Cartographer and the GPS really aren't all that necessary, with all the quest aids built into the game, to be honest. Plus, you can make map notes (not sure if they are permanent or not), to boot.

However, I'd kill for a Bartender3 or Trinity or Bongoes... It's a fun game, but I really don't like their pop up windows and button bars the way they are given to us in game.

On the bright side, I noticed that the release allows for all sorts of key-binding, which is infinitely better than what I saw in Open Beta.

All I want is Bongos!

I don't know what G15 is ... my wife just dearly loved that directional pointer for quests we had in WoW -- that blew her away. She has a tough time with directions in-game sometimes.

As one of the resident healers, I can say without question that the group UI is indeed ass. A tiny window miles away from my hot-bar (I admit it, I'm generally a mouse-clicky type as opposed to key bindings) and none of the other pertinent information is anywhere near the group window.

The only saving grace (for Bear Shaman at least) is that my heals do not require targeting to take effect. I have a HoT and an instant heal that function in a cone AoE in front of me. As long as the person I'm trying to heal is in my line of sight basically. That is the catch however, you need to be in my line of sight cone otherwise I won't be healing you. Near as I can tell, targeting means absolutely nothing for my heals.

Im the same way. I have taught myself to attack using the hotbar keys, but for healing I always seem to click and heal.

I did find out that you can drag the party window around though. I moved mine down near my own health bar so I can better keep an eye on things.
Not perfect, as I still would like more information out of the party window, but its still better than having it all the way in the top corner of my screen.

the " allow XML reskinning" stuff is the most important part.

I want to play with these but I am hesitant at this point I want to see how they will handle the 2 additional directional attacks at 40.

Same with my n52 I bought last night I want to get us our city plot rolling before I mess around and take a night just to tweak.

The Mirage UI skin looks good. He's got two versions. Normal size and one with reduced size if you find the buttons too big. Im gonna check out the scaled down one.

This is the same guy who did UI's for LOTRO and WOW (Mirage UI for WoW which was previously known as Insomniax). So keep an eye out for him, as his work is usually pretty solid.

I'm using the Mirage UI and it's so nice to have all the bars right there on the bottom, the little default 2 side bars the game gives you ended up annoying me a bit. Can't wait to see what he can do with new versions!

I'll definitely check out Mirage when I get up and running. Insomniax was the very first UI compilation I experimented with in WoW and I was always impressed by how well it all worked together. The guy definitely knows what he's doing, good to know he's devoting some time to AoC.

I used his scaled down version and Im in absolute love with it so far. The condensed size and the movement of the character debuffs out of the way of the casting bar are marked improvements over the default UI.

I dont have a pet class, but Mirage is the kinda mod maker that will take constructive feedback and make improvements. So hopefully its taken care of soon. The only bug I've encountered so far, is if you show "target of target" sometimes during combat you can get a separation in your bars. Hard to explain other than to say theres a gap in the bars that wasnt there before. It doesnt happen 100% of the time and can be avoided completely by turning off target of target for the meantime.

I still leave target of target on, as I enjoy the feature and the gap in the hotbars isnt game breaking or even an annoyance. Still, thats something I would imagine Mirage will address soon, as he is aware of it.

Wait a second. In the later levels some classes will be able to use lower right and lower left attacks, which will push the current three attacks up a row. Does Mirage take care of that or will the buttons end up covering each other?

from his faq's for version 1.2 (released 5/23/2008):
- Modified the BottomBar to prevent it from getting distorted when certain classes hit level 40 and obtain Lower Right and Lower Left attacks. Level 40 and above players please submit feedback!

We got any 40+ characters yet? Might want to give him a shout-out and let him know how it works.