Waypoints: September Opportunities

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

-Milton Berle

In the August news post I mentioned a member request to look at Heroic Opportunities. I've always been a fan of HOs, partly because they are an optional bonus, unless required in an encounter, and because they build upon the main combat system that's already in place. But until recently my appreciation has been mostly limited to clicking a flashing hotkey and admiring the exotic animated wheel that pops up.

In all these years of playing EQII I've rarely given a second thought to that other icon on spell tooltips, complacent that it had something to do with HOs. But digging deeper into Heroic Opportunities has given me some additional appreciation for the whole system, which is more creative than I had originally given it credit for.

In short, each of the four archetypes is assigned a color and its own set of six runes appropriate to the archetype's main role in gameplay. For example, among the runes for Fighters you have boot, fist and shield; Mages get fire, ice and lightning among others. Not only that, but in many cases the runes are aptly assigned to matching abilities: Fighter boot for kicking abilities, Scout mask for stealth and visibility, etc. Some of the associations are a bit more loose, but you get the idea. It all makes sense, and somebody was really on the ball when they dreamed it up.

So we do have a very cool mod for the HO system that's working and being tested right now. You can select abilities that match the runes for each of your classes, which can then be cast directly from the HO window. Most of the kinks are worked out, but because there are so many spells and combat arts involved -- more than a thousand! -- there is not an efficient way to customize the settings in-game.

All that data is a snap for the utility, but it's just too much for the Window Manager. So the HO window will become available when the next utility is published. If you're interested in trying it out now, let me know and I'll give you all the materials you need.

Editor's Note: More new features were added to the Heroic Opportunity window after this post was made. Take a look here to learn more. Plus a new alternate horizontal layout was added -- check that out here!

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Less Clicking, More Navigating

We had another request that involves the utility: how to copy floating Nav Bar commands between characters. Up to now we didn't have a page for the Nav Bar in the utility since it's only ten icons that are easy to configure in-game. But that also meant the Duplicate feature was unavailable for the component. That's also done, tested and working, and it's another feature that will appear in the upcoming utility.

...And Stay Down!

Here's another one of those little refinements that are not earth-shattering but make me say, "Why didn't I think of that?" The DarqUI Mercenary window can be configured to minimize on login, without the behavior dropdowns that some players don't care to see. But if you're like chief and you want the minimized window to also hug the bottom of the game window, you're out of luck. The window starts out full size and then minimizes once it detects your preference. But that leaves it positioned well above the bottom. No problem. Watch for a fix in September.

Accounting for Everyone

I don't know how some of you players do it: hundreds of characters, dozens of accounts... it's mind-boggling. The DarqUI Login window (Launchpad bypass) and the Camp window both accommodate all of the characters on each of your accounts in tabbed lists. But believe it or not at least one of our members has more accounts than can be seen in the vertical row of account tabs on the Login window. So something needs to be done about that. Unlimited accounts incoming.

And here's another account-related request from earlier in the summer. It's one of those items that seems simple but the deeper you dig the more convoluted the solution becomes. Players can reorder their characters alphabetically, by level, by class, etc., using the Quick Setup grid. But for accounts that have a zillion characters, you need a way to rearrange those in a specific order for just that one account. I promised Aidbringer that if I can make this an elegant, non-tedious process, it will be available in the next utility probably for all DarqUI users, not just Darq Side members.

Thank You

There are a couple more interesting odds and ends that should fit into September, but I don't want to promise anything specific that I'm not reasonably sure can be delivered. Truth be told, I'd reeeally rather wait until we are nearer to the next expansion to publish another utility, just in case a major change like a level increase precipitates other, bigger changes to the UI. Either way, these are all very good ideas, all of them from your fellow Darq Side members. You are always welcome to discuss your own ideas for what you'd like to see, either privately with me or on Discord.

Everything we do here at the Darq Side is possible because of you. Your patronage is sincerely appreciated, and an extra thank you to those members who have mentioned this site to your guildmates and fellow players. The list of premium UI improvements and suggestions is getting longer as the summer winds down, and I'm looking forward to tackling everything for you.