What's with the skill icons loading?

I know no one here can really know the code, but can you think of a reason why the skill icons load now (first a gray icon of hourglass, then the skill icon itself)? I find it a bit annoying, especially when an enemy casts a hex on me and it takes some time to show up in the effects monitor. Yes, it's only like half a second or so, but still. Plus when hex wears off, the icon flashes and swaps with the gray hourglass for some reason.

yeah it's annoying :/

Agreed, why has this started happening?

anyone tested yet if its happening in prophecis and/or factions too after update?

I'm getting the same thing. It's annoying =\

It's very hard to interrupt now. =(
Sometime when I receive some conditions, hex or enchantments, I can not tell what they are in time. That's too bad. This has to be fixed.

Yes, I was playing in cantha not too long ago and it was happening.

I assume this is a 100% new part of the UI, as opposed to a feature that's always been there but has never been seen before because the lag's never been bad enough?

...To be honest I have trouble understanding what it represents. Clearly it's supposed to make life fairer by telling us that an opponent has started using a skill a fraction of a second before the server can tell us what that skill is. However, the name of the skill appears next to the hourglass before the correct icon pops up, so our client obviously knows what skill is being used! In that case, why not just point that same information to the correct graphics file (skill icon) instead of the hourglass?

Its probably always been there, but because of the extreme lag and other problems in this event you get to see it now. Great event really running smoothly...

VERY irritating, interupting is hell as you don't know what is what until it's too late

wrong, I don't have any lag at all, never had, and I have those hourglasses since the event.

Previously it must have loaded all skill icons into memory, but now it loads them on demand, perhaps because there are so many now. This means depending on some factors (connection speed? lag?) you will see an hour glass for a short amount of time on your skill bars, skill dialogs, and when enemies use skills.

For me it's very annoying because when I play my interrupter I can't have a split second reaction because I have to read the skill name, whereas previously my brain would recognise which skill it was before I even knew and hit an interrupt depending on what it was. Now those 3/4 cast skills are slipping away as I only see what skill they used after they've used it.

I hope Anet change it back, it's a horrible update. It looks like a webpage loading the images when you scroll down the list.

No lag for me. Check your internet, it's not Anets fault.

Yes, I think this makes sense. Anet simply decided that there are too many skills now and they will load them one by one, when the icon is needed. I believe this could even be connected to the problem we've been seeing for some time now - the skill activation animation and sound are missing for the first time, then they're OK for next uses.
Anyway, GW takes up somewhere around 300MB of memory on my computer, leaving 800MB free, so I don't see why it couldn't preload the damn icons.

weird and annoying.

The HOurglasses were actually added about mid-day yesterday (shortly after the Hero crasing guild wars bug was fixed) - Before that their was still "lag" on the skills showing, but the bar was just black before they loaded, and in Obs Mode it would even show the previous skill casted's icon before the new spell's icon loaded (making it real confusing).

They're probably trying to keep the game's requirements down, which is good, but at least give me an option to preload everything. No reason good computers like mine should suffer because some people can't be bothered to upgrade

Yeah... all of us just can't be 'bothered'. Dude, if i had the money, i'd be playing Oblivion with all the slider's at the high end, and my days of Guildwars'ery would be at an end for the joy of experiencing HD lighting, Havoc 2 physics, and something GW's gfx coder's seem to unaware of called Bump Mapping. Poor noobs. Not everyone is languishing in the technological dark-age because their 'lazy'.




- Tremere

Bump maps are one of the engine improvements coming with Nightfall, just watch carefully

Yesterday, it took at least several minutes for the skill pics on my skill bar to load.