering over a buff icon, the time remaining does not change. I even had the buff lapse while hovering over it - the icon went away but the hover text remained until I moved the mouse.

[Gruffon]

Bug:

• Recipes that can be made from one of multiple ingredients or categories of ingredients, such as mushroom substrates or Brewing flavors, aren't considered when an item's "recipes used in" list is generated.
• Survey points don't show up on the minimap or sidebar map when surveys are checked.

Cosmetic:

• Default text size restricts Augury recipes' "Say the sooth" craft button to just "Say the".
• Dye pots don't display any color when in inventory/storage.
• Dye pots display the incorrect color when viewed through an item's "recipes used in" list.
• The Deer Form ability is classified under the Raven Form subset in the special abilities menu.
• Abilities in a subset are organized by the order in which they were unlocked, rather than by ascending level. ex: Ilth Hale's Kiss abilities could be unlocked in any order, and aren't sorted by ascending level as a result
• Locations listed under the "Find" tab in item info have the unnecessary prefix "Area" attached to them. ex: "AreaEltibule" and "AreaRahu"
• Certain maps/minimaps (such as Eltibule or Kur Mountains) cannot be viewed fully, even in the least magnified setting.
• Interface inconsistency in graphics settings advanced options: options with a checkbox are labeled by default "enabled" or "disabled" and show no change to the label when the box is checked; all other options are labeled as "disabled" when the box is unchecked or "enabled" when the box is checked and change label accordingly.

Feedback:

• Pins can be placed on the sidebar map, but not on the minimap. Allow pins to be placed on the minimap.
• Allow the slider on the sidebar map to be clicked and dragged to adjust magnification. Alternatively, enable the buttons on the slider to be clicked and held rather than needing to click them repeatedly.
• Enable the option to disable NPC chatter in the All channel.
• Enable the option to withdraw a certain amount of an item in a stack from storage using the right-click menu.
• Add an option to allocate buttons in the split-stack menu to quickly split off small or custom increments. ex: "Take 1" "Take 2" "Take Half" or additional options defined by the user
• Raise NPC vendors' single-transaction buy limit. The current limit of 10 stacks per purchase serves as an obstruction when buying items with smaller stacks in large amounts, such as ink.

[mrwarp]

Cosmetic: Move the 'Icon Sizes' section of GUI settings to be immediately under 'GUI Scale'. This will make adjusting the UI size more intuitive.

[mrwarp]

Questions -

1) Is there any way to reduce the size of the buttons in this dialog? It just seems they are way too big. This is with dialog size at 14.



2) Is there any way to shrink the lines in this dialog? Again they feel too big and clunky.



3) This one is more out of curiosity. I understand that there was a game-breaking issue in the current (old) UI that would not allow you to drop directly to the character select screen on logout. Has this been toyed with in the new UI yet? Or is this something that can't be touched until we're in the new UI full time? I hope that the issue can be corrected because having to enter your password 12 times to transfer items between 2 of your characters tends to get a bit old.

4) Is there a way to turn off the 'You' that hovers over your arrow in the mini map? It was kinda cute for about 15 minutes while I chuckled at the "You are here" concept of it, but it's old now.

[mrwarp]

Bug: Selecting Abandon Quest and confirming does nothing.