Skills windows

Hey Pennywise,

  Thanks for bringing this up, visuals are great. The whole GUI was a big focus toward the tail end of development in years past, but some areas of it are still implemented as basic placeholders. Skills stands in contrast to other areas that were reworked or added simply because it's one of those that hadn't been reworked yet.

  The "simplified" mockup I did around 2011 is somewhat similar to your example. A list, and an area that would presumably provide an explanation of the skill, and data on the effects that it provides and/or creation menus for the crafting skills:

  Another mockup from that same time (This one would require a bigger change / rework of the skill system and not realistic to pursue at the moment). The idea would be to eliminate or consolidate some skills, and expand them into skill trees with some select-able abilities, and passive perks. In this example sword skill could have milestones that unlock perks, or select-able sword actions for right click action.

  Yet another idea, is to make a more stylized window for skills similar to the spell book. I think Zer favors these type of GUIs as opposed to the "windows" look, and I tend to agree. They have less flexibility than the modular type, but that's not to say we cant create a more modular stylized GUI made up of components.
  We have discussed a scroll look. I did make a "scroll" for the GUI, I can't remember what it was intended to be for, but we could use that. Another mockup I just made while you have me thinking about it:

Creation skills could use some attention as well. If we used this look I wonder if using the desert client's crafting menus would be more of an improvement over what we have now. They lack features, but with some post-processing touch up to get rid of the black anti aliasing edge, and text they could pair well with a "skill scroll".

What are your thoughts/suggestions on something like the above examples?