Recently I stopped back in EQ1 and made a new toon, but couldn't even stand to get past level 5 due to the shoddy and extremely outdated UI.

Third person view blocked objects and NPCs I wanted to click on. I wouldn't auto centre my view after mouselooking and then moving in third person. Ok - I get it - play in first person view - that's how EQ1 is designed. But it's so hard to go back to a clunky first person view in an MMO, and it sucks not seeing your character.

Then there are the controls - a holdover from MUD days - ugg. No default WASD setup at all. Yes, you can assign new bindings, but re-jigging everything is a major PITA when it's been so long you don't remember what does what and whether it's a bad idea to un-assign or move what's already on your preferred movement setup.

I could have lived with the outdated looking UI frames and lack of informative and useful item stat info, but the broken third person view and control nightmare sent me screaming back into the tender mercies of my current MMO - Eve Online (and if I consider Eve a comforting refuge, that should tell you how bad I found EQ1 after years away).

That's sad. I have to say I was a little shocked at finding EQ1's UI in such a sorry state after all these years. Does SoE not care about attracting new players or luring old ones back? :-(

To be blunt, no, they are not trying to gain new players or to bring back old players. Everything done in EQ now is geared toward the current, long-term players, most of whom haven't seen the default UI in years. 

Originally posted by LadyAlibi

To be blunt, no, they are not trying to gain new players or to bring back old players. Everything done in EQ now is geared toward the current, long-term players, most of whom haven't seen the default UI in years. 

Granted it makes sense to look after your long term players, but any MMO that stops trying to grow or at least replenish the playerbase as old players leave is the walking dead IMO. I don't want to play a game that has just given up trying. I don't think EQ1 has from the accounts I've read lately.

But I don't think the devs are trying hard enough to make it more accessible. And by accessible I do NOT mean easier. If I wanted to play WoW I'd play WoW, heh. I want a more challenging old school type MMO, but for god's sake give me a better UI. I don't give a damn if the UI isn't pretty. But at least make the default layout and controls workable and comprehensible to newbies (or players like me who have been away for way too long).

Trying to figure out controls and WTF UI elements and basic item stats, etc mean was fun... back in 1999. Nowadays it's merely tiresome. I want to play, not spend hours trying to work everything out, then realise I'm not having any fun or actually playing yet, when I could be playing my current MMO instead.

Anyway - this criticism is meant to be constructive, so I hope it will be taken as so. I'm once again - as you saw from my other post - trying to re-enter EQ. I just wish it wasn't such a PITA, and that I could recommend it to friends. Right now none would thank me for dropping them into such a user unfriendly game. While some are Eve players like me, so we've already put up with steep learning curves, that's not to say we enjoyed it! Heh. Eve in part gets away with being so newbie unfriendly by being the only serious game in town for non-twitch space combat/trading MMOs. But there are many fantasy MMOs to choose from.

Well - those are my thoughts on the issue :-)

Originally posted by Rockgod99
It's retro not "horribly outdated".

Retro is fine if it's accessible. What purpose does not including a WASD layout or usable default UI layout serve? Again - I don't need a pretty UI or fancy graphics. But when I've spent the past hour fighting the default controls, I realise there's a problem here. Yes, it could be me. I've changed. I expect to be playing within a couple hours of starting a game. Not fighting the UI.