Chat bubbles yes or no

Just wanted to throw this out here since the forums are horribly quiet.

We dont know what kind of chat we will have yet, but it will most likely have a say such as we do now, now with text there is usually a war between chat bubble or no chatbubble, but it is usually just an option. there would be one or the other, for talking to proximity would you or would you not want chat bubbles?

(i know this is a vague topic but i hope we can discuss some more interesting systems as we go along)

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I like chat bubbles if they are optional. Especially if the game lives from atmosphere a chat window can be annoying sometimes so I like to minimize it. Chat bubbles are quite a good way to talk to someone without having to max out the chat window. I would like to see them in Oort :wink:

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I like the box, but keep it local. I donā€™t really need to see what others are discussing half a Ruchs away. (Or damage numbers or what I just picked up for that matter) Chat bubbles are nice for short messages, but with longer messages and/or busy areas, they become visual pollution for me. Options are always nice though, as we obviously all have different opinions :smile:

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well i would like to be able to toggle between local and global, lets say start up game for first time load in world there is no one around but you want to find people, you speak in local no one is there, switch to global which changes the chat totally and it brings up the global chat, same thing for Guild Chat and Friend Chat/PMā€™s

Itā€™s a trap!.. No discussion on different ranges of chat channels again please :wink:

But to have to set which range those bubbles are shown would be niceā€¦ Just imagining a bubble coming up behind a hill which writes ā€œHEEEELLLLP!!ā€ :slight_smile:

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ahauhahu xD
iā€™ve imagined a ā€œyellā€ option that makes a gigantic bubble visible from far awayā€¦HEEELLP!! ā€œuhmā€¦ there must be a princess in trouble!ā€, ā€œdonā€™t worry, itā€™s just Birne playng with the Yell options or tryng to solo a titan, as usualā€

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Iā€™ve been looking at this recently actually! Iā€™m leaning towards something akin to chat bubbles, but thereā€™s still a lot of work to do. Pros:

  • They keep your eyes in the game world, not a chat log
  • They incentivise in-person interaction
  • They tend to incentivise shorter, more focussed chat

Cons:

  • If done badly they can be distracting and noisy
  • Busy areas can become chatbubblemageddon, and hard to follow a conversation

Right now weā€™re not planning long-range chat (ie: talking to players that arenā€™t nearby). Thereā€™s lots of services that do a great job of that already (Teamspeak, Steam client, etc) and I think our efforts would be better focused on delivering a simple but great in-person chat system.

Iā€™ll try to share some of the chat system soon.

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Iā€™d like to see the text floating above the person but the bubble should be optional^^

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To be honest, chat bubbles and in-game music are the first things i deactivate as soon as i get into a new game. Chat bubbles are just too impractical to use since you donā€™t have a chat-log , usually you cant see whatĀ“s spoken behind you, it gets a unreadable as soon as people start moving (especially in crowded areas), you donā€™t know who is talking with whom and if people are ā€œstackedā€ itĀ“s hard to see whoĀ“s talking.
So please give us at least the option to play with the standard chat-boxes.

But itĀ“s nice to hear that the devs tend towards a non-global chat. :+1:

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Worth noting that I acknowledge chat bubbles can be noisy, weā€™d be working with the aim to make them clear and readable if we did do them. And Iā€™m sort of using in-world-chat-text and chat bubbles interchangeably, itā€™s more about a log/list vs in-world placement.

I also only used ā€œbubblesā€ as synonym for in-world placement since IĀ“m pretty sure you will come up with a more creative way than ordinary bubbles. But chat logs are just too convenient for not being an option since you have all conversations on one place and are able to re-read the chat history.
Maybe the ā€œbubblesā€ could work as an indicator for a (free floating) chat-log that expands upon mouseover?

Anyway, I just wanted to say, that no matter how good you will make those ā€œbubblesā€, there will be people that prefer the ordinary chat-box/log so I think this should at least be an option.

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I know there have been alot of discussion about chat, but have you guys considered language in the game? like every race can talk a special ā€˜ā€˜languageā€™ā€™ and only that race can understand it, if you dont speak that language you will get some random words in the chat while everybody who understands it can see what they say. and then ofc there would be a common language that everybody understands.

Have you guys explored it? would it be too much work? because i think systems like this are something that really makes the world feel more real, but even if you guys considered it i would imagine it would be a post 1.0 thing XD

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That sounds like an awesome idea!

Just curious, did you ever use the racial languages in WoW?
And if yes, please tell me why :smile:

Thats the thing, it is never used in wow on normal servers, however some people like to RP, and a thing you have to remember in wow is that you have alliance and horde, which cannot understand eachother, they are enemies, 2 big factions, everybody in the faction help eachother so to say. however from what i have gathered these races will not be in 2 factions, so the line between friend and enemy will be very blurred. this game which is a sandbox and a builder will allow for so much more than wow, because people can create their own cities, guilds and factions, i wouldnt be surprised if you saw guilds with only 1 type of race or even towns which only have 1 race as their main citizen.

It would be a good system for RPā€™ers if it doesnt take too long to make, and then in general it could be awesome to see taverns where you sit with your own race and talk your language, a sort of encouragement to be more with the people of your own race.

that is just my thoughts though.

A contra could be that it promotes ā€œracismā€.

But I would want that youā€™d have to learn every language except for your own. Maybe even the universal language^^

We have. We even have an Oort alphabet and language.

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Racism is quite the strong word mate, and not really the correct one. but yeah that might be one of the downsides, that people will flock together in race, but then again they might do so anyways.

i wouldnt mind if you could learn it, its just that it imagine it would take alot longer to make, so it was to make it simple sake, having to learn to chat the normal language though. just no -.-ā€™

ā€˜ā€˜you cannot use chat cause you have not learned to speak yet.ā€™ā€™

Ohh. curious. does it make sense? could we sit down and actually learn to fluenty read oortian if we wanted to? and in what cases would it be used?

Ok normal chat might be too hardcore^^

I wrote ā€œracismā€ instead of racism because itā€™s still a game. But you get the point^^