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"Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 1:28 am
by Týr
I've never had enough knowledge to fully "restore" the UI in Vanguard to it’s vastly superior T.King version from mid-beta. The furthest I ever got was a Photoshop reconstruction, placing all the elements back into their proper place.

I know it’s totally possible to recreate the UI almost perfectly, but I simply don’t have the ability or the time to do that. This is not so much a “Wish” as it is an offer. I have all of the original beta UI assets, so if there is anyone out there who wants feels like restoring a bit of Vanguard history, I’d be happy to send you the files.

I’m not really sure what the site policy is on posting that kind of thing, so I’ll refrain from posting publicly unless told otherwise. I will however post my reconstruction. (See Attachment)

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 2:52 am
by Kilsin
I really miss the old beta UI and the challenge needed to play the game, i would love to see a server go completely back to old school hardcore with beta UI and features

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:11 am
by John Adams
I remember the T.King stuff too, and it was simply beautiful. I always hated the stock UI, but I guess over the years of trying to put this project together I got used to it. This is refreshing.

Send me a PM with some details of what you have, and we can decide if posting them is "okay". I know Xinux (our resident hacker) will likely want to take a look, regardless

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:39 am
by Zewtastic
I am always a fan of keeping windows to a minimum, which most old UIs do not do.

So I hope you think allowing customs UIs is in the plan.

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:50 am
by Ily
I find most UIs even in FPS games to be practically useless and not well thought out (like health meters for FPS games should be near your reticule or the reticule itself).

Custom UIs and the handlers / API (mods) to do that would be a huge asset. Though I do think that the any default raid UI should be very well developed for bandwidth / cpu utilization.

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:53 am
by John Adams
[quote="zingtastic"]So I hope you think allowing customs UIs is in the plan.[/quote]
We have no control over what UI you choose to use. We're building a server, not a client.

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:19 am
by Sacred
Since the launcher, as far as I can tell, doesn't have an asset checker, substantial modifications should be doable as long as the don't interfere with the way the game interacts with the server. Opens a ton of possibilities there, as well as the fact that there are already quite a few provisions for UI modding in VG to begin with.

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:35 am
by Týr
Well, custom UIs have always been supported in VG, they just have to be valid files that can be interpreted by the client. I messed with making custom UIs way back in beta some 8 odd years ago now, but never really did all that much. Mostly just changed fonts and colors and whatnot. Really, you can style the UI however you want if you have the know-how.

The files I have date back to Beta 2, and do not run natively in Vanguard anymore, because at some point in there they changed a handful of variables, but I have no idea what. Hence why someone would need to reconstruct the UI. Everything should be there to do it, it’s just a case of having the time, inclination, and understanding of XML Interfaces to do so.

My knowledge on the subject is too rudimentary to actually do anything useful with them however. I saved them in case I ever went back to Vanguard and wanted to spend the time to learn how to fix it, but I've not had that kind of free time in a long... well... time.

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 6:52 pm
by Kilsin
[quote="Týr"]Well, custom UIs have always been supported in VG, they just have to be valid files that can be interpreted by the client. I messed with making custom UIs way back in beta some 8 odd years ago now, but never really did all that much. Mostly just changed fonts and colors and whatnot. Really, you can style the UI however you want if you have the know-how.

The files I have date back to Beta 2, and do not run natively in Vanguard anymore, because at some point in there they changed a handful of variables, but I have no idea what. Hence why someone would need to reconstruct the UI. Everything should be there to do it, it’s just a case of having the time, inclination, and understanding of XML Interfaces to do so.

My knowledge on the subject is too rudimentary to actually do anything useful with them however. I saved them in case I ever went back to Vanguard and wanted to spend the time to learn how to fix it, but I've not had that kind of free time in a long... well... time.[/quote]

A lot of the variables were for F2P and the Cash Shop and most of it has been recorded on the VG Official forums, which we can access for reference. I am a little upset that vginterface.com changed without warning (I didn't see a warning personally and I was a subscribing member) and now all UIs and compilations for VG have been removed, I was not able to grab them before they got taken down either, I have emailed their support asking for mor einformation but they have not returned my email.

We have some talented UI creators in this community, some of which are members of this site, so I am sure we could get something going if enough people supported their hard work.

I have copies of TBird Drox, Sinisna's UI and Alimora's Drox UI plus InfoMapAdvanced 2.8 (Latest version).

Has anyone else got information on vginterface closing their VG section? the site changed their name as well to link back tot he main site which is http://www.mmoui.com/

Re: "Beta" UI

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:20 pm
by Týr
[quote="Kilsin"]Has anyone else got information on vginterface closing their VG section? the site changed their name as well to link back tot he main site which is http://www.mmoui.com/[/quote]
MMOUI is just the parent site that vginterface was a part of. They took down vginterface at the end of June (I think).

the last post the made was as follow:
[quote]With SOE's closure of Vanguard drawing ever closer, we have decided that we are going to go ahead and shut down VGInterface now. We have loved being able to be your source for UI customization for Vanguard and we, too, are disappointed that the game is being shut down. We hope that we will continue to see you on our other sites going forward.

Safe travels to all,

Cairenn & Dolby[/quote]
I was going to go there and save some UIs before vanguard ended, but by the time I thought of it, vginterface was already offline sadly.