I have read that the UI can be modded..... does anyone know how far this will be allowed to go?

Modding can be a helpful thing as far as customizing UI but it can also be a game killer in my opinion when it is allowed to the point of having the mods you have installed make your decisions for you or even just to tell you how to best make choices..

I would also be interested to see the extent to which they allow mods, and what those mods can do. One would think that mods that just move around UI elements would be largely harmless but for example, would it be possible to change the textures of items in-game? Instead of a rusty chainmail tunic a mod may let you see a shiny "mithril" tunic. Back in the day, some players modded the way some costumes from City of Heroes appeared on local systems --- everyone else still saw the original textures, of course, but locally you could see a different costume piece. And of course the internets are full of Skyrim mods that change the way the game appears.

if the mod actually DOES something, like pull streaming combat data and display it somehow, then I might worry that it would be potentially abusive or at least might tip the scales in some ways. One thing that I would be tempted to use, if it were available, were some way to see crafting recipes that I had already uncovered (or perhaps that I had NOT yet uncovered, but that others HAD). Would be sorely tempting to abuse that knowledge, even though it would eventually become available on fan sites. Having it on-hand in-game would be hard to resist, although I look forward to experimenting and finding out things on my own to some extent.

I doubt that they'll allow it officially, but you can do this with a 3rd party tool (texmod) on many games.

See WoW Ui Addons as an example, probably to that lvl

Yeah, which can get pretty cheaty, especially in WPvP.

Exactly that is what I am talking about. Mods that let me organize how raid frames are organized and how the compass works or even implementing a mini map would be fine. What is worrisome about mods for me is that crazy world of warcraft level of modding that sends you info about who is near by without seeing them and telling you what button to push and when. I know it is even worse than that now but I stopped playing that game 5 years ago because the mods cracked the game and blizzard went and shattered it by turning it into a monkey game.

Here is to hoping that player skill does not get replaced or even passed up by mods. If SWTOR did anything good I would say it is the UI customization being what it is and then saying no mods at all. Unless you want players to cross lines it is better to just make it so there is no line to be crossed. A small opening is all that is needed, I fear, to make having the right mods secure you the world first content clear and the title of Emperor instead of your guilds know how and individual player skill.

This same thing could be said for cast sequence macros.... what is the point of making a game competitive? If knowing how to make a macro that allows you to smash the same button over and over again that automatically uses the best ability for the situation, or having a mod installed that even takes away the need to know how to make that macro, is implemented? I hate to see games quickly become dominated by macros and mod use making player abilities take a back seat.

Mods are a very risky proposition for an MMORPG.

Certain nefarious individuals can embed trojans into them, steal people's accounts... It'd be very tricky.

There may be UI tweaks, such as with WoW - but I'm not sure how I feel about those either. I think I'd prefer everyone be on a level playing field.

Sound or language packs?

The obvious UI mods and IIcant think of anything else.

But for the issues with the legitimacy of the mods there could be a ESO official site where mods are tested then posted to the official site , kinda like Google Play. This way there wont be or at least minimilize the chance for misuse of mods.

I would like to keep my UI as clean as possible, I actually used addons in WoW to make the UI more clean like removing the art around the abilities and scaling down the buttons, as I was pretty much using hotkeys all the time anyway. I really really love the simple look ESO seems to be going for, some may think it looks cheap, I think it looks minimalistic thus perfect for my needs.

It remains a choice how much you wish to clog up your screen, and if people wish to install all sorts of meters, extra raid frames, letters that bounce across the screen etc etc. it is their own eyesore to deal with imo.

So none of this: http://totemz.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/worstui.jpg for me... But if that's the way you want to play a game... Go ahead for all I care xD

You see im kinda the oposite, I need Intel coming at me nonstop.

-MY status including buff amd debuff icons
-My targets status and buff or debuff icons
-my targets targets status with icons
-status of everyone in group or raid, with icons yes.
-3-4 chat boxes, for chatting, skill/dmg log, system info ,self buffs or debuff etc
-Mini map, and another transparent mini map if possible,
-Distance meter to the selected target.
And all the rest of little standard clutter

I know most of this is pretty standard but not when you monitor every single thing at the same time separately., yet amazingly most of my UI lay outs arent too cluttered.