Tooltips...Of Terror!
I'll eventually say plenty of positive things about the expansion, but I'll get the negative things out of the way first. Even the really minor ones, like the dreaded Tooltips....of Terror!
Sometimes things sound great in concept, but in execution they turn out to be annoying...like grouping with me for instance.
But no, I'm referring to the new inventory tooltips which also show a comparison with your equipped items. Now, like I said, it sounds good in concept. You mouse over a ring in your inventory and see whether it has more heat resist than the other two you have equipped. Great.
The problem is, it is insanely obtrusive in practice. You can't look through your inventory without a massive barrage of tooltips covering half your screen. I don't like it. And I casually polled quite a few people and did not receive a single positive response. Not to mention the constant questions in OOC about "How do I turn these tooltips off?"
What's worse, I don't know the answer. Now, you can turn all inventory tooltips off under Options, UI, Tooltips. But I like the basic version of inventory tooltips. The one that would just show you the item without the extra one or two comparison windows that block your view. I haven't figured out how to get back to that.
Here is just one thread of several with people puzzling over the tooltip issue.
I had a similar problem when DoF launched and there were these incredibly annoying tooltips for every spell or combat art on your hotbars. But at least I figured out how to turn those off.
The way to go when you introduce new UI elements like this is make sure you can turn them off and be very clear about how to do so. For those who like the new tooltips, I'm glad you do. If you do like them, please say so in the comments; I'm happy to hear an opposing viewpoint. But even so, let the rest of us have the option to stick to our simple, old-fashioned tooltip ways.
posted by Aggro Me at 8:00 AM
19 Comments:
I bought the game when it first came out and really didnt enjoy it as much as I thought I should and went the path of Worlf of Warcraft with some friends. This game became so linear and so incredibly boring with time and I was hear good things from the Everquest 2 community so I went back. Now the one thing I truely missed regaurding the interface from World of Craft(dont get me wrong, I hate that games interface) was the tooltip mod that did compared the selected item with ones you have equiped. I personaly love this addition and it was one of the major anoyances when I came back (not having it). I also understand your frustration and I think with any new interface feature they should provide an option to turn it off.
I love it too.
"a massive barrage of tooltips covering half your screen" - are you running at 200x100 or something?
But yes, they should be configurable. The depth to which one can configure the hotkey tooltips is almost overwhelming :)
i like it. it saves a step when checking out if to exchange something in a certain situation.
i understand though that some people would like to turn it off; the option should be there.
what i don't understand is why people are as annoyed as those in that thread seemed. 'covers half my screen'; like they would play with the inventory open.
I like the tooltips too! Really handy.
Would be nice to be able to disable it though.
But oh man, Aggro Me... you're outnumbered here!! =D
If you compare a ring for instance, you end up with 3 windows of tooltips going on. I like it when I'm actually LOOKING to change gear, but when I'm just master looter and needing to sell or pass items out, it's supremely annoying.
Shortee (who can't remember any of her blogger information /sigh)
I like em. Just go on auto follow when your compairing items,
Gotta say they are nice in some instances, but they are starting to get more and more annoying. Especially when working on my provisioner. Nothing like a bunch of boxes popping up to block my tradeskill ticks and tell me that this food is better than that one. Yes need an option to turn off. Desperately.
I also like them. And to the person who asked if aggro was running at 200x100, I run the game at 1600x1200 and when mousing over things like charms, I still get tooltips that cover half the screen.
I think it is handy. I also think there should be a way to turn them off since I know a lot of people don't like them.
One thing to note is that you can set up a DELAY for the tool tips. Once you do this you won't be bothred by the pop ups util you hover over the ico for a few seconds. This is in the same area as mentioned in your article.
Teksun Starnight
Butcherblock
Celestial Mischief
That delay would solve the problem nicely for me. I like having the compare feature when I loot new gear, but like Krystalea, I get tired of seeing my food being compared when I'm provisioning.
I somewhat like them; I like it when I want to have the convenient comparissons show up, I dislike it in all other situations. Since I'm playing PvP more than anything right now, when the tooltips covers the open areas of my screen... Karnatos gets frightened of the possibility that a Goodie might appear from behind the tooltips!
While the mentioned delay solution sounds like a workable one, I would hate to have to wait when I *do* want to see the extra comparission windows.
It could be solved with a simple hotkey check; e.g. if I mouse over an item that could show a comparisson, it checks to see if I'm holding down the CTRL key. Only when the key is pressed down would it automatically show the comparisson tips.
This is what I'd do if I were on the dev. team, its not hard to check for the CTRL key being pressed (or whatever key, I picked CTRL only as an example).
I'm on the bench about this one. Not sure wheather I like em or not. Sometimes I like it and other times I just do it the old fastion way becuase I have a hard time reading the stats
I like them. It isn't often that one gets new gear anyway so how annoying can it be really? One buys new gear at x0 or x1 level and then finds bits incrementally over the next 8-9 levels. This coming from a non-raiding player.
- Nitz Hairpsritz, 52 zerk on Perma
Are tooltips the only thing you can find to complain about? This is ridiculous. This means that KoS is awesome, or you're just some SOE shill shoehorning the least condescending negative opinion possible in order to look cool but not touch on more sensitive complaints.
After all, they're just tool-tips - that can be turned off. (Unless you want the old tool-tips but not the newer ones with it). God this is frustrating to read.
It feels like I'm reading Mobhunter again. Really, the similarities are quite frightening. You sure you're not really Moorgard in disguise?
I am digging the new tooltips.
However. I think I have my tooltip windows background transparent.
Maybe that is why my aggro level
is low on these lil gems of info.
-Zeem
I like the new tooltips in most cases.
The only time I have found them annoying so far is when the tooltips cover the item I am trying to access...
I dislike the new comparison tooltips, but I think the delay setting will allow me to live with them. I generally have most of my stats memorized on my toon, so it isn't difficult to see whether a new item is "better" or not.
As for the poster whining about Aggro's choice of topic... Where is it said that he cuts to the crux of all evils and problems of EQ2? This was something that annoyed him and he posted about it. It annoys some, and others love it. His main point was that in all these changes, there should be an easy toggle to old and new styles and this toggle should be explained when the new feature.
Mirk
Coder
Posts: 32
Registered: 11-08-2004
Reply 12 of 16
Viewed 337 times
To turn them off: /cl_chain_tooltips 0
To turn them back on: /cl_chain_tooltips 1
You can add this option to eq2.ini to set it permanently.
--
Thanks, that helps!
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