World of Warcraft: Dragonflight HUD and UI Revamp

[Lumy]

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight HUD and UI Revamp

Get ready for a fresh-looking Heads-Up Display (HUD), and User Interface (UI) revamp designed to be adjustable, effective, attractive, and easily accessible.

With the Dragonflight update, we’re making sweeping changes to World of Warcraft’s HUD and UI from the ground up. Our aim is to provide a clutter-free layout and allow players to customize their HUD to better fit their individual needs.

A Whole New Look

Technology has advanced since we first developed the UI in 2004. We now have more tools at our fingertips to create and improve quality-of-life features. We wanted to modernize the appearance of the player’s layout and view while maintaining the original design’s charm and personality. And there is no better time to deliver these changes than with the release of Dragonflight.

Right away, players will immediately notice the more apparent changes. For instance, the minimap and health bar are more prominent, and we’ve removed some clutter to provide greater viewable space. Also, while keeping to the iconic design, we’ve cleaned up the appearance of the Action Bar. We also added a fresh set of Gryphons and created Wyverns for our Horde-loving heroes. There’s also a new look for the loot and inventory display, and players can use Combined Backpack functionality to help them find and organize their inventory items more quickly.

Make It Your Own

Welcome to Edit mode. With Edit mode, you will now have the ability to tweak, personalize, and move (almost) anything anywhere to your heart’s desire. Not only are various elements of the HUD movable, but each individual component has a variety of options to help you get everything just right.



Once you set everything set how you like it, you’ll be able to name, save, edit, copy, and share it with the community. And, for those that change specs often, the feature is designed to remember which specialization you’re in. As you switch between specs, the feature will remember the HUD layout you have for that spec and change accordingly.

Will this new feature replace the ability to use third-party add-ons entirely? Not at all. We recognize that add-ons provide many opportunities for players to customize their experience, but not all players utilize them. However, with the help of our user research team, we are working to meet our community’s needs. We include elements that some add-ons provide to the base UI. Those who wish to can continue using the add-ons they like.

Improved Accessibility to Make Things Easier

Improving accessibility features for our players is at the forefront of much of the design of the new UI and providing ways for players to have a better experience is vital. Here are some of the changes that we’ve been working on to help improve accessibility for players:

• New Option: Press and Hold Casting – When enabled, the player can press and hold a keyboard hotkey to continually cast a spell on an Action Bar without repeatedly pressing the button.
  
• New Feature: Interact Key – Pressing the Interact Key will enable you to interact with NPCs and objects with a key press instead of a mouse click. Interactive NPCs and objects will gain an icon above their heads as you move close enough to interact.
  
• New Targeting System: Action Combat – This feature works alongside the standard targeting features and automatically targets enemies as you approach them. This will allow you to start casting abilities immediately and dynamically switch between targets based on where you’re looking.

Looking Ahead

Refining the UI is an ongoing project; we want to continue to make changes and improvements. In addition to polishing the current set of available features, we intend to tackle many other UI elements and include more features further down the line, like:

• Additional Edit Mode options
  
• Group Manager
  
• Raid Frames
  
• Quest Tracker
  
• And more updates to the art

We’ll have more information and details on these and other features as we move toward the launch of Dragonflight. We look forward to getting your feedback as you experience all these changes and more.

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World of Warcraft®: Dragonflight™ will be available on or before December 31, 2022. Visit the Dragonflight site to pre-order. Check WorldofWarcraft.com/news for updates, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

See you in the Dragon Isles!

[Primohastat]

Finally WoW get UI adjustements SWTOR had on its release back in 2011.

Question is, when add-on usage will be removed completely.

[Julmara]

dang i can actually turn off quite a few addons on launch feels good

[RobertMugabe]

I wish this new UI was also added to Classic, so I don't have to deal with UI addons as much and their issues...

[Kumorii]

Finally WoW get UI adjustements SWTOR had on its release back in 2011.

Question is, when add-on usage will be removed completely.

Never..........

[Kathranis]

Can't believe they still haven't integrated a coordinates display into the default minimap.

Otherwise this is all positive. Good stuff.

[VinceVega]

Only problem i have is that i cannot (not in addons or wow) modify the normal actionbares to look like my MMO mouse.

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it is always in another way... sometimes i wonder why they are called MMO mouse.

you can change the keybind of course. but the vehicels or other abilities will never land on the then because it isn't actually the first button...

[Agrias2x]

The only thing I don't like is the player and target frame. Looks weak.

[Julmara]

would be cool if you could blacklist buffs and debuffs
all these passive auras from events and people are just wasting space

[Uk Lok-Narash]

The only thing I don't like is the player and target frame. Looks weak.

The one they showed off at blizzcon or what is currently the original one that is in alpha? I for one prefer the original and really don't see any reason it needs an update. The one they showed off at the announcement does look weak imo, like a mobile game or something.

[Monteverdi]

Looks a lot like ElvUI

[MarkTheMadMad]

RIP Bartender4

[Luciferstwin]

Finally WoW get UI adjustements SWTOR had on its release back in 2011.

Question is, when add-on usage will be removed completely.

Addons will never be removed. What are you smoking

[sensei]

Long story short. Someone at Bliz finally played FFXIV and said "Hey we can steal that!".

[nvaelz]

Is the amount of bars expanded compared to retail? anyone know? I need to use bartender4 cuz i have too many macros :|

[Mamut]

Long story short. Someone at Bliz finally played FFXIV and said "Hey we can steal that!".

Yeah, because FFIV invented it

[RaoBurning]

Long story short. Someone at Bliz finally played FFXIV and said "Hey we can steal that!".

My thoughts exactly. Which, honestly, is fine. They should do that more, with more games. Steal what works, discard what doesn't.

[Duese]

So, basically, they took SexyMap and MoveAnything and made them a part of the default UI. They took some parts of bartender but not everything that they should have. And then changed the health bars to use a horizontal gradient instead of minor shadow.

That about it?

Is there anything in this new UI revamp that actually enables more functionality in the UI? Anything actually useful? I mean, it's a key selling point for the expansion and there's nothing that I actually get out of it which sucks.

[stoffe]

is there a way you can use the default UI we have atm or is this gonna be it?

Maybe someone do a addon or something

[Swnem]

Great! Keep the customization up. I look forward to not having to download a bunch of addons every patch anymore.