So I've been doing some reading here lately, and have come across something quite odd. Why can't we manage key bindings outside of the game client in a .ini file?
I understand that these are stored server side and that is indeed the actual reason, but I do not fully understand why these settings are stored server side. Why is this not part of the UI editor? Why are key bindings stored on the server, while the actual dependent portion (your custom UI setup) is not stored on the server. What this essentially means is that I can spend hours customizing my UI, and setting up my key bindings - and when I have a computer issue my key bindings move over, but my l33t UI has to be rebuilt.
Now don't get me wrong, I love that UI settings are local. I love being able to trade UI's with friends, share them on the web, etc. I do NOT want to lose that ability. What I do want is the ability to assign key bindings directly in this file as well. There was a suggestion box entry on this in the past, and it garnered very little attention, but a quick search in the forums here or on the Google machine will garner tons of results with players lamenting the task of setting up their key binds multiple times for different characters or even for different specs.
So why do I care? Well, I have a guardian tank and was thinking of respeccing to DPS. I thought, "Hey, it'd be awesome if I just made a second UI layout, with my DPS layout there." But I can't do that. I can't just load a "DPS" layout that uses quickbars 5 and 6 with all my DPS abilities and quickly switch the keybinds for 1-= to those quickbars as well - I would have to do that by hand every single time.
So, Customer Service - you have been good about telling users that it's stored server side, and I think we all appreciate our key binds being available on any computer, anywhere, but you haven't explained why. Why are key binds stored server side, and why can we not move these to the client?