
The Interface Blizzard Forgot: Character Management Screens
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Blizzard has a done a lot throughout the years to improve the look and feel of the game. They’ve incorporated lots of addons into the core game, and it’s almost a whole new feeling compared to the ‘original’.
But you know what they haven’t done anything with? The character management screens. The screen you see when you’re selecting your character, or creating a new one. They could really use some sprucing up, and I have a few ideas I’d like to suggest!
Character Selection Screen
Addon Presets: The idea here is that you’d define addon groups, and be able to load a specific subset of your addons depending on what you’re doing. For me, I’d like to have things like:
- Raiding addons
- Gathering/Auctioning addons
- Leveling addons
I don’t need to have Auctioneer or Quest Helper running when I’m going to a raid, and I don’t need Omen or Recount when I’m leveling an alt or soloing. But it’s too much trouble, and too easy to forget to check/uncheck those little boxes before each time I log in. I’d like to say “Switch me to Raiding mode!” and off I go.
Character List Sorting: When I switch my characters over to my new account, I created my new bank alt before transferring Brajana. Now and forever more, my bank alt is first on my list of characters. I’d like to be able to manually switch the order they are displayed, or at least sort them by level or something.
Character Creation Screen
Check Name: I’d like to just check if a name is available. I don’t want to have to create a character and delete it every time I find an available name. Just a little button beside the name field would do, thanks.
More camera views: Right now, you can only spin the model of the character you’re creating. What if you want to know what it will look like from another angle? What about if you want to zoom in and see it close up? Sorry, you can’t do that here.
Well, that isn’t too difficult, is it? Just a few little changes and the front-end of the game will be as up-to-date as the rest. Get on it, Blizz!