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A game is nothing without a user interface. It's the set of tools that allows us to see important information and control aspects of the game, whether it be armies, or single characters. Final Fantasy has it's control menus, StarCraft has it's unit select screen and resource indicators, and Zelda of course has it's hearts and magic bars! All MMORPGs have similar user interfaces, but each are unique in their own way.
Before we continue, let's take a quick look at what the user interface in Blade & Soul actually looks like.
At the top left of the UI we can see the status bars of your character. The red bar is obviously your health bar, indicating how much damage your character can sustain before having to recover. The bar below your health is your resource or "fuel" meter. Your character wouldn't be able to perform any special abilities without this meter. The green bar is your Qing Gong meter. This green bar will slowly drain until depleted while using Blade & Soul's unique traveling system, Qing Gong. Once the meter is completely exhausted you will be forced out of Qing Gong and will have to wait a bit for the meter to recover.
To the top right of the screen you'll find a standard mini-map. The mini-map displays a wide array of information for the user to take advantage of. The top left section of the mini-map will display the name of the area you are currently in. To the right of this you can find the current zone channel you are in. This number will vary depending on how many people are in the zone overall across all channels. Much like Aion, NCsoft's most recent MMORPG title, you can change to another zone channel willingly just by clicking on this indicator. From the screen shot above you can see the buttons to the right of the channel indicator/changer on the mini-map and what they do. One of those buttons include the teleportation feature, which can actually be used from any location by simply pressing that button. The only downside to this is that the teleport scrolls required for this feature are somewhat expensive, at least for a low level character. You can also use the 'M' hotkey to view the full-sized map and the 'N' hotkey to make the maps transparent, removing terrain.
From left to right; Expand Mini-map (M), Toggle Transparency (N), Close Mini-map.
Below the mini map you have the quest tracking system. You can use this tool to track the quests you are currently working on. Yellow triangular arrows indicate storyline quests. These quests are directly related to the storyline in Blade & Soul and will lead to cut-scenes most of the time upon accepting or completing them. Blue triangular arrows indicate side quests. These are quests given to you along your travels that generally have no real impact on the main storyline. When these triangular arrows turn into a star, this indicates that you have completed said quest. We can also see the title of the quest in green text, and the quest objective in white text. When you accept a group quest, there will be a teal cylinder next to the title of the quest. Attempt these quests solo, and you shall meet your demise! If you wish, you can also close the quest tracker completely by clicking on the black button with two white arrows under the mini-map.
To the far left, under the status bars, you can find the party unit frames. These frames show which number each party member is, who the party leader is, their health in the form of a blue bar, their name, and their level. By right clicking on a specific party, you'll be open to several options such as group looting options, trading, removing that party member if you are the party leader, whispering and more.
At the bottom left of the screen you'll notice the chat box. Here you can see general chat, party chat, whispers, guild chat, system messages, and so on. The color codes for these texts should seem familiar to any MMORPG player; White is ordinary speak, blue is party chat, green is guild chat, tan is general chat, and so on. Wish to filter out some channels to remove some clutter? You can do that! You can even create entirely new tabs with custom filters to keep your chatting experience as organized as possible. Another great feature in Blade & Soul's chat box is the ability to link various items to other players. This was extremely convenient for us non-Korean speaking folk, we got to bother Yuan all day with "What do these say!?" whispers.
In the bottom center and a bit to the right you can see the action and consumable bars. These bars have default key-bindings which allow you to use your characters abilties. The 'F' key, while also being a host to abilities for the various classes also acts as a standard "action" button which allows you to use objects in the game, pick up objects and bodies, and loot corpses. Some buttons will change based on your targets status, whether they are on the ground, stunned, or in the air. Some also change depending on if you executed a successful block or not. Ability keybinds are as follows; Tab, 1-4, R, F, Z, X, C and V. For classes such as the Blade Master, Kung-Fu Master and Destroyer, your 'R' key abilities are your standard attacks and are used to generate resource points, allowing you to use your special abilities found on other hotkeys. The consumable section at the bottom right consisting of numbers 5-8 allow you to drag items like food or potions and use them from said hotkey, allowing for quicker and more efficient accessibility during combat.
Stretching across the bottom of the screen is the experience bar. Here you can find how much experience you are required to earn before you will gain a level. Just above the experience bar in the far left corner of the screen you will find your characters name and current level. As you hover over the experience bar you can see how much more experience is required to level and show much experience you have gained in total.
To the left of the main action bar is the social tab. Here you will find various in game social functions including a button to view mail, latest news, your friends list, the auction house and even a calendar. We can't get into details with these features as they were disabled for CBT1.
On the opposite side of the screen in the far right corner you will find the various character tabs. Here there are buttons to view your character profile, giving you access to your characters stats, equipment, and accessories. There is also a button to view your quest log, your skill book containing all of your spells and abilities, your inventory and a button for training, which once at level 15 will be used to access what we commonly refer to as your "talent tree." The inventory feature in Blade & Soul is quite convenient. It allows you to filter items in your bags based on item quality. Finally, there is also a button to access the game menu which hosts a variety of options ranging from video, audio, key-bindings, to just simply logging out.
From left to right; Character Profile (P), Quest Log (J), Ability Book (K), Inventory (I).
Speaking of logging out, that about wraps up our summary of the Blade & Soul user interface. As you can see the developers have used many familiar elements from other MMORPG's and kept the user interface as simplistic as possible without removing key functions. This will allow both MMORPG veterans and new users to have an easy time getting used to Blade & Soul's controls.
If you have any questions concerning Blade & Soul's user interface feel free to ask it here and we'll be sure to answer it!
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