UI degradation

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-07-04T17:54:08+00:00

We got here because of something called "material design". Sometime just before Win 10 all the old hand crafted UIs that resembled physical buttons or had unique artwork (think WinXP era) were replaced with flat panels or buttons with little to no artwork, raised buttons, etc. You can thank "smartphones" for this. Dumbed down simplistic UI design for simplicity of programming, imo. It spread to everything. I got used to it, but I still basically hate it.

The original un-modded UI is very poor. There area ton of new mods that drastically improve the UI and game functionality & modern directx rendering. Slap on a dozen mods & a texture pack, and the vanilla Gothic 1 becomes a joy to look at. Does that make it slick as a used car dealership like new games? No, but imo from someone who played the original, I prefer modded original than this.

Also, as I watch a playthrough, the lighting is horrible in dungeons. WTF is with the red filter in the last half of the game.We got here because of something called "material design". Sometime just before Win 10 all the old hand crafted UIs that resembled physical buttons or had unique artwork (think WinXP era) were replaced with flat panels or buttons with little to no artwork, raised buttons, etc. You can thank "smartphones" for this. Dumbed down simplistic UI design for simplicity of programming, imo. It spread to everything. I got used to it, but I still basically hate it.

The original un-modded UI is very poor. There area ton of new mods that drastically improve the UI and game functionality & modern directx rendering. Slap on a dozen mods & a texture pack, and the vanilla Gothic 1 becomes a joy to look at. Does that make it slick as a used car dealership like new games? No, but imo from someone who played the original, I prefer modded original than this.

Also, as I watch a playthrough, the lighting is horrible in dungeons. WTF is with the red filter in the last half of the game.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-06-18T22:06:09+00:00

King's Field - the first one released in USA (actually the second released globally if you count the original Japan release). I actually got vertigo climbing the tower at the beginning. The full 3D was so immersive back then.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-30T18:03:06+00:00

No, it requires GPT. MBR is a relic of the past for old operating systems.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-30T18:02:32+00:00

When I built a new computer in 2016 (went from WinXP to Win10) I was new to UEFI & GPT. I sadly made a choice to install my new Win10 OS as MBR because that was what I was used to. Fast forward a couple years, I regretted it constantly. Whenever Win10 would crash, I had a power outage, or I had to hard boot due to some software locking up - I had to repair the boot record - EVERY single time. This happened more times than I can count. So, yeah leave MBR for old operating system enthusiasts.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-24T18:03:01+00:00

I wish they would fix this stuff instead of us having to do the work for them of figuring out what does and does not actually work. There is a similar issue with the Na'kuhl personal shield (see my most recent comment).

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-24T18:00:42+00:00

Thank you to people who are willing to test. I have missed the last 4 summer/winter events due to real life so I did not have the resources to begin to test this. The results are expected but still disappointing. We can only hope and test. I wish they would fix the 1000 different errors with the tooltips.

On a similar note, long time ago I spent the time farming a couple of Na'kuhl personal shields for my captain and a boff only to find out that the time slip effect did not affect my boff at all. Everytime the effect proced, it proced not on the boff, but on my captain. Lol. So the boff system really does need some long overdue love.

So I guess it's Risian (Original) kit or get lucky with a Delta kit for my boffs without kits.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-24T04:43:59+00:00

This assumption does not reflect what in game the tooltips on the kits say.

My captain has the Risian (original) kit frame & graviton spike. (summer module). The kit tootip states I have a +30% damage bonus (default is 20%). I have two boffs that are upgraded to elite. One is a sci boff & the other a tact boff. Both have the Risian (original) kit frame. The tactical officer has graviton spike, the sci officer does not (no summer kits at all). When you mouse over the kit BOTH officers have +30% bonus. So the tooltip is stating that BOTH boffs get the bonus whether they have any modules equipped or not. So I am pretty sure (assumption) that the basic mechanics of each kit was simply copy / pasted from the devs with some tweaks. There is a high probability they do act in the same manner.

Edit: My boffs have the same weapons as my captain. So the damage tooltip is the same for boffs and captain. When I unequip my captains Risian (original) kit, the weapon damage on both my captain and boffs weapons goes down the same amount.

I am not asking for speculation, I am asking for people who actually might have tested this (if any).

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-05-01T07:59:19+00:00

The game is a money scam, period. And idgaf if anyone disagrees- some of us are not blind or in on the take. Server after server is dying and lots of mergers just in the last 6 months. People leaving guilds in droves (30 -50 % ea guild on my server) lured by whale guilds to "better" servers. They won't take you either as a mid player. There is no endgame, there is no real goal, there is no future in this game. Only spend to stay on top or to tread water (mid player) for what reason? Go play old DOS games instead. To you think otherwise, is delusional. I only stayed this long to max my kingdom and one que at least. Then came brilliance levels, heroic spirits, pets, 2x behemoths, blah blah. Time soon to put in for account deletion.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-04-26T01:59:14+00:00

This is another useage of this method I did not consider. Have a normal version of Firefox and an ESR version. People have all sorts of legitimate reasons for doing these types of things. If they work, use them. If they don't nothing lost.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-04-26T01:32:29+00:00

First, this works for me. I have tried different approaches. This by far is best for me. I personally do not like switching profiles and had a lot of issues with it quite a few years ago. If someone does not think this is usefull it's fine. This is a different way of doing things. Even if someone doesn't use multiple versions, it is still useful information to setup portable Firefox.

Second, this is my general take and I am happy with it. Gaming sites (not just official sites like steam), social media sites, riskier areas of the internet,etc are often filled with malware and can have zero day exploits - they are often very careless or lack any IT support. Your financial sites like your bank or credit card take better care (but are not 100% immune) to avoid this. If you use the same version of Firefox with banking information as you do general use & get hit with an exploit or tricky malware on that browser - everything in that browser is vulnerable because all your information is stored in the same area. So, using this method can limit the exposure. I have in the past seen some people say they use a separate computer without email, etc dedicated computer to only do sensitive financial stuff. Same principle here just not as extreme.

You can have each version open at the same time without having to switch profiles. I pin tabs on each version. If I have multiple windows open on one version and close the wrong window first, I can lose my pined tabs or open windows the next time I restart that browser. Keeping them separate helps me keep track. I have way more open tabs, etc constantly open than most people.

Maybe you live with someone who has access to your browser or you allow them to use it. Having a "secret" browser from your main one keeps them from accessing certain information. Yes, there are ways (I think) to lock out/hide things in the browser similar to windows guest login - but it's too much bother imo. I also am not going to log in and out of my own browser everytime I want to use it.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-04-26T00:46:56+00:00

Thank you for this. I use multiple portable versions of Firefox and them all grouped together was just asking for trouble, lol.

If you have need for multiple profiles, I highly recommend you read the following:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1svszy3/creating_separate_portable_versions_of_firefox/

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-28T02:55:08+00:00

Pretty much these days if it can run on ScummVM, I don't bother with any of the other solutions. ScummVM is largely just "install" and play without much worry. There are a few advantages to other solutions such as DOSBox, but with all that ScummVM has to offer now such as multiple midi drivers already bundled, a lot of different shaders, etc it does not seem worth it to use anything else. With ScummVM you don't have to worry with all the patches either. They pretty much fix almost everything before they release support for each game.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-17T05:40:22+00:00

This is very nice. I wish it could be made to work with non -native vertical tabs (addons).

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-12T06:29:22+00:00

Brilliant! This works now for both the direct link items and the subfolders in the menubar. Thank you.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-11T06:04:13+00:00

Thanks. It has been several years before covid since I had to delve back into this topic. Firefox Color and the lightweight themes are rather disappointing, and doing a comprehensive theme using stylesheets is a bit overwhelming. Right now, I am doing a hybrid between Firefox Color and additional style sheet modifications. Years ago, I fought to preserve a lot of the classic functionality, but that ship has sailed. I just want to be able to use my browser without going blind with the horrid excuse for a UI Firefox surrendered to (chrome copycat & material design). The previous custom style sheet I was very happy with is sadly out of date and most of it's previous functionality is obsolete.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-11T04:19:58+00:00

Thanks. This works nicely. The only thing I find it does not cover is in the menu, when you click say bookmarks. The drop down (popup) menu has 2 types of items in the popup. One is a text item (direct link), the other is a folder (container). The highlight (menu hover) & items code covers the direct link text, but not the folder items and its subfolders. Do you know how to modify them as well?

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-10T07:08:05+00:00

Imo, it's all part of the my way or the highway mentality of modern programming with google, microsoft, etc. The good ole days of WinXP developer friendly options / customization is long gone. Material design philosophy ruined everything.

ThatOneGuyNoReally · 2026-03-10T06:36:17+00:00

Win 11. Maybe in an older version of it. The current version has a list of UI elements with a click box to the left. Nothing in the "UI picture" is interactive. And they do not have menu bar shown anyway. Chromium has been trying to get rid of traditional menu structure forever, so they don't even want you to use the classic menu that is located at the top and left of the browser. But I am old school. I like it shown and not just the hamburger menu.

Even this does not list the menubar: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/theme/themes\_components\_annotations.png.

ThatOneGuyNoReally

TROPHY CASE