October Waypoints

Yikes, it's autumn already?  Weren't we just slamming the thermostat down to 62?  (Actually, here in the Southeast USA that's still happening a lot.)  Either way, it's always Big Game season (see what I did there) in EQII.  Candy-corny jokes aside, my first order of business is to thank you for joining us here on the Darq Side, checking out the videos and other posts, and for your great questions and commentary on Discord, here on Patreon, and in email.

New Patron Role

DarqUI is in many ways a player-driven project, and I've always encouraged players who use DarqUI not to be shy about reporting soft-spots in the soft-ware.  To that end, I'm introducing the new Bug Finder role here at the Darq Side.  Whenever you report a bug or other issue that is serious enough to fix, your level will increase by one, and you'll get the Bug Finder line added to your credits in the in-game scroll (click the pic above). There are 10 levels to ascend, starting with:

Bug Finder (Level 1)
Bug Spotter (Level 2)
...
...
???

Will you make it to Level 10?  You can opt out of the recognition of course, but don't stop reporting those glitches!

Help! Help!

Speaking of recognition, DarqUI Help and Credits are now slightly more discoverable in the UI.  I had yet another email discussion with another (non-patron) player about a fairly straightforward issue, and once again I got surprised (ie: frustrated) when a player tells me they had no idea the answers were right there in the DarqUI Help section.  So a new blue dot on the Start menu should "help" with that (pun intended).  Getting users motivated to interact with the self-support package in applications is always a headache.  It's almost like making how-to videos is the only way to... oh, wait.  :D

And speaking of help, the new Group Countdown and Alignment Grid components will get help pages added to that long-suffering help system during October.

Utility and Notifier

The new, more-secure app versions were published without much ruckus earlier in the month, and it looks like most of our patrons are using them (and getting the stronger encryption).  If you have not replaced your earlier versions, I invite you to download the new apps at EQ2Interface.  If you need help with any of that, just poke me or Rosyposy on Discord, or message me here on Patreon.

One of our patrons has already found a minor issue with the utility, and that's been corrected in the next incremental.  I prefer not to publish new utility versions too quickly since it tends to frustrate players.  And so as long as there is a safe workaround to any bugs we find, we'll stick with v3.1.2.3 for a little while longer.

Videos

An in-depth tutorial is on deck for the Icon Bar, which is a biggie since it overlaps somewhat with hotbars, but it's already scripted from earlier in the year so that speeds up production quite a bit.  There should also be plenty of time to re-shoot the Transport window tutorial in October.

Tips of the Week are scheduled, and Tips of the Day will be reset in a couple of days -- our newer patrons have not seen most of them.  There's about one month's worth of tips, and I would be glad to add topics for any DarqUI features that you're interested in seeing.  LMK!

When I started work on the "DarqUI: A Look Back" video earlier this month, I dedided that the best way to get it started was to get into my headset and start talking and opening old windows, which I did -- for an hour and six minutes.  That's longer than some documentaries, and more akin to a root canal than fun if you're not an extreme nerd about these things.

Turns out it's a much better idea to separate all the juicy details into three shorter videos: v1, v2 and v3, which is what I'm doing now.  So in an early nod to the Thanksgiving season, let's all be thankful that we don't have to listen to my extreme nerdiness for longer than a few minutes at a time!

DarqUI 4K

We're getting closer to our goal of 50 patrons, and that's all thanks to you!  I have another very useful bonus L and XL component ready to publish at the 40 Patron mark.  So while you're hurling pumpkin bombs at your friends and guildmates, remember to mention the almost-free benefits of the Darq Side even if they don't have a 4K rig.  You know one day we'll all have one!