New Hot Bars – EverQuest Has Them November 16, 2011
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest.Tags: Hot Bars, MMO Interface, Veil of Alaris
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Something new for everybody in the Veil of Alaris expansion.
There is a new splash screen!
Okay, there is more than a splash screen. There are also new hot bars.
It seems like a silly new feature, but the hot bars in EverQuest now look… well, more like you expect if you have played any MMO since 2004 or so. And you get more of them, and 12 is the standard number per bar.
12 buttons
There is a new help file on the changes, and the changes apply to everybody who plays the game. I am sure somebody will complain how this will ruin the whole progression server retro experience.
The help text for the new hot bars - click to make readable
They still seem to act pretty much the way they used to however. It is one of those things that takes me a while to figure out every time I go back to the game.
And that is pretty much it for me and the new expansion.
I really like the way clickies now work on hotbars from inside bags (as long as you own VoA) and that you can open 10 hotbars at once, before we were limited to four. It’s also really nice to be able to re-size them into any shape, and any size (I use ‘any’ here but it’s got to be a rectangular / square shape), you can actually read what your hotkeys say now instead of just pretending to remember what was in that slot.
They do seem to be an improvement in many regards. I logged on tonight just to play with that feature.
For those of us who didn’t play EQ back in the day, what did you have, hot-bar wise? Still multiple bars with a smaller number of buttons, or one bar?
*rereads Stargrace’s comment*
*slinks off*
I think I got it, heh.
Having played EQ for a dozen years I am completely mystified by this hotbar thing. What on earth is everyone using the hotbars for? I’ve played every class in EQ at some time or other and I can’t for the life of me think of one that ever needed more hotbars than we always had. Also, I never had any trouble reading what they said.
I’m not buying the expansion. The very last thing I need for EQ is more levels. I hadn’t noticed that we were all getting the hotbar upgrade regardless, though. I’ll have to log in this weekend and see just how life-changing this change to a problem I never realized existed really is.
I always felt a little constrained with the basic 10 since I tended to do macros for common things, especially when two boxing.
I think part of it is trying to converge a little with how things work in EQ2, where hotbars are a little more sophisticated (by necessity) and part of it is the internal rule at SOE that they must break UI mods with every other expansion or so.