beamdog really broke the ui when they changed it. they should have just left it alone but no they had to change everything. the journal is still broken btw beamdog.
i don't hate them i tend to prefer the ee to the originals heck nwn ee actually runs on my laptop unlike the original.
but they really should not have screwed with the ui that was fine. planescape torment ee and nwn ee are the ones they pretty much did not mess with [ altho i think the new ui they did for pst is better then the original as i was never a fan of that wheel thing.].
it just seems bad when modders have to fix the ui because you broke it. if anything modding the ui post 2.0 is now mandatory. but if you want to remove yours thats fine we have other ui mods to use.
And a bug that screws up the appearance of scrollbars, making it impossible to customize them.
There's also the missing World Map hover effect (and the visual pollution brought by placing travel times under the area names).
And the breaking of dialogue into 2-3 separate boxes, each one with its own scrollbar (fixing what wasn't broken, making it worse).
And the automatic picking of spells on character generation, which is not obvious at first - just counter intuitive and not newbie-friendly. The originals had a "pick for me" option that this mod restores.
And the disjointed store panels leaving a huge gap in the screen in higher resolutions (though this one at least is supposed to be fixed in the next patch... whenever that happens).
And the fact that now, when making a character, class/kit/alignment/weapon options that aren't available for you are simply omitted, so if you're new to the game, you might not even find out that certain options exist. Again, not newbie-friendly.
And the half-assed reworking of the spell books, that introduces mouse behavior inconsistent with every other screen in the game because expecting players to right-click a spell was apparently not reasonable (even though you still have to do it for items in stores, your inventory, etc).
And the lack of an option to disable to zoom-out animation when you enter the area map, that causes lags and even crashes on lower-end systems (that can or at least could run the game perfectly otherwise).
And the removal of the option to filter quests on your Journal by active and done, not to mention the reusing of the same background graphic in different skins, managing to look out of place in most (if not all) of them.
And that's just the stuff I remember from the top of my head. There's a few other things (the red gradient overlays, the new Record screen) that are more subjective.
All in all, and what a lot of Beamdog apologists don't seem to accept, is that the UI fails to meet most standards you'd expect a professional studio to meet. It looks (and feels) like it was hastily put together by people who sorely needed some of their design questions second-guessed by a professional UI/UX developer.
The fact that it's been around three and a half years during which nothing was fixed (worse - more issues popped up) and the fact that voicing your frustration will usually entice the aforementioned apologists (which include moderation and staff members) to try and rebuke criticism with an arsenal of logical fallacies, well... basically, everyone who hasn't drank the BD Kool-Aid eventually leaves (or gets banned). I feel this community is now more insular than ever. And I've been here for a while.
the journal is my main beef with the new ui. the fact you need mods to make it so you can sort them is annoying and alot of quests don't get counted as finished even if you mod the journal. this is more a bg 1 issue.
Yes it's sad that their shitty handling of these games made me quit modding. I regret spending hundred of hours fixing their broken UI for free.
I often think of completely removing my mods because I no longer want my work to be associated with them. And I'm not interested in any of their future games as I no longer think that they can deliver a good game.
So yes I don't see me working again on these mods in the future and I don't want anyone maintaining it either.
Thank you for the excellent work you did on this mod. And I understand your anger that you've invested so much time simply to fix the problems created by Beamdog.
i'm kinda curious why beamdog wanted to change the ui with sod anyways. i see no real reason for it besides them wanting to make the text box able to hold 3 options and had no scrolling. and at that point why not just change the text box instead of the whole ui?
i sound like a broken record at this point but they had a perfectly fine ui with 1.3. it was usable and i see no reason why it had to be changed.
Yes it's sad that their shitty handling of these games made me quit modding. I regret spending hundred of hours fixing their broken UI for free.
I often think of completely removing my mods because I no longer want my work to be associated with them. And I'm not interested in any of their future games as I no longer think that they can deliver a good game.
So yes I don't see me working again on these mods in the future and I don't want anyone maintaining it either.
It's a shame you lost all interest in creating and maintaining mods for the BG/IWD community. I appreciate and thank you for all the hard work you have put into it, and I hope you find other projects to that scratch that particular itch for you!
I also understand your desire to take down your mods and request others not to maintain them, though I hope you will reconsider on these two choices. Creating/maintaining mods is not so much a service to the company that produced the game, as a service to the people using the game and installing your mod.
Every single person that downloads and installs your mod, and plays through the game using your mod is probably very thankful for you creating that mod (if they weren't, they wouldn't be using your mod). By taking down your mod, you don't really hurt Beamdog (who are apparently fine with having a totally crappy interface for their games), but the players that appreciate the mod (or would have potentially done so in the future).
In the end, it is your call. Whichever choice you make here, the community is already at a loss for losing such a contributing member, but one of the possible choices you make allows at least your Legacy to remain a positive beacon inside the community.
i sound like a broken record at this point but they had a perfectly fine ui with 1.3. it was usable and i see no reason why it had to be changed.
The great thing about the 2.0 update is the customization part! Thanks to the 2.0 update, we can have nice things like LeUI, Dragonspear UI++, and EEUITweaks, that would've been completely impossible without the 2.0 update.
There are a few sad things about this new customizable UI, though:
- It was used to create horrible default UIs. Kilivitz already made an extensive list a few posts up, so I'm not going to repeat any details here.
- There were a few things in the old UI system that the new UI system failed to implement properly, such as Scrolling Tooltips, and Beamdog has refused to implement them in over 3.5 years.
- There have been regressions since the 2.0 patch, and Beamdog has refused to fix them.
i sound like a broken record at this point but they had a perfectly fine ui with 1.3. it was usable and i see no reason why it had to be changed.
The ui was fine but it was very hard to mod and maintain so a new ui engine was sensible. Sadly, like most of the things Beamdog has made, it starts with a good idea but ends with a terrible implementation, a big lack of polish, a lot of bugs and an abysmal support with almost no patching to improve the situation.
The key things they should have done were:
1) Ensure that all features of the previous ui were still here. But this is not the case as some important features are no longer available
2) Do not do any changes only for the sake of changing things. The fans have a lot of nostalgia. If you change something that is not a clear improvement, it will a lot of the time backfire. But no, they keep making pointless changes (and most of the time they managed to do worse than the original).
3) For the screen you do not change, keep them pixel perfect identical. But no, a lot of screens have misaligned buttons.
Mate, I think you know by now that I'm probably the person who wrestles more with Beamdog around here.
Like you, I already thought about removing DoF entirely and flashing the middle finger to BD.
And as @Kilivitz I also struggle with people willing to argue in Beamdog's favor no matter what facts you choose - being offended by them too, with the moderation apparently turning a blind eye, as many of them are Beamdog unconditional supporters.
But in the end, I realized that removing DoF would do nothing to Beamdog but would affect people who really care for that mod and cherish it almost as most as I do.
That being said, I ask you to reconsider. I also would like to stress that I understand (and feel) your frustration and respect your decision.
Best,
Edit: Trying to avoid been banned as nothing would please more BD
i also have this feeling that 2.6 might be the last patch. due to the events with larian and bg 3 and beamdog wanting to do original stuff i would not put it past them to just do 2.6 and one final patch for pst ee.
When they get their thumbs out of their *sses and finally release 2.6, I'll look to see how broken it is before I decide if I want to continue modding or not. So far every single patch contains at least one ui regression. And I'm tired of having to find bypasses for things that should work out of the box.
i also have this feeling that 2.6 might be the last patch. due to the events with larian and bg 3 and beamdog wanting to do original stuff i would not put it past them to just do 2.6 and one final patch for pst ee.
I'd be okay with that, if 2.6 fixed all the bugs they've introduced with their latest patches (Hello Pathfinding?), even if nothing else. At least we'd know "This is the end.", and move on. It's getting very tiresome when they keep making promises, and then those promises either take 2 years to get delivered, or are just retracted. Telling us "This is the final patch." would at least inform us "Okay, it's over and done now, this is what we get and this is what we have, and nothing else."
i also have this feeling that 2.6 might be the last patch. due to the events with larian and bg 3 and beamdog wanting to do original stuff i would not put it past them to just do 2.6 and one final patch for pst ee.
I hope this is the last patch. I'm tired of seeing this franchise being messed up by Beamdog - I also just wish they fix the things broken by them.
Don't get me wrong, I love 90% of what Beamdog did with IWD/BG(2) - I can't ser myself playing the originals anymore - but I can't ignore the fact that they broke some things that used to work fine and it goes against any understanding I have about "enhancing" something.
And how they deal with those 10% really upsets me. I don't care for the major part of the UI issues but I do care - and a lot - about how BD treats those who care. Especially those who invested time pinpointing those issues and fixing them.
Yes it's sad that their shitty handling of these games made me quit modding. I regret spending hundred of hours fixing their broken UI for free.
I often think of completely removing my mods because I no longer want my work to be associated with them. And I'm not interested in any of their future games as I no longer think that they can deliver a good game.
So yes I don't see me working again on these mods in the future and I don't want anyone maintaining it either.
You mod is awesome. Hey 100s of hours to make broken games play better, and players appreciate it. Perhaps look at it that way - ur helping players like you who love the game, more than a company.
The popularity of your mod, which is much more about fixing and restoring and less about reinventing the UI (like the Dragonspear mod), to me is a testament of how players in general do indeed notice and dislike the bugs and regressions. If you look at the post 2.0 patch reviews on Steam, for example, quite a few negative reviews will complain about the UI updates.
The few people who will claim there's nothing wrong with the UI are usually the type of player who will defend Beamdog no matter what - players who are usually contained within this community.
And I second everyone who is here praising your work. I think people like you, Pecca and Bubb should have their work commissioned by BD - maybe this way the official product would be at least partially salvaged from such a clumsy handling of the IE legacy.
And I don't like when people say that Dragonspear is better than your mod, when it's all a matter of subjective feelings towards the UI themselves.
Both yours and Dragonspear UI are good. Thanks for all the work you've put into this mod.
well really the main difference between the two uis is one is more vanilla and reverts what beamdog did. while the other is more modern and what beam dog should have done as it also fixes all the issues of the current ui. just pick your flavor.
there is no reason to use the original ui unless your really anti mod as i have said in the past the journal is a broken mess.
but beamdog has done some good the ee are much easier to mod we would not have stuff like dragonspear ui with out the 2.0 patch.
You officially retired from making changes at this point Lef? If not I'll submit a small bug. If so, I'll leave you be. Thanks again for everything.
The very poor handling of the games and its community by Beamdog make me quit modding and even temporarily quit this forum. But there are still some nice people here that do care about the game and about this mod. This make me came back here. And I may reconsider modding again.
At this point, I don't want to work on any new features or anything big but if it's a small bug fix, then maybe I'll look at it.
I know I said I no longer do modding but it seems I'm weak. And contrary to Beamdog, I do care about my users. So I made a small release of all 4 of my UI mods.
This fix the text alignment problem that @HaHaCharade report (only happens with the BG1EE skin) and a few little fix that I have in store.
Changelog:
* Reactivate highlight mode after loading save file if it was active there (BG1EE BG2EE SoD)
* Fix item with one stack display
* Fix confirm dialog mode
* Fix Save text alignment (BG1EE)
I know I said I no longer do modding but it seems I'm weak. And contrary to Beamdog, I do care about my users. So I made a small release of all 4 of my UI mods.
This fix the text alignment problem that @HaHaCharade report (only happens with the BG1EE skin) and a few little fix that I have in store.
Changelog:
* Reactivate highlight mode after loading save file if it was active there (BG1EE BG2EE SoD)
* Fix item with one stack display
* Fix confirm dialog mode
* Fix Save text alignment (BG1EE)
Awesome! Many thanks. Do you mind re-posting the 4 download links? I think its on the first page, but I usually just get the BG1EE archive... its been a minute.
Comments
i don't hate them i tend to prefer the ee to the originals heck nwn ee actually runs on my laptop unlike the original.
but they really should not have screwed with the ui that was fine. planescape torment ee and nwn ee are the ones they pretty much did not mess with [ altho i think the new ui they did for pst is better then the original as i was never a fan of that wheel thing.].
it just seems bad when modders have to fix the ui because you broke it. if anything modding the ui post 2.0 is now mandatory. but if you want to remove yours thats fine we have other ui mods to use.
And a bug that screws up the appearance of scrollbars, making it impossible to customize them.
There's also the missing World Map hover effect (and the visual pollution brought by placing travel times under the area names).
And the breaking of dialogue into 2-3 separate boxes, each one with its own scrollbar (fixing what wasn't broken, making it worse).
And the automatic picking of spells on character generation, which is not obvious at first - just counter intuitive and not newbie-friendly. The originals had a "pick for me" option that this mod restores.
And the disjointed store panels leaving a huge gap in the screen in higher resolutions (though this one at least is supposed to be fixed in the next patch... whenever that happens).
And the fact that now, when making a character, class/kit/alignment/weapon options that aren't available for you are simply omitted, so if you're new to the game, you might not even find out that certain options exist. Again, not newbie-friendly.
And the half-assed reworking of the spell books, that introduces mouse behavior inconsistent with every other screen in the game because expecting players to right-click a spell was apparently not reasonable (even though you still have to do it for items in stores, your inventory, etc).
And the lack of an option to disable to zoom-out animation when you enter the area map, that causes lags and even crashes on lower-end systems (that can or at least could run the game perfectly otherwise).
And the removal of the option to filter quests on your Journal by active and done, not to mention the reusing of the same background graphic in different skins, managing to look out of place in most (if not all) of them.
And that's just the stuff I remember from the top of my head. There's a few other things (the red gradient overlays, the new Record screen) that are more subjective.
All in all, and what a lot of Beamdog apologists don't seem to accept, is that the UI fails to meet most standards you'd expect a professional studio to meet. It looks (and feels) like it was hastily put together by people who sorely needed some of their design questions second-guessed by a professional UI/UX developer.
The fact that it's been around three and a half years during which nothing was fixed (worse - more issues popped up) and the fact that voicing your frustration will usually entice the aforementioned apologists (which include moderation and staff members) to try and rebuke criticism with an arsenal of logical fallacies, well... basically, everyone who hasn't drank the BD Kool-Aid eventually leaves (or gets banned). I feel this community is now more insular than ever. And I've been here for a while.
Thank you for the excellent work you did on this mod. And I understand your anger that you've invested so much time simply to fix the problems created by Beamdog.
i sound like a broken record at this point but they had a perfectly fine ui with 1.3. it was usable and i see no reason why it had to be changed.
It's a shame you lost all interest in creating and maintaining mods for the BG/IWD community. I appreciate and thank you for all the hard work you have put into it, and I hope you find other projects to that scratch that particular itch for you!
I also understand your desire to take down your mods and request others not to maintain them, though I hope you will reconsider on these two choices. Creating/maintaining mods is not so much a service to the company that produced the game, as a service to the people using the game and installing your mod.
Every single person that downloads and installs your mod, and plays through the game using your mod is probably very thankful for you creating that mod (if they weren't, they wouldn't be using your mod). By taking down your mod, you don't really hurt Beamdog (who are apparently fine with having a totally crappy interface for their games), but the players that appreciate the mod (or would have potentially done so in the future).
In the end, it is your call. Whichever choice you make here, the community is already at a loss for losing such a contributing member, but one of the possible choices you make allows at least your Legacy to remain a positive beacon inside the community.
Fare thee well!
The great thing about the 2.0 update is the customization part! Thanks to the 2.0 update, we can have nice things like LeUI, Dragonspear UI++, and EEUITweaks, that would've been completely impossible without the 2.0 update.
There are a few sad things about this new customizable UI, though:
- It was used to create horrible default UIs. Kilivitz already made an extensive list a few posts up, so I'm not going to repeat any details here.
- There were a few things in the old UI system that the new UI system failed to implement properly, such as Scrolling Tooltips, and Beamdog has refused to implement them in over 3.5 years.
- There have been regressions since the 2.0 patch, and Beamdog has refused to fix them.
The ui was fine but it was very hard to mod and maintain so a new ui engine was sensible. Sadly, like most of the things Beamdog has made, it starts with a good idea but ends with a terrible implementation, a big lack of polish, a lot of bugs and an abysmal support with almost no patching to improve the situation.
The key things they should have done were:
1) Ensure that all features of the previous ui were still here. But this is not the case as some important features are no longer available
2) Do not do any changes only for the sake of changing things. The fans have a lot of nostalgia. If you change something that is not a clear improvement, it will a lot of the time backfire. But no, they keep making pointless changes (and most of the time they managed to do worse than the original).
3) For the screen you do not change, keep them pixel perfect identical. But no, a lot of screens have misaligned buttons.
Mate, I think you know by now that I'm probably the person who wrestles more with Beamdog around here.
Like you, I already thought about removing DoF entirely and flashing the middle finger to BD.
And as @Kilivitz I also struggle with people willing to argue in Beamdog's favor no matter what facts you choose - being offended by them too, with the moderation apparently turning a blind eye, as many of them are Beamdog unconditional supporters.
But in the end, I realized that removing DoF would do nothing to Beamdog but would affect people who really care for that mod and cherish it almost as most as I do.
That being said, I ask you to reconsider. I also would like to stress that I understand (and feel) your frustration and respect your decision.
Best,
Edit: Trying to avoid been banned as nothing would please more BD
I'd be okay with that, if 2.6 fixed all the bugs they've introduced with their latest patches (Hello Pathfinding?), even if nothing else. At least we'd know "This is the end.", and move on. It's getting very tiresome when they keep making promises, and then those promises either take 2 years to get delivered, or are just retracted. Telling us "This is the final patch." would at least inform us "Okay, it's over and done now, this is what we get and this is what we have, and nothing else."
I hope this is the last patch. I'm tired of seeing this franchise being messed up by Beamdog - I also just wish they fix the things broken by them.
Don't get me wrong, I love 90% of what Beamdog did with IWD/BG(2) - I can't ser myself playing the originals anymore - but I can't ignore the fact that they broke some things that used to work fine and it goes against any understanding I have about "enhancing" something.
And how they deal with those 10% really upsets me. I don't care for the major part of the UI issues but I do care - and a lot - about how BD treats those who care. Especially those who invested time pinpointing those issues and fixing them.
For free.
Easy, you only have to say how great Beamdog are and how perfect their games are and you won't get banned...
You mod is awesome. Hey 100s of hours to make broken games play better, and players appreciate it. Perhaps look at it that way - ur helping players like you who love the game, more than a company.
And I don't like when people say that Dragonspear is better than your mod, when it's all a matter of subjective feelings towards the UI themselves.
Both yours and Dragonspear UI are good. Thanks for all the work you've put into this mod.
I'm ok if people like Dragonspear UI mod more. It's a very good UI. And as you said, it subjective.
The thing I don't understand, is people who like the default UI, how can anyone like something so broken
The few people who will claim there's nothing wrong with the UI are usually the type of player who will defend Beamdog no matter what - players who are usually contained within this community.
And I second everyone who is here praising your work. I think people like you, Pecca and Bubb should have their work commissioned by BD - maybe this way the official product would be at least partially salvaged from such a clumsy handling of the IE legacy.
Thank you for all of your hard work over the years, your time and effort is not lost on all of us!
well really the main difference between the two uis is one is more vanilla and reverts what beamdog did. while the other is more modern and what beam dog should have done as it also fixes all the issues of the current ui. just pick your flavor.
there is no reason to use the original ui unless your really anti mod as i have said in the past the journal is a broken mess.
but beamdog has done some good the ee are much easier to mod we would not have stuff like dragonspear ui with out the 2.0 patch.
You officially retired from making changes at this point Lef? If not I'll submit a small bug. If so, I'll leave you be. Thanks again for everything.
The very poor handling of the games and its community by Beamdog make me quit modding and even temporarily quit this forum. But there are still some nice people here that do care about the game and about this mod. This make me came back here. And I may reconsider modding again.
At this point, I don't want to work on any new features or anything big but if it's a small bug fix, then maybe I'll look at it.
See alignment of "Save" on Save Screen above. Unlike other screens (Load screen for example), the word "Save" appears out of place.
This is definitively something that I will fix.
This fix the text alignment problem that @HaHaCharade report (only happens with the BG1EE skin) and a few little fix that I have in store.
Changelog:
* Reactivate highlight mode after loading save file if it was active there (BG1EE BG2EE SoD)
* Fix item with one stack display
* Fix confirm dialog mode
* Fix Save text alignment (BG1EE)
Sadly no. I don't know if nobody notice it or if you are unlucky and the only one experiencing this bug.
Awesome! Many thanks. Do you mind re-posting the 4 download links? I think its on the first page, but I usually just get the BG1EE archive... its been a minute.