UI Competition Results!
 

We had lots of entries and I must say a huge thanks to all who entered!

Before I start naming the results I must talk about one thing. I am stripping out the “UI must be made during the course of the competition” rule. Now before ye all get angry at me because this might have been what was stopping you entering, I have to admit that it was a stupid rule. Good UI's take months or even years if you look at certain UI's to bring them to a standard which is eviable by many. TukUI, Caith UI, Roth UI, etc.... these UI's did not spring up overnight and for good reason. Blood, sweat and tears have been pumped into these UI's and they are awesome because of this.
Please note that this is only the first UI Competition which I am hosting. There hopefully will be many more in the future so you will get your chance if you missed out here.

Sorry for all the nips, tucks and changes guys... now that I have this all under my belt I can use the experience to make it better next time :D

Now that I have explained myself, on with the results!

Best Overall UI


Ferous of Hydraxis US
* Solo: http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7...2410050449.jpg
* Party: http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/4...2410053929.jpg
* Raid: http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/7...2010232249.jpg
* Download: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...-SvelteUI.html

Clean, stylish and shows everything you need. Class coloured bars give the UI a nice touch and the layout is well thought out. Grid is centred for healing but small enough so that it doesn't look out of place on a dps character. Personally I don't like the pixel font used in the Unitframes as when it is big like that it loses the effect compared to when it is small but this is only a minor issue.

Best Generic UI


Shaethas of Trollbane EU
* Album: http://img682.imageshack.us/gal.php?...interface1.png

I'm not sure why but iLive UI is a UI that plays with my emotions. I don't love it, but neither do I hate it... There is nothing flashy or standout about the UI but it is well put together and for that it gains my respect. The only ususal thing about this UI is the fact that it could only work well on a 1920x1080 resolution and the button layout, which is grouped with similar/complementing abilities beside each other. Everything is clear to see and it is what all raiders should strive for in a UI as nothing is cluttered, your FoV is excellent and the layout is fairly centralised.

Best Artistic UI


Atarah of Malygos EU
* Solo: http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/9284/soloi.jpg
* All shown: http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/1192/showall.jpg
* Raid: http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/8011/raidn.jpg

It only seems right that this UI should win the Artistic Category. With the fall of the Lich King and the impending rise of Deathwing and Ragnoros, this UI is going to become a rare breed once we head back to warmer regions. The art is clever, the icicles are spread throughout the UI, hanging off buffs and the mana bar but it is the frosted edges that attract attention. A while back there was an uprising of blackened edgings on Minimalistic UI's so it is nice to see that it also had an influence here. The buttons are customised to have the nice blue color and the UI is centred around Grid which fuses the UI together. The Unitframes are trying to be unique but I feel they are too large at the moment.

Best Minimalistic


Kamí of Xavius EU
* solo: http://koti.mbnet.fi/nniklas/uic1.jpg
http://koti.mbnet.fi/nniklas/uic2.jpg
* raid: http://koti.mbnet.fi/nniklas/uic3.jpg

Pixel perfect in every aspect. Minimalistic UI's are very hard to get right and this UI does it in style. The fonts are the right size, anything that needs to be seen clearly has been put in a nice sans-serif font. Focusing on the fonts, an uncapitalised font has been chosen. Personally I wouldn't like that but it does make things like the chat frame look very clean and it has been kept throughout the UI so it wasn't any half-assed attempt.
There are only 6 actionbuttons shown but important cooldowns show above these so no space is wasted with static keybound buttons or cooldown bars. Important information is the only thing shown and it is presented well.

Most Original UI


Munglunch of Skullcrusher US
* (*combat* showing my “!” aggro indicator): http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6...1910093613.jpg

A comic UI! Awesome! We really did feel like this was the best choice for the original UI as it is was so different to what we saw throughout this competition. “Meanwhile ... in Silverwing Hold” on the Minimap was a stroke of genius. Considering the popularity of comics at the moment due to movies like Kick Ass and Iron Man 2, this UI is well timed. Even if this UI lacked the comic theme, it would still be a good UI as the layout is very well done and everything fits well together.
It is a pity that the other two screenshots died of “use of forum tags in a comment section” but in any case the UI is well enough displayed here to warrent the prize.

Strangest/Crazyiest UI


Davelukewski of Eonar EU
* solo: http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...510_140717.jpg
* raid: http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...410_003104.jpg

It speaks for itself. Yeah..... Well congratz. I might send you the amazing prize of an 1 Imbued Netherweave Cloth! Or even more amazing, 1 Heavy Knothide Leather!

What these lucky people have won!


* Best Overall UI - Fishing Chair, Centre of attention
* Best Generic UI – Centre of Attention, Path of Illidan
* Best Artistic UI – Centre of Attention, Path of Illidan
* Best Minimalistic UI – Centre of Attention, Disco Ball
* Most Original UI – Fishing Chair, Disco Ball
* Honorable Mention – Strangest/Most unusual UI.



I will be emailing the winners with the codes soon after this is posted so check your mail!

Ferous' UI? Yep, definitely.

iLive UI? Nice and clean, but chat box backgrounds are always pointless (in my opinion). Other than that, well constructed and a nice overall colour theme (or rather lack of colour).

Atarah's UI is actually quite original and nice to look at, except the overall scale of the thing is a bit overwhelming. It seems to throw loads of things at me at once, which would distract me from the actual game - but I suppose if you're used to the UI after playing with it for some time, it won't make much difference.

Kamí's UI is a real breath of fresh air for me, after seeing all of these obscurely minimal UIs. I think this UI goes back to what minimal is really all about - only displaying exactly what you need at the right moments, at the same time as keeping as much of the screen clear as humanly possible. This one does that pretty damn well.

Now, as for Munglunch's UI, I'm not too sure what's so amazingly original here. Sure, it's a pretty decent UI on its own (although a bit messy), but 'A comic UI!'? Seriously? He just used a comic-style font and inserted the word 'Meanwhile...' above the minimap. As clever as this is, I don't think you can call this UI ground-breaking: it simply adds some pretty cool visual perks to a tried-and-tested UI style.

Davelukewski's UI? Heh, I don't think we need to say much about this, but I will still mention the fact that this UI, as absurd as it may look to most people, obviously suits this player and their playstyle, or he/she wouldn't be using it. In fact, looking at it more closely, it does provide all the information you'd need in any situation without having to move your eyes too far.

But my eyes would still bleed.

Aggro indicator shows as a question mark over head, tot comes out as a kind of speech bubble, comic type artwork behind the 3d portraits. Imo it does quite well as a comic UI. It does use TukUI as a base so I guess you could say it has a standard base but in my opinion it was the best executed UI who's style differed greatly from anything else we had seen in the competition. There wasn't a massive range of choice but this stood out as original amongst the rest :D

Nice to get feedback though, helps me hone this competition down. :D

I forgot to add the website address so I'll just stick it here.
http://www.pimpmyui.net
If you want to see the rest of the UI's, see the comments on the UI Submission page.

I had indeed noticed those features. I still think it's a bit gimicky. I'm not saying it's bad - in fact, it's a great idea and, as you said, is very well-timed what with a huge increase in interest for such movies (kicked off by Watchmen, in my opinion). A lot of the ideas are really cool, too.

It's like releasing a new car. The base model is the same as the standard car, except it has some flashy new features, like neon lighting and tinted windows. It's still a car and does everything else exactly the same and after a while you'll probably forget about these things anyway, so what's the point of having them in the first place? :P

As I said in the MMO Champion thread about this Posting, Thank you for the gifts, and even though personal preferences and opinions differ, I'm glad I was considered in this contest... I await the next, so I can put some brain power and thought on the next one! :O lol

Thanks again. :)

-Ferous
(Kathleen Sprague)

You deserved it, imo. ;)

Thanks :P I finally realized HOW to redeem the codes, considering, I'm stricken with stupid today lol.

I think there should be a panel of judges made up of the top UI designers. Including you, of course. (Phew, nearly got my head kicked in.)

I'm not a good person of judgement though lol. Yes, I have thoughts and critiques that I can think of in regards to other people's UIs but I'm no simon cowel, i'm more of a paula abdule that allows everyone slide lol. >.>

Pahahaha, okay, maybe not you then. x)

(I'd personally fancy myself to be a good judge, but what do I know :P)

The aim originally was actually to have a panel of judges made up of respected members of the UI community. However, that was last year when I first tried to get this running (Only people on the official forums ever really knew I was trying to set something up though.) and when that fell through I kinda vanished without a trace on Elloria, Carebear, Wimpsy, syrupK (there were more but the lineup was chopped and changed a lot so these are the few I defo remember). Last year's model died due to legal issues, my impending exams and generally delay after delay after delay.

This time I didn't want to disappoint anyone so I ran the whole thing myself (with a truck-full of help and support from Tukz of www.tukui.org) to avoid any external issues.

For the next competition, I have all of this experience beneath me so I can actually go back and look at the original idea and get it working! I am almost positive there will be judges once more but there will be a host of other changes too.

Estimated time when the next one will be? Also, maybe try to promote it a bit more, I can help too when you run it, on the US forums, so more people submit instead of having so few submit because I know there are alot of talented people out there that can whip up something pretty promising for the purpose of a competition :)

AHEM! AHEM!

Also, I say you do a small number of awards every month and hold the big awards once every year. Or maybe six months, one year is a long time in the world of MMORPGs. >.<

1 year is indeed a long time. Honestly at this time I couldn't give a good estimate without shooting myself in the foot but hopefully during the summer when most people have a bit of spare time (including myself!).

The competition was advertised well enough for my first time running it. There were threads EVERYWHERE! Keeping track of them all was a nightmare xD

WoWInterface
WoWAce
Curse
MMO-Champion
WoW-Europe Interface
Front page of WoW-Europe site in Forum Watch
TukUI forums
My own unofficial realm forum

Next time I will try to get more front page action, include the US forums, probably a facebook page and other things.
There was also a lot of activity on the site, it got around 20,000 views in a month and 2,000 on the second day of the competition.

I think the main problems may have been timing (competition running near end of university semester when exams are about to start/have started) a bit over zealous on the rules and as you all have said, a bit more exposure.

Haha, fair enough, good job on doing so!

Nice to see this come of the ground and ofc gz to the people that won! Well deserved.

I just have to say that I really liked Ferous UI, and the chat message in the solo screenshot just topped it off, made me giggle.

I was hoping for another competition. meh. I wasn't playing anyways.

Holy cow, there you are... you've been missed around here.

lol thanks O.o I don't know if Ill stay though... lol but Ill see what happens :P