Petition to remove the new mouse Cursors.

[Utopian]

Aesthetics aside, the new cursors actually pack a lot more information, aimed especially at new users who were confused between right click and left click actions.

You should note the inner part of the cursor changes color. This part is aware of your target's alignment and/or pvp/tower flag.

The reason the cursor itself doesn't change based on the target action is because certain targets may have different left and right click actions.
For example, hold ctrl or shift while hovering certain targets, you may end up receiving 2 additional icons.

As we did consider the 2 icon and mouse button indicated might be too much clutter for veteran users, we added settings to reduce the amount of information shown.

As for the aesthetics, I expect someone will reskin them for your particular taste.
An unfortunate truth in anything we change is that some people will simply prefer the old.

I understand the rationale - but the icons are too small if they are inactivated in f10. And gray is a horrible default color for this game. The color dot is nice - but too small to be useful. Changing the whole icon color would have been better (imo). And the ability to increase the size/color should be available as an in-game feature, nothing fancy needed just color and scalable.

As someone who is visually challenged (mostly by age ), I find myself hunting on the screen for the icon as it blends into the game....its like Where's Waldo.

[Whitecoma]

New cursors are crap!! Sorry

[Quee]

Yeah the new Cursor does make a mess of the "info" windows (if u have it activated) ....
Why not make it a option in prefs so ppl can turn on /off it. ?

[Belph]

Yeah the new Cursor does make a mess of the "info" windows (if u have it activated) ....
Why not make it a option in prefs so ppl can turn on /off it. ?

Open prefs....

[Xirayne]

Day 3.. The search for the tiny grey cursor on my screen goes on.. http://i.imgur.com/qOghId5.jpg

[Malaxia]

I have one thing to say about this: xkcd #1172

[Belph]

Day 3.. The search for the tiny grey cursor on my screen goes on.. http://i.imgur.com/qOghId5.jpg

Found it after 2 minutes xD

Some call me Sherlock

[Ilaliya]

Do you actually live in the real world?

I dare you to work in any front-facing job or call centre and experience EXACTLY what is going on this thread first hand from Joe public. You will get burned by the flames that come out of the telephone about things that are not even your job, but you deal with it and you sign post it to the right people because that is how a business works.

Yeah, thing to remember is we don't work in a call centre. Most game developers actually take a hefty pay/benefits cut to work in games (vs what they would make for an equivalent position in other software jobs). Because you can't put a price on enjoying your job.

And this is why you will see me (and many on the AO team) posting on Sundays, or late in the evening. Which is not part of our job. We have customer service representatives which are there to be front-facing. It's not the job of a coder, or a designer, or really even a producer to be directly interacting with customers. But we do it because we want to treat the players respectfully and like human beings. But that is a two-way street.

In general, customer service abuse is not tolerated in any industry, and any company who keeps good faith with its employees will protect them from it. I also feel very strongly that buying a service or using product from a company does not give license to abuse a person employed by that company, but that's just my personal philosophy about basic human decency.

[Raggy]

Yeah, thing to remember is we don't work in a call centre. Most game developers actually take a hefty pay/benefits cut to work in games (vs what they would make for an equivalent position in other software jobs). Because you can't put a price on enjoying your job.

And this is why you will see me (and many on the AO team) posting on Sundays, or late in the evening. Which is not part of our job. We have customer service representatives which are there to be front-facing. It's not the job of a coder, or a designer, or really even a producer to be directly interacting with customers. But we do it because we want to treat the players respectfully and like human beings. But that is a two-way street.

In general, customer service abuse is not tolerated in any industry, and any company who keeps good faith with its employees will protect them from it. I also feel very strongly that buying a service or using product from a company does not give license to abuse a person employed by that company, but that's just my personal philosophy about basic human decency.

The fact you are not working in a call centre is irrelevant, you are still directly interfacing with your end user, you should expect this. And Game Devs actually make pretty tidy sums compared to most standard jobs, like, call centre staff/ retail etc. Sure it might not be comparable to other I.T based professions but, as you said, you get your job satisfaction out of it at the end of the day.

Customer Service abuse might not be tolerated, but for some bizarre reason, delivering a sub-standard product for a high mark-up is. You might want to treat the players respectfully, they might want to do the same, but when you fail to deliver on promises for 6 years in a row and then go and change something that has been in-place since the GUI revamp which people have grown accustomed to without giving them a choice to keep to what they like, you only entice this behaviour.

As for basic human decency, look around you. Look at the economic climate, look at the homeless in the street, look at the wars in the east. It doesn't exist.

[Mastablasta]

They're going to be changing a lot more than the cursor and not give you a choice that's their prerogative. Unsubscribing is yours.

And really. If you think that human decency doesn't exist, you're a bigger fool than I could've ever guessed. You certainly aren't helping upping it.

[Utopian]

Yeah, thing to remember is we don't work in a call centre. Most game developers actually take a hefty pay/benefits cut to work in games (vs what they would make for an equivalent position in other software jobs). Because you can't put a price on enjoying your job.

And this is why you will see me (and many on the AO team) posting on Sundays, or late in the evening. Which is not part of our job. We have customer service representatives which are there to be front-facing. It's not the job of a coder, or a designer, or really even a producer to be directly interacting with customers. But we do it because we want to treat the players respectfully and like human beings. But that is a two-way street.

In general, customer service abuse is not tolerated in any industry, and any company who keeps good faith with its employees will protect them from it. I also feel very strongly that buying a service or using product from a company does not give license to abuse a person employed by that company, but that's just my personal philosophy about basic human decency.

While I agree that purchasing a product doesnt allow abusing a person, that isn't what the issue that started this is about, it does allow us to point out items/concerns - some of which are going to be "complaints". If FC doesn't want those, then shut down the website for posting by players.

Several people have pointed out that the new cursor is not what they would like and are letting the company know of their concerns/dislike of a part of the product. Those types of "complaints" do help move companies forward - I haven't seen any abuse of FC employees , dislike of the product change yes - personal, no. Frankly, this issue should resonate with the company because the ability of a person to visually use and enjoy an on-line game is paramount to it's success. I would say - from my pespective - its the most important graphic update to the system. Was there even consideration given to anyone who maybe visually challenged and allow an alternative for such a reason?

[Mastablasta]

New, 30% larger cursor for ndGUI: http://snake-oil.eu/temp/scrn0004.jpg
If you like this, you can download the files here http://snake-oil.eu/temp/Graphics.UVGA http://snake-oil.eu/temp/Graphics.UVGI - overwrite the ones already in ndGUI. They seem to mix well enough with the extra icons.

[Anarrina]

Anyone posting anything further in this topic that is not directly related to cursors will be infracted. The discussion about customer service, human decency, and your attitudes towards each other is now off topic. Period.

PS: what Ilaliya said about not tolerating CS abuse also comes from me. Other than you sniping at each other this thread has been relatively calm. Don't rile it up. Thank you.

[Freor]

ON TOPIC:

I delved into AO modding and it took me about 5 minutes to come up with this new cursor for ndGUI: http://snake-oil.eu/temp/scrn0004.jpg
If you like this, you can download the files here http://snake-oil.eu/temp/Graphics.UVGA http://snake-oil.eu/temp/Graphics.UVGI - overwrite the ones already in ndGUI. They seem to mix well enough with the extra icons.

Is that just a static one or does it change like the old one when hovering over grid/ppl/etc? Also, is it possible to use without that Notum Dovvetech thing? I like the default gui and wouldnt want to change anything else but get the old cursor back.

[Mastablasta]

Is that just a static one or does it change like the old one when hovering over grid/ppl/etc? Also, is it possible to use without that Notum Dovvetech thing? I like the default gui and wouldnt want to change anything else but get the old cursor back.

It changes color depending on what it hovers over, and it has those special icons that the new patch brought, I only changed the actual cursor graphic. I didn't bother making versions of the old cursors. But it could be done easily.
You could download it, use Demoder's GUI thing to extract the images, do the same for default GUI, overwrite with this cursor, and repack the default gui graphics. However, this would make things bork when you patch next time, and you'll need to keep a backup of your gui files...

But it was pretty easy to do this. Just download that Demoder's tool thing and unpack the GUI, it's all png files, edit those with like photoshop if you have it, or some freeware program like paint.net or gimp. I'd use something a bit more advanced than MSPaint.

[Freor]

It changes color depending on what it hovers over, and it has those special icons that the new patch brought, I only changed the actual cursor graphic. I didn't bother making versions of the old cursors. But it could be done easily.
You could download it, use Demoder's GUI thing to extract the images, do the same for default GUI, overwrite with this cursor, and repack the default gui graphics. However, this would make things bork when you patch next time, and you'll need to keep a backup of your gui files...

But it was pretty easy to do this. Just download that Demoder's tool thing and unpack the GUI, it's all png files, edit those with like photoshop if you have it, or some freeware program like paint.net or gimp. I'd use something a bit more advanced than MSPaint.

Thank you, I'll take a look on those soon. Don't really like messing with the GUI/patches but if it's the only way so be it. I have many old screenshots, hopefully some of them have the old "changed states" (cog and crosshair) so could just copy paste - I'm terrible graphics artist

If any of the actual GUI modders read this though... you'd make maaany of us happy by doing this on our behalf

Actually, Vhab/devs: Would it be possible for you to give us the old cursors? The graphics files I mean - you don't have to maintain them, just give the original graphics files for cursor states. Then everyone/community/modders would be responsible for using them as they see fit (=custom GUI) and for maintaining them.

[Mastablasta]

The old graphics could easily be retrieved by taking an old install and extracting them from there. I will take a look this weekend, if noone does sooner.

[Demoder]

The old graphics could easily be retrieved by taking an old install and extracting them from there. I will take a look this weekend, if noone does sooner.

You can download the files of the default gui from most patches here: https://bitbucket.org/Demoder/aogui/src. Just click on the button labeled "default", select "Tags", and pick the patch you want.

[Xootch]

bump for old cursors.

[Herkulease]

If you go and make changes like this, I think it is best to set the default use of it to only new players. As most older players won't want it, but just let them know the option is there. I was able to get rid of it in f10 options, isn't that big of a deal.

But no, I am not a fan of the stuff hanging around the side. of the curser every time I mouse over something. 8p

Bump for trying though.