Please adjust the new AH display...

[My2Cents]

The new AH display no longer fits in 800x600, which is important to me. I have a suggestion of an easy way to modify it to keep most of the changes and still stay in 800x600.

I suggest shortening the lefthand "category" display just a little bit, fitting it into this resolution, and moving the "new" icons from the far left to the lower left corner, "hanging down" just below the category display. Alternatively, please revert to the previous display. As a third alternative, could you shorten the category display just a little to fit 800x600 and allow keyboard shortcuts to move between "modes" (of course this leaves less shortcuts for other things.) I only see some relatively minor cosmetic issues from the new display and for some of us, a great deal is lost.

I am all in favor of taking advantage of technology, and of providing the most attractive display for the most people, but forcing some people into larger resolutions may substantially impair their ability to play DDO comfortably. I know if I have to move to a higher resolution, and thus keep my PC in that resolution to support it (without a lot of switching back and forth), it will make my DDO life much harder.

This is not a frivolous or "flavor" "preference", and is not a request made lightly or arbitrarily, this makes a LOT of difference to me, and I assume a small but dedicated number of others. I was very pleased when DDO's producer assured me in a recent DDO dev event that the 800x600 resolution was "deprecated" but still supported. I don't expect everything to look great in that resolution, only to have access to basic functionality.

Thanks for listening.

(To those who might wish to flame me, be careful, you might be in the same place some day.)

[Rauven]

Haven't been on Lam since the update, think you could post a screeny?

[My2Cents]

Here's the Lamma AH in 800x600 mode, followed by 1024x768:

[Rauven]

I see what you mean. Agreed, the tabs could be made smaller and placed either above item categories interface, right above the level range filter or in the space at the bottom of the item categories. Either way could/would easily make the window fit in 800x600 mode. Also, it looks like they need to work on the spacing for the Bank. That or they don't expect people to have more than 999,999 plat.

Off topic, are you using a custom UI skin or is the shape of the chat box a new UI feature? Specifically the rounded cutout in the lower left corner.

[Shade]

I see what you mean. Agreed, the tabs could be made smaller and placed either above item categories interface, right above the level range filter or in the space at the bottom of the item categories. Either way could/would easily make the window fit in 800x600 mode. Also, it looks like they need to work on the spacing for the Bank. That or they don't expect people to have more than 999,999 plat.

Off topic, are you using a custom UI skin or is the shape of the chat box a new UI feature? Specifically the rounded cutout in the lower left corner.

He's not. The entire games UI got some small tweaks in U16, not just the auction house.

Bags also look weird now, the search bar was extended a lot.

And yea I really gota wonder what your system spec are to be unable to run the game smoothly at 1024 or higher. This is a 6 year old game, extremely ancient pc's should still be able to run it at reasonable resolutions, if at minimal graphic settings.

[My2Cents]

Off topic, are you using a custom UI skin or is the shape of the chat box a new UI feature? Specifically the rounded cutout in the lower left corner.

No unusual skin, although I think I used to use "blackbird" on live a long time ago.

Thats apparently part of U16 - I guess it's supposed to fit over the Ampersand logo.

[My2Cents]

And yea I really gota wonder what your system spec are to be unable to run the game smoothly at 1024 or higher. This is a 6 year old game, extremely ancient pc's should still be able to run it at reasonable resolutions, if at minimal graphic settings.

I'm running on a Circa 2006 Dell Desktop with Intel Integrated graphics and it has no problem playing DDO in 1024x768 (with lowered settings.) I even have a new ATI card here I can and will pop in at some point.

My machine has no problem with 1024x768, -I- have a problem with it. I can't see it nearly as easily as 800x600 both in DDO and outside of DDO. Even if I became accustomed to playing DDO in 1024x768 I'd either have to make do with all my other PC apps and browsing at 1024x768 or do a lot of switching on entry, exit and ALT-TABbing from DDO.

800x600 is considerably more comfortable for me even with the crowded screen. I also feel it useful to give feedback to the devs as an 800x600 player since many won't see issues in that mode. I'm not suggesting that everything can or should be done in 800x600, but if something already works there, and there's no specific reason to exceed it, then I feel I'm helping to make win-win suggestions that allow the new layout and keep the same resolutions available.

I'm one of those "older" DnD players from way back, and I'm sure I'm not alone. They say the memory is the first thing to go, and I can't remember what the second thing was...

[My2Cents]

Oh duh...why didn't I think of this earlier...one other super easy alternative would be to shorten the width of the category listing on the left just enough for a sliver (say, 10 - 20 pixels?) of the selecting icons to show along the left in 800x600....

[Ilindith]

800x600...welcome to the 90s eh.

I'm sorry but if you have to run it at such a low resolution, the problem is you/your computer, not the game.

[My2Cents]

800x600...welcome to the 90s eh.

I'm sorry but if you have to run it at such a low resolution, the problem is you/your computer, not the game.

Through the normal course of life, accidents and aging, people encounter various challenges, including more problematic eyesight.

You and/or someone close to you will almost certainly face challenges in the future. When that happens, I am sure you will not want others to "consider you the problem". If you are blessed with no current challenges, cherish the moments while they last and consider yourself lucky.

That can change in an instant.

[Ilindith]

Through the normal course of life, accidents and aging, people encounter various challenges, including more problematic eyesight.

You and/or someone close to you will almost certainly face challenges in the future. When that happens, I am sure you will not want others to "consider you the problem". If you are blessed with no current challenges, cherish the moments while they last and consider yourself lucky.

That can change in an instant.

The thing is, you simply can't expect a contemporary video game to be designed around 800x600 resolution.

Heck, even 1024x768 is starting to get old.

Sorry if you have eyesight problems, but there's just no good reason for them to make 800x600 work properly anymore.

[Gkar]

The thing is, you simply can't expect a contemporary video game to be designed around 800x600 resolution.

Heck, even 1024x768 is starting to get old.

Sorry if you have eyesight problems, but there's just no good reason for them to make 800x600 work properly anymore.

I disagree, we should do what we can to accomodate those with disabilities is not overly difficult.

[My2Cents]

The thing is, you simply can't expect a contemporary video game to be designed around 800x600 resolution.

Heck, even 1024x768 is starting to get old.

Sorry if you have eyesight problems, but there's just no good reason for them to make 800x600 work properly anymore.

I don't have any expectations. I just see a display that can fit fine into 800x600, and always has, and am suggesting they keep doing it. And since I play in 800x600 I consider it my responsibility to give feedback when I can.

Beyond my own issues, the incessant march of so-called "advances" without pausing to consider whether we actually "need" each one and its impact both positive and negative on us, is a mistake.

If people have plenty of extra $$ burning a hole in their pockets and want to keep giving money away for the latest advancement in memory/display adapter/monitor/OS etc and want to sit through ever increasing and more sophisticated advertisements and incur more and more bandwidth charges for no reason other than either a personal status symbol or allowing some CEO to buy his fourth home and divorce his 5th wife, then I guess their priorities differ from mine.

I'm sorry, I guess its a sensitive point for me.

[PogueMahon]

I'm just trying to figure out how in the world do you open your ED page. I switched to your resolution and only about 3/4 of the page fit on the screen. As for the part of support of lower graphics most people that play video games want the highest resolution possible to give it the best look. What I believe is happening is that they are trying to change over graphics engines since they have made some changes in the past. This being said newer graphic engines probably do not support lower resolutions this is why they haven't worked on setting new content to work with it. Why pay for more manpower in designs when you are going to eliminate it in the future.

[My2Cents]

The operative parts of the ED display (the tree display) all fit on one 800x600 screen. Although only a sliver of Exalted Angel's tab exists and you need to mouse over the sliver of the first active ability to see what it is, it is enough, and I am satisfied that if I need to switch just to select exalted angel or to see the tree display, I will do so for just that one minute, but that's not very often at all. Nothing's perfect in life.

The important selectable tree choices are all available, and that's what you need 99% of the time. In fact, the first draft of the page did not fit, and the devs kindly altered it a little. If you look close, they could have designed it to fit better with only a few slight changes, and I'm not convinced those changes would have impacted higher resolutions one bit.

For instance, when I see certain displays in 800x600 I often have to slide them around a little to get to prompt choices, or sometimes parts of the information cut off, that's the price I pay for playing in that resolution and I don't mind one bit, as long as it does not make that display "unplayable".

No matter what resolution we must use (i.e. how many screen pixels will fit in one inch), I will be politely encouraging that the displays be large enough and the font be large enough to be readable. There's already someone asking for a larger font for people's names somewhere in the U16 preview threads in whatever resolution they're currently using.

Boy this sure seems to matter to a lot of people, I only meant to make a cosmetic suggestion during an initial preview so that it might be adjusted while we're at that stage. Oh well, maybe all the discussion will serve some purpose someday.

When the engines no longer allow 800x600, if the resulting displays become too hard to see, I'll either compensate by not needing to see what I'm doing, or go do something else. With all the USA Baby Boomers aging and many people who will have lots of old age time and modest disposable income on their hands, I would think the MMO community would want to court that market. Otherwise I guess there will be a lot of jet powered walker races...

[My2Cents]

Just let us be able to move the box left and right and that would also solve the problem.

[EllisDee37]

I"m in exactly the same boat as My2Cents for exactly the same reason. Please consider making the ah functional in 800x600, as it always has been.

For destinies I switch to 1024x768, do what I have to do, then switch back. This is a tedious process of:

1) Switch taskbar to not auto-hide
2) Switch game to full screen
3) Set game to 1024x768
(do what I have to do in destiny screen)
4) Set game to 800x600
5) Switch game to windowed mode
6) Switch taskbar to auto-hide

It's a bit of a pain but I live with it. Adding these extra 6 steps to the ah would be a bummer.

[Kielbasa]

As others have said the game has 800x600 available as a resolution option. The devs should support said resolution by allowing us to resize window frames to be viewable in that setting. When there is no longer an option to select 800x600 then I can accept that window frames will be too large to fit. The current situation is unacceptable and should be resolved.

(logs in tomorrow to see 800x600 greyed out and unselectable...)