The new HUD is receiving as much attention as the new features and I think we should have a thread on the design of the toolbar. I'll start:

I really like the changes and dig the plain no icon toolbar, it's stealthy for work.

Echoing someone else, I'm not crazy about the invite button, since it's not a frequently used feature (I realize that may be why it's there).

Also, I don't understand the Play button submenus of attack and gift, since they consist of only one thing in them. Could this foreshadow grenadiers and riveters?

Ok, I'll let other people have a crack at it.

If I have 50 mines on my profile (feel free) I do not fancy having to click on profile every few hits to check status of my armour.

Also I quite liked the idea of my inventory on the toolbar so I can see at a glance how much stuff I have - there is lots of space on the new larger toolbar, could those items not be shown somewhere?

@chava, I think the attack menu will indeed grow and have more options as PMOG moves forward.

Although it is such a massive change I actually like the new design also, Ideally I would like to be able to add/remove icons as I wish so for example I would also remove invite from my list of displayed icons, and obviously add my DP total as I like to see that.

I hope this is the start of a good thing and the beginning of a fully custom toolbar where I can select/deselect things from a list of core elements.

Craig

Agrred, SalmonTickler, I would like to choose myself what I see on the toolbar, and have what I need, as at the minute there are things I need but cannot see there.

A customisable toolbar would be cool!!

@chava woohoo, as long as I have the armour i am protected as I shoud be!!!

Missed that as I have been away for a day or two.

Bring it on then, chava :)

@chava so no more RSOD ?? (Red Screen of Death) :)

@chava Have you seen documentation about armor? After hitting 3 mines, I checked my profile, and yes, my armor was off. I then had to go to Play-->Defend Yourself. It is not automatic for me.

I freely whined in the bug forum, so thanks for making this thread @chava!

Basically, I'll echo the other comments, I do like the minimalist style of the new toolbar, text only version. Summon is going to be really great once it gets up and going. I do miss the ability to look down and see my DeePs, as it was a quick and easy way to ensure that the toolbar was behaving and not in need of a refresh. I miss my inventory and level status, however, I could get used to it, as someone else mentioned, the new toolbar is an improvement for those playing at work.

The idea of a toolbar where you can add and remove buttons is a good idea. Wouldn't it be interesting to add tool usage in a system like that? Say you had deployed 475 St. Nicks, wouldn't it be great to drag St. Nick usage down on your toolbar and make a run to get to 500?

Sorry about the armor thing... I was wrong.

I'll move my post from the bug thread here:

I don't like the new organization at all: I liked my tools to be one mouse movement away, not two or three in different menus; and, for all I use it, Invite could be hidden in the deepest of submenus rather than waste valuable space on the toolbar. IMHO it's a big step back in usability.
Why not allow the users to decide which buttons they want to show, like in the majority of FireFox toolbars?

To that I add that I do understand the need for menus: with new tools and associations coming out and the toolbar already filled to the brim, some things had to be reorganized. However it feels to me like they moved the wrong things.

Every user has his gaming style and likes to have different things underhand: the huge market for personalized skins, HUDs and menus for MMOGs is proof of that.
The contacts page is pretty useless to me as a button, as it's just a click away from any page in PMOG. I'd rather have the numeric indicators for DPs and tools, a crate button, and a flag to see if my armor is on (though auto-armor would be even better). On the other hand those who designed this HUD probably use Contacts all the time and seldom bother to look at their DPs and tool number.

A solution could be a mix of fixed menus (that give access to any and every possible command) and a set of customizable buttons to use as quick links. This way you don't leave anything out of the toolbar *and* every user has the things they want at the tip of their mouse.

Last nitpicker's note on the icons: maybe it's just me but, what with the paper plane and the rook tower, they feel more like "kids' game" than "steampunk-ish".

Last nitpicker's note on the icons: maybe it's just me but, what with the paper plane and the rook tower, they feel more like "kids' game" than "steampunk-ish".

I agree with this too. I've heard one of the reasons for the redesign is to make PMOG more user-friendly to new people. However, I would personally like the option to have a similar style toolbar to the old one.

I like that there's being active changes, but there should be an option to have the old look. This new look is just plain boring. No color in text only mode, which is pretty much the only choice, because the icons are just too darn big. I'm also bothered by the fact that the least used buttons are right in the middle. I really never use the contacts button, the pmail on the toolbar, or invite, and im seriously doubting that im going to use the summon button either. All in all, i cant say im a fan.

In a word? Hate. I disliked the new toolbar so much that after only 10 mintutes or so I uninstalled it and reinstalled the old version.

The usuability, for me, was gone. I'm a one click kinda girl.

I largely agree with ianatrus, so ditto to that.

Honestly, I use Pmail more than I thought I would, but the enthusiasm to further develop its usefulness from the toolbar is lost on me. For one, I don't understand how it determines who to put in the list? The six players on my list when I click Pmail, are acquaintances that I haven't had that much contact with, as far as I know. In fact, now that I looked again, they aren't even allies, just acquaintances. Sure, I can type any player name in there, so I could shut my pie hole, but why have the short list of players in the first place?

Contacts button? Yeah, I don't see myself using that much. I am antisocial. ;) No, seriously, I have no use for that on my toolbar. Though, I have become a forum junkie around here, so I spend a great deal of time on the PMOG.com domains. I guess other players who rarely haunt around here might like the contacts button.

I think ianatrus said it best above, "Every user has his gaming style and likes to have different things underhand: the huge market for personalized skins, HUDs and menus for MMOGs is proof of that."

We all have our own style of gameplay, so they can't please everyone, but some day down the road, a customizable bar would be a fairly decent solution.

The pmail list is populated with "recently active acquaintances" I believe. In other words, unless you keep your acquaintances list pruned it's not going to be very helpful. Hopefully an option to set it to display allies is in the works?

@chetyre:
We discussed this morning how to better populate that menu and hope in future releases to make it more relevant to you.

Hey guys, I recently sat down with Merci, our game designer, and asked her some questions regarding the redesign of the PMOG toolbar and the future of PMOG features.

Here is the post: http://news.pmog.com/2008/10/11/...

Additionally, for those of you disliking having to click multiple times for deploying a tool should check out the keyboard commands available to you here: http://pmog.com/help/keycommands

Burdenday, One question that went unanswered is whether or not there is new functionality for auto-equipping armor. There doesn't seem to be, but some comments on IRC by a couple of devs made it seem like there was.

No, that functionality does not exist. Sorry for any confusion.

It is something that is being considered by the team, however.

Please make the tool bar smaller. OMG it is the size of three toolbars put together.

@mmmpi: You can toggle off the graphics and go for a bare-minimum text only toolbar by pressing CTL+Alt+T in Firefox; this will make the toolbar smaller.

Hurm... I believe theres no winning. With icons on, its far too big, with them off, its boring. *sigh*

Masteraramil said what I was thinking: the only way to have the same size toolbar as the older versions is to go to text only, which is visually unappealing.

Mostly, I like the design. However ... I want my single click mining and crating back. Yeah I know .. keyboard shortcuts. I HATE keyboard shortcuts. And for the most part, I don't believe casual, non-techy computer users use them at all, in any software. I much prefer clicking a single button.

I used to be a big fan of keyboard shortcuts but now so many things use different shortcuts for different things they are all getting jumbled in my head and I'm accidetly screwing things up left right and centre.

Plus, there's nothing like clicking a button to place a mine. Feel like POWER! A keyboard shortcut feels like... work.

edit to include: I use a LOT of keyboard shortcuts at work, hence...

Moving my post from the patch notes forum
I hate the new look so much!
It is filled with bugs.
I have to wade through three menus to get to a button that used to be right on the toolbar
The look removes steampunk from PMOG
It is harder to see how much DP i have
It is extremely annoying to have to keep track of whether i have armor on with the on/off moved to my mini-profile
Gift has a extremely pointless extra menu
Attack has a pointless extra menu (why can't you go straight from play to mine instead of going through attack.
I have to go to my mini-profile to see how many tools i have.

and before you say i should use keyboard shortcuts i'm going to say that i dislike them, it is just extra stuff for me to have to learn, and what was wrong with the old interface? Also, if this is supposed to be making PMOG more casual, then keyboard shortcuts are not helping.