Mod Release: Clear 'wiki-style' skill mod (including effects monitor borders)

You may have seen a few mods released recently that remove the ugly grey borders around skills in game, and replacing them with clearer 'wiki-like' versions instead. For example, the original skill icons are shown on top, with the Quartz modded skills underneath:


The problem with these mods is they also remove the borders from the effects monitor, for example, the green indicating enchantments, the purple indicating hexes, the yellow indicating elite. This is a major disadvantage when trying to find out what's going on in the middle of battle. So, I decided to release my own mod, improving on the wiki'ed skill ideas.

The ClearSkills mod is now up to version 1.3, and includes the following:
-All skills have had the blurry grey border removed, and the clearer versions should be seen on the skillbar, damage monitor, and on damage icon floaters.
-Thin effect borders on enchantments, hexes, etc.
-Thin black border around non-elite skills.
-Bright yellow border around elite skills.
-Numbers on skillbar and enchant/hex arrow icons removed.
-Mod created with Photoshop using .dds files, to minimize memory use and file size.

Here's a preview of what this will look like in game:


You can download the version 1.3 .tpf from this link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1wyiozhtcwg

And for those that have yet to download TexMod, or don't know what it is/how it works, you can find download links, instructions on how to use the program, and developer responses to modding from here:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide...-game_graphics

I still wouldn't advise people to mod the game until it comes out of the "grey zone".

It's not in the gray zone. Anet approves it. There's even a post on there wiki about how it's okay.

Like The Phantom said, there are posts by Emily Diehl and Gaile Gray about modding on that wiki link. Not to mention this is all on their official wiki.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide...-game_graphics

Do you use the "Classic Windows" feature in XP? I'm just curious because that "ugly, grey, blurry border" is called the button border....it's designed to make it look three-dimensional. You might call it an orange border or brown, but to me...the gold border around the elites looks better. That's not to say I can't see why some people would want it....but there is no seperation between your skills....the green just kinda blends all together. I personally would want a border around them. But hey you did it for yourself...kudos.

That's fine if they're just on the skillbar, but that same button-border is on the skills no matter where they pop up. Effects monitor, target display, damage log, and right in the middle of the screen if you have the floating damage icons on. And depending on how your interface is laid out, it looks even more out of place with the borders, imo.
That said, there is separation in the newest version, all the non elites have a 3px wide black border around them, unlike the Quartz mod (which I used for the comparison shot above.. I'll probably make a new one up soon.)
I'd rather have the clarity of what's being used and what's on me when I PvP rather than some pseudo-3d effect that looks out of place in the middle of your screen. YMMV.

Oh - and for what it's worth, I use a theme program for WinXp which makes it look like Mac OSX Tiger, while in Linux I use Clearlooks with Beryl for added useless eyecandy. But my OSes aren't games which I play competitively.

Yeah I could see why competitive players would want a streamlined UI...and personally I don't understand why they didn't make the icons that pop up in effects seperate from the skillbar and skill menu icons. I guess they just wanted to cut the extra work out. :/

I think these mods are shakey at best. The mod community has obviously not been examining the game code long and probably don't have the nicest tool set available. I wouldn't add any mods right now until the coders get up to spec. Personally though as far as skill borders go I like the gold around elites. My monitor supports very high resolution and my graphics card is crisp and gorgeous so all the color nuances show up perfectly and I see no sense in making it uglier.

You are correct, yet many members have emailed Anet about it, and the answers they have gotten haven't a 100% seal of approval, so I still don't know which side to lean on...

..There is no code to examine. And there's no 'toolset' that's being released. There just one program. Texmod. Texmod extracts textures, you then edit the textures with Photoshop or the like, and then when Guild Wars tells your video card to draw a certain texture, Texmod stops it midway and instead redirects it to your new, edited, texture. That's it. That's the whole program. We're not even touching the gw.dat file, ffs.

Heard of constructive criticism before? You might want to look it up rather than insulting peoples work. It gets better results, and benefits both parties.

That's because it's a third party program, and Anet can't 100% condone the use of it due to legal reasons and so forth. But what they are admitting is that they believe it's harmless, and they will not actively hunt down people using mods and ban them for it. The exact same policy goes for using Wine to run Guild Wars in Linux. They can't support it, but it's causing no harm and is only furthering your enjoyment of the game. It's nothing they will stop you from doing.

nice but... it also gets rid of the colored arrows on enchants and hexes.... >.<

You liked those? I thought they were kind of unnecessary, especially if you'd been playing the game for a while. I took out the numbers on the skillbars too for the same reason, useless clutter. I figured most people would know their skills and their layout well enough to not need to look at those, but if I get enough people complaining about it I suppose I can put it back the way it was, or create new arrows.

ya i like the removal of the numbers.... just seems kinda... i dunno, soulless without those pretty little arrows, lol. i like the rest of what you did though, been usin it

Awesome, thanks a lot for sharing. As a longtime GW player i know what're enchants and hexes =D

I was gonna remove the numbers and arrows too, they're just unnecessary. Nice work though, looks good ;D

Please fill in the summary and "Creator" field next time. So annoying when i don't know what a mod does

The game code is un-alterable (is that a word?), since it is not open source for everyone to change it. What modders are attempting right now is simply to change the graphics of the game, and nothing else. EVERY OTHER FORM OF CHANGE TO THE GAME ENGINE IS ILLEGAL. Also, these mods only appear on YOUR Console Client and not others. Just a few facts that needed to be cleared.

Good work. Very nice mod; thank you. I am a long time player, and I appreciate the ability to remove those colored arrows for hex/enchants, as well as the numbers. Hurray for less clutter!

As much as I hate to, I am finding myself using this mod all the time now. It does look better than the originals. I still really hate the fact that there are no numbering and no enchantment/hex signs. Please could you update your mod and add these features in? Or add a side release that has these?

K, here's a quick fix then.
http://www.mediafire.com/?wmjndjlmnlj

Basically it just restores the defaults, but in order to work that file has to be placed at the top of the Package Mode list. So when you add them it'll look like:
notsoclearskills.tpf
clearskills.tpf
othermodshere.tpf

As I mentioned before I seem to have accidentally deleted the dds files for the mod some time ago, so in order to fix it properly I'm going to have to recreate the whole thing from scratch. Not that that's entirely a bad thing, as I can fix up a few of the problems like the elite skill outline, and putting some sort of thin border around the skills for some added finish. It's more a matter of getting the ambition to do it.. >_>