Gangrel and I got to shooting the breeze about chatting in game. We agreed that it would be quite nice if chatting in the game were a little less basic. In my words, it'd be nice if they more closely matched the capabilities most IM clients have today.
List of features that would be nice to see for the chat window:
Can be freely moved and resized;
Can be minimized (or otherwise moved into the background or off-screen);
Easy switching between open / minimized state;
Ability to create tabs for separate channels or groups of channels within the window;
Clear activity alert for the tabs;
Generous text entry field;
Generous chat buffer;
Chat buffer linked to global name (so chat is not lost when switching characters (borrowed from another thread));
Customize incoming messages (font, color, size, background) by channel and/or tab;
(Customize incoming messages by player, or too much?);
Simple save/log function;
Search function
That's my wish list.
Does anyone have any other features they'd like to see incorporated in the chat window?
Shadow Elusive: [RP] tag/classification
DeathSheepFromHell: option to have a separate text input area for each individual chat window
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RP classification. Primarily, I'm looking for RP text to be immediately distinguishable. At its most basic, a simple [rp] tag would do (this I know will be implemented). At its most drool inducing best, it would have its own color and its own tab.
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[center][color=#ff0000]Interior Map Lead and UI Designer[/color][/center]
I like Elusive's Idea. One of the best things from LOTRO was the rp tag that would change the color of your character's hovering name when you were in character.
The world is a mess and I just ... need to rule it.
I was surprised to see that there wasn't a thread about features that RPers would like see in the game.
I actually started up on this with a view to making life easier for roleplayers (I even called it a roleplay window), so they'd have more chat real estate to play with. (I've been engaged in text based roleplaying for years, although I never felt drawn to trying to RP on a MMO. The fact that on most games you can barely squeeze in three sentences didn't help.) Gangrel suggested that such a thing might as well be a general chat overhaul. And so here we are.
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I always had a hard time with trying to chat and play at the same time! Throw gum in there too, and I'm right out!
Steve
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"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
Well, CoH was always far, far better chatbox wise than the vast majority of other MMO's. Still, there's always room for improvement, even if it's only an expansion of the existing system (which is what almost everything we've said here is).
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[center][color=#ff0000]Interior Map Lead and UI Designer[/color][/center]
I had, in fact, been originally lobbying for something like that: some sort of small but noticeable visual indicator of being in character that you could toggle on and off really easily. But the [rp] tag was easier to get early confirmation of - both our game and Valiance Online will have this. Those are givens. How much more we get, remains to be seen...so we may as well dream to the skies now :D
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[center][color=#ff0000]Interior Map Lead and UI Designer[/color][/center]
One of the things that annoyed me was the plethora of different colored names over the players. Some had actual meaning, others seemed to be at the player's whim.
Maybe if only the SG could do it, kinda like assigning team colors.
Steve
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"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
That's a bit outside the scope of this thread (*grumpy unibrow look* >.> ) but it's a good idea. I would suggest that rather than chasing the color of the name(s), you give the person or that group/team (e.g. in a task force) a particular symbol. I.e. "All 'top hats' go stand behind the blue column." Perhaps even have that symbol mirrored in chat.
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I get some amusement out of comparing the chat systems in current games to the one CoH had 7 years ago.
Just having a global handle would be a huge upgrade for most games.
Get yourself right; the world has enough problems.
The ability to have multiple *input* areas for the chat system, as well as multiple windows (if you detached tabs you could move them around and do a fair bit of resizing, but the input was always in your "base" chat window). When I had more than one up, it was because I needed to separate stuff like Team/Legion chat from "general chat" but didn't want to miss the general chat entirely… I just needed it to be lower priority and clearly separate.
My brain can generally handle "move the input cursor to the place you want to type" and "input for a particular group of stuff lives with that group of stuff, so make sure you're in the right input area", but I was constantly sending stuff to the wrong channels because I'd be looking up and to the right at a team chat, while typing into the area at the lower left, and not realize that i was in the wrong channel. Eventually I got into the habit of just prefixing nearly *everything*, but it was annoying to have to do so.
Note that this is not a suggestion of *removing* the existing behavior, however, just that it would be nice to have the *option* of input areas linked to text windows.
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and multipurpose sheep
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I hadn't thought of that at all.
+doubleplusonegood
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Harvester is right that any system can be improved. However, there are some terrible systems out there. I enjoy SWTOR. They have some nice elements (including companions with meaningful story lines). The chat system there, however, does little to encourage teaming or to enhance teams once they form.
My feeling is that it would be great to have something similar to the channel system used in CoH at launch (with enough tweaks to avoid a law suit over IP, of course). If improvements come later, so much the better. The key is to have a chat system that supports spontaneous teaming and, most importantly, enhances the ability of team members to easily communicate. CoH did that well and it was a very powerful part of the game experience. I hope CoT provides the same experience.
Agreed
I cannot see why you *would* have to change it for IP reasons... Eve Online, World of Warcraft and several other games out there have varying similar aspects to the City of Heroes chat system. In my mind Eve Online was better because you could be a member of potentially *unlimited* global chat channels, limited formatting support (bold and underlined) and also that PM's had their own chat window in a character basis. This meant that if you were PM'ing with several different people, you only spoke to the one whose window you were looking at. There was *NO* way to PM someone else via that chat window.)
Once you had joined a channel, it was also VERY easy to then come and go (join and leave) the channels as you please.
Personally, I'd like to be able to see the chat windows and many of the other HUD windows be able to float off the play area. So those with wide screens or a second screen can move them off of the action.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
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Ummm... I guess, if it was really wanted, we could have 2 monitors in Fullscreen (not Windowed), and the 1st screen would be the 3D World where you can control your character. Second screen can be for managin things like your avatars look, Poses/Current Emotional state/Current Costume/a Targeted Friends Avatar Info (Bio and other options to Friend and such). Of course, the background can be a wallpaper you choose or even one of the 3D Renderings of a Zone in the game, etc... Phoenix Statue?
And you can choose to move the chat area to the second screen by right clicking on it, and selecting "Move to Screen" -> 1 or -> 2.
As for Windowed mode?!? Hmmm... I dont want to deal with that bag of pooo. :P
To be fair, I tend to run windowed mode when I game, but that is because I also have IRC/Instant messengers/Voice Comms/Music Player/Web Browser etc etc running all at the same time.
And I have been stung enough times in the past when the games *didn't* like alt-tabbing form full screen mode (or at least didn't play nicely with it), that I decided to take the performance hit (which for me, wasn't all that much) and go for windowed mode.
I can see both "double/triple full screened" working, as well as just an *enlarged* windowed mode with a strange resolution (3820x1000 for example, would cover almost *all* of the display for 2 1920x1080 screens in windowed mode.
I see. Googling this issue, it seems that some 3D engines support something called [url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Borderless_fullscreen_windowed]Borderless Windowd mode[/url], where the window is maximized and on top of all other windows, even the Taskbar, so Tabbing away wont be an issue anymore.
yeah, borderless windowed mode still has the same performance hit as windowed mode... i flick between the settings according to game, but in general, I tend to stay with windowed mode.
I would like to have lots of control of the chat windows. Size. font. moving them around. separating tabs. Just about any kind of interaction with it. closing them. making them so i can click through them. Heck, the entire HUD itself I would love to have just like full control of it. And arrange it how ever I wanted. That would be awesome.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Hmmmm.
The more i think about it the more it seems Inter-Process Communication might be the best fit.
The main Unreal Game client can be fullscreen on the 1st monitor (or 2nd), and another Instance (or UI based only) would be Windowed, where it would have Chat tabs and all sorts of UI elements that arent clicked on for the Fights. Both instances would be able to communicate with each other via Sockets (localport:121 ???).
Some things like Chat might be able to just work directly with the Chat Server, but things like the MAP, Health/Stamina bar, etc.. that are happening on the Main Game screen, could be relayed via Sockets. If its like COH/COV, which sent this data to the servers, and then polled it back down again... (Other players in the world would see your Health/Stanima, etc...) ...then there might be no reason for the Inter-Process communication after all.
Are we going to have any like, neutral channels where people can chat regardless what faction or side of the line they are on? If we friend a global name. Will I be able to speak with them even if they are on the opposing side? Or even make a private channel so that my SG and I can still communicate in regardless what side they are on.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
I don't know. But I invisioned that everyone would seem normal at 1st glance, or contact.
You can only see what the players morality is if you were in range of them... and actually lookked up their stats... Like an Info Panel.
Maybe down the road, we can look at adding those stats to the Targeted Player panel thats always visible, but I would hold off a bit, just to get a feel for how this might make some players teaming habbits lean towards a morality preference on a subconsious level. I wouldnt want to lessen the teaming aspect of the game.
Well, considering there was nothing stopping you from chatting with red side in CoH, I don't see why they would stop us from doing it in CoT, especially since we will be running in the same city this time.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
This is a nice lead to another request, which came to me when I recalled an adorable little addon I used with WoW that simulated an instant messenger. Basically it allows or causes certain channels, and perhaps even messages from certain people, to spawn their own little chat window with its own text input area. In my case, I used it as a means to be certain I would not miss certain messages that might have otherwise gone lost (e.g. whispers). It's also handy because the window could be closed if I didn't want it anymore and, if the person sent another message, it would pop right back up.
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P.S. Insert necromantic ritual and finger-wiggling here.
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I want to have access to all my Chat windows no matter what Im doing in game.
For example when levelling up I'd lose my chat windows. Id have people talking to me either in channel or directly (/tell) and I wouldn't see it until I exited the levelling screen.
Even worse was when respeccing. OMG... Respeccing a level 50 with IO sets took quite some time even with Mids. I learned to go AFK before I started so people who sent me a /tell would know. This didn't help with general chat though. I was also a Moderator of a chat channel and often would miss Mod requests, or occasionally not see inappropriate behaviour so couldn't do anything about it.
Also I want to be able to Dock ALL my Hud items, either together or to the edges of the screen. SO if I want my entire left side to be chat windows I can drag them to the left and they 'click' to the edge. Also I can drag the 2nd window to the bottom of the first and it will 'click' into place - like a magnet :) I can then grab the Top windows border and move both of the windows around the screen. If I want to move the 2nd window only I un-dock it by using a small button on the window itself and it becomes its own window.
This should apply to ALL window types, even the following (top to bottom):
-Team members
-ChatWindow 7
-Insp
-Enh Tray
-ChatWindow3
-PowerTray5
-PowerTray4
-PowerTray3
-PowerTray2
-PowerTray1
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I'd like to second both Darth's pop-up option and Cyber's universally accessible and dockable chat windows. All of those suggestions would be quite useful to me. (As long as I can determine where the pop-up will appear, unlike that situational toolbar we got in late CoX that would cover up other elements of my UI.)
Spurn all ye kindle.
Another possibility may be to have a chat overlay (akin to Steam's overlay) where a player could keep most or all of their chat windows. For this it would be very important to have a good notification system. Whenever a notification pops up and the player wants to see what's what, they can hit the shortcut key(s) or click the notification and up comes the overlay. I imagine the most important question about this idea is whether it would be possible to continue playing the game while the overlay is up/active.
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