New UI - not quite better than previous

Don't take me wrong for a bit of criticism here, but this is just my personal opinion on the matter. (Just back from a 50 days off so I missed R55 almost entirely and now tested on R56 directly).

I think the dark borderless transparency is overused. Colors aren't blending well with the interface and the new "grayer" icons just make me feel with an empty screen all times. If the intent was to make it less confusing, the effect is the opposite - low contrast in between windows makes it difficult to see which is which and the inner text from brighter white to a darker grayed white just worsen things up.

I myself am a fan of transparency and minimal and "modern" interfaces, but the way it was done here looks like you are "putting new patches in old garments"... because it just doesn't fit well the new transparency concept with the "old" squared and tabbed windowses.

So, to change to a borderless UI, a new concept for the windows and textes inside them should be thought off from scratch. Tabbed frames just doesn't look good being all semi-black and opaque and monocromatic.

Also, the removal of filigrees on the compass was an unnecessary "economy" of space IMO. The filigree used to fill out the empty space necessary to centralize the text bellow, which now appears to be much bigger and displaced than before.

The old UI certainly wasn't state of the art, but the new one isn't fixing it.

Some suggestions:

- Change the horizontal tabbed windows for a vertical one, maybe. Use highlights on "empty spaces" more frequently.
- Use different colors for some windows, not only 70% black or the like.
- Use transparency gradients and "stained glass" effects for the background, or even different shades of black for different portions of the same window (eg: a darker outliner and inside, a brighter one).
- Make animations and lighting and use more resources so the user is sure he's interacting with the content, instead of a static mouse only highlighting clicks.
- Use phase transitioning, or animations to "open" and close.
- Experiment with glow effects for border or selection, or make the "topmost" or "active" window
- The "cold" colors, instead of the previous "hot" ones aren't fitting that well with the scenery of the game itself. I'd rather have the previous icons and size
- Also, you must have some UI scaling options; The icons now are ridiculously small in my 2560x1440 resolution.

And remember: that's just my humble opinion. There's always room to make something better.

Thanks.