Talk to the Team: Valorynx Icon Pack

[Amarie Ancalimon]

As many of you know, we have some wonderfully creative players in Istaria and some of them have spent hours creating content for the game that goes above and beyond what Virtrium has provided as a team. One of those players is Valornyx who has spent countless hours creating a specialized Icon Pack.

We have spoken to Valornyx and been given permission from him to include his icons in place of the existing icons. But again, before we made such a major change, we wanted to discuss with our players their thoughts.

An important note for this particular topic is that this would be an “either/or” choice. Valornyx’s icons would completely overwrite existing icons so the appearance of player’s hotkeys would drastically change.

We would work with the client team to introduce them in such a way that players would not have to completely rebuild their hotkey bars, as we know that would be an incredible annoyance to say the least. In addition, we’d also be looking at this as an opportunity to increase functionality/features of the use of hotkeys (not macros, just the hotkeys themselves), or the increase of how many are available... this would be function type items, not quantity.

So the questions for this topic are:

Would you support the use of Valornyx icons as replacement for the current icons?

What are the top three items you would be interested in having to make the creation/use of hotkeys have greater functionality.

[Takora Drakan]

1. Question: I would totally support that. To me Vals Icon look very professional. And to be honest, the standard icons look, well dusty old and outdated. The icons of Val would bring much color into our hotkey bars, which I would love. I use myself the icons of Val since years, and never missed the old Icons to be honest.

Maybe along those lines the ui swap could be fully implemented? That you could change between themes, and so icons? I remember having the option there, but it was not yet fully in the game.

2. Question:
I have no Idea how to make the hotkeys better, since I pretty much love, them. They are small, don't clutter up the screen, and you can assign useful macros to them, like with one press of a button you can equip another armor set.

I hope I stayed on topic with my answers.

[Andaras]

Forgive my ignorance. Isn't that Icon Pack designed with
Dragons in mind?

*shrugs* Icons is Icons. So long as the change doesn't
make me have to reset every hotkey on every character....

Andaras

[hallucin8]

Forgive my ignorance. Isn't that Icon Pack designed with
Dragons in mind?
Andaras

It was originally, many many moons ago, since there were so many dragon abilities missing icons (other than the pretty 'snowflake'). Now, alot spells have been spruced up as well as many of the biped abilites.

[Zoran]

Unfortunately, I have never used Valornyx icons so I wouldn't want to comment on that.

I think there is an issue with the hotkey bar and multi-classing. A switch of schools usually means that the keys need to be completely rearranged. Right now, the way I deal with it is when I get my hotkeys set up for a particular school, I copy the prefs folder and store it off before I switch. When I switch back, I'll replace the prefs with the previously stored copy. To me this seems like a major workaround and gets to be a pain. So much so that I tend to not switch schools or just put up with having greyed out unusable abilities in my bars.

Just a suggestion, but maybe the bar configuration could be tied to the current school. When you switch, the hotkey bars would be restored to the way they were set up the last time you were in that school.

[rizo/nawkia]

I support Vals icon pack as long as the color scheme might be tweaked to be consistent. Meaning offensive are a certain color (seem to be green currently abilities anyway), defensive (seem to be blue abilities), spells are colored as anything they represent currently.

To make the hotkey bars more user friendly is it possible to save them like in some online console fps shooters? Call of duty with custom classes comes to mind. Just a way to save 10 different hotkey arrangements and then be able to switch between them while in game would be very nice.

[Shinkuu]

Unfortunately, I have never used Valornyx icons so I wouldn't want to comment on that.

Just a suggestion, but maybe the bar configuration could be tied to the current school. When you switch, the hotkey bars would be restored to the way they were set up the last time you were in that school.

I just want to second this. I would be able to give more of an answer about the icons if you included some screen shots so I could see what they looked like.

[Firebrand]

There is a lot of work in these icons, but I greatly prefer the less flashy default ones. So I'd prefer to not change.
Of course, if we can choose an icon pack as we can already do with interfaces I'm all for it then everyone is happy.

[Guaran]

Here is a good sampling of Val's icons:


The crafting bars 5, 6, and 7 aren't normally there, but lets you see new ability and formula icons. Blue are crafting abilities, black are formulas. bank 7 button one is Essence Harvesting, button 2 is Essence Shaping, followed by orb, tainted orb, blighted orb. Bank 10 button 4 is my loot icon, button 5 is enemy spotted group chat. Tried to get most of the rest by showing my ability windows for both adventure and crafting. You will notice there's even new icons for the wishgiver passive abilities, and the dragon passive abilities like Lairshaping mastery :)

The Crafting skill buttons come in both a light blue and a red version. I think the red one is the default.

Many many biped abilities and spells are also re-done in new nicer icons:
Healer/Druid/Spiritist/Shaman:

Bank 8 gifts and enhances, Bank 6 heals, Bank 3 spirit spells, Bank 5 Nature spells, a few blights spells on bank 1, bank 2 melee abilities.
Chest icons and the Shield (Bank 1 button 2) are not val's icons (I used a ceremonial shield for Employ Shield, Chests are different armor sets)

[Xanthia]

Personally I love Valorynx's icons and support this idea. I was first reluctant to get them years ago, but once I tried it I never went back to the old icons. ^^ They are much better looking in my opinion and I see this as a much needed update to these bland boring icons currently being used.

[C`gan]

Question 2: I think there's been a significant calling for the ability to swap the hotkey bars as a set when changing a class.

[Velea]

A point of clarification (which also may help with the "wishing for more wishes" that some have done).

With the suggestion to be able to have a group of hotkey bars for a particular school, what I am understanding is that you would like a command (/load hotkey setup druid, for example), that would automatically load a saved set of 100 hotkeys (10 bars, 10 slots each). Later in the day when you switch to playing your warrior as primary, you could type /load hotkey setup warrior, which would then load a different set up of bars. (Overlap would depend on how you set up each "set" initially).

If this is not correct as to what is being asked for, someone please clarify. That I see as a new feature, not a "wish for more hotkey bars.

[Knossos]

Please do not bring Val's icon pack as a game default.

Knossos

[Shian]

A point of clarification (which also may help with the "wishing for more wishes" that some have done).

With the suggestion to be able to have a group of hotkey bars for a particular school, what I am understanding is that you would like a command (/load hotkey setup druid, for example), that would automatically load a saved set of 100 hotkeys (10 bars, 10 slots each). Later in the day when you switch to playing your warrior as primary, you could type /load hotkey setup warrior, which would then load a different set up of bars. (Overlap would depend on how you set up each "set" initially).

If this is not correct as to what is being asked for, someone please clarify. That I see as a new feature, not a "wish for more hotkey bars.

Yes, this would be most handy indeed. It is a better alternative to "more hotkey bars" TBH.

I would LOVE to see Val's icons in the game. It's a feature I've been waiting for for a long time. The icons are often 10x easier to see and associate with because they are all different colors. Eg. Gold Strike, silver strike/Mining, Quarrying

TBh the default set has too many similar icons and with them all the same color, well, it's showing its age.

[LungTien Temeraire]

This is surely a great and nice work, but I'd personally prefer it to be a mod, that the players could take or let according to their preferences.

[Dragonboy]

A point of clarification (which also may help with the "wishing for more wishes" that some have done).

With the suggestion to be able to have a group of hotkey bars for a particular school, what I am understanding is that you would like a command (/load hotkey setup druid, for example), that would automatically load a saved set of 100 hotkeys (10 bars, 10 slots each). Later in the day when you switch to playing your warrior as primary, you could type /load hotkey setup warrior, which would then load a different set up of bars. (Overlap would depend on how you set up each "set" initially).

If this is not correct as to what is being asked for, someone please clarify. That I see as a new feature, not a "wish for more hotkey bars.

This!!! Not necessarily all 10 bars, 100 hotkeys at the same time, but the ability to change multple hotkeybars with the push of 1 hotkey button or /load command.

As for the Valorynx Icon Pack, seen it in screenshots... However never tried it, mostly due to laziness. My thoughts about this would be to let people choose ingame, being able to switch back and forth if necessary. Do not force this upon people.

[Sigi]

A point of clarification (which also may help with the "wishing for more wishes" that some have done).

With the suggestion to be able to have a group of hotkey bars for a particular school, what I am understanding is that you would like a command (/load hotkey setup druid, for example), that would automatically load a saved set of 100 hotkeys (10 bars, 10 slots each). Later in the day when you switch to playing your warrior as primary, you could type /load hotkey setup warrior, which would then load a different set up of bars. (Overlap would depend on how you set up each "set" initially).

If this is not correct as to what is being asked for, someone please clarify. That I see as a new feature, not a "wish for more hotkey bars.

Oh, yes, this would be greatly appreciated! - and I mean GREATLY!

About the icon pack, personally I think they are too bright and too prominent. I'd rather have my attention drawn to the landscape than to my hotkeys.

[LOVWYRM]

Out hotkeys is something other gamers envy us for.

And a big YES to Val`s wonderful icons we already use.
For those who will not like such a change:
Pls consider new players: Val`s icons are much more easier to distinguish
and more modern than our old ones.
I see it a bit like a face-lift^^ Makes Istaria younger than she is:-)

[Freelancer]

Val's Icons. I do quite like the dragon ones except the Dragon form/Biped form icons. Out of all the "classic icons" I really like them the most and founds Val's to be a little.... well... hmm... ???? I can't comment on the Bipeds versions. I never really play a biped much.



Anyway.... I suppose that it would be possible to mod the old ones in :P

[Smaug]

A point of clarification (which also may help with the "wishing for more wishes" that some have done).

With the suggestion to be able to have a group of hotkey bars for a particular school, what I am understanding is that you would like a command (/load hotkey setup druid, for example), that would automatically load a saved set of 100 hotkeys (10 bars, 10 slots each). Later in the day when you switch to playing your warrior as primary, you could type /load hotkey setup warrior, which would then load a different set up of bars. (Overlap would depend on how you set up each "set" initially).

If this is not correct as to what is being asked for, someone please clarify. That I see as a new feature, not a "wish for more hotkey bars.

yes to Valorynx Icon Pack and a BIG BIG yes to /load hotkey setup.

Also not exactly a hotkey feature but one to not need to use hotkeys, fix the dragons create item screen button to auto cast proper skill needed to craft to work like does for bipeds equip proper tool. Then dragons wouldn't need to use up hotkeys for crafting abilities.