13 replies to this topic

[Sable Dove]

Global chat is now gold/yellow. It is slightly harder to read than white, but not too bad.
Team chat, on the other hand, is still an awful, unreadable blue.
Why does PGI seem to only like changing things that are not a problem? Global chat was fine; team chat was awful. Why 'fix' global chat, but not fix team?

[Arnold J Rimmer]

I never had a problem reading team chat, but I can see how people might have problems.

I would ask which colour you'd prefer? You don't mention.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to add a colour palette to the options screen, and have the user choose their own chat colours.

[Sable Dove]

Well the white for global was fine. I liked the old team colour, which they changed to dark blue, which is barely readable, for no reason, then reintroduced as the lance colour.
I'd rather they replace the lance with the gold, and the team with the teal.
Or gold for global, white for team, and teal for lance.
The current team text colour is very difficult to read. I'd just like it replaced with something readable.

[Wildstreak]

Arnold J Rimmer, on 16 April 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

Perhaps this is an opportunity to add a colour palette to the options screen, and have the user choose their own chat colours.

I asked for something like this in Ask the Devs 35.

Quote

Merchant: Can we be allowed to modify chat colors and fade in a black background so we can set up text chat to be readable by our own preferences?
A: It’s something we can look it in the future.

IOW, not a priority now.
Are the Kill/Disconnect messages still yellow? It made seeing Commander's Chat hard to sort.

[jay35]

Now team commander text is white, which was fine for status messages.
And now all chat is the same color as status messages, which makes it hard to pick out chat from status messages.


Here is what it could be:

New color for status messages (deaths, etc)
White for all-talk messages
Gold for Team Commander messages
Blue for team messages
Cyan for lance messages

That way we keep a consistency between what existed before and the changes, and don't throw everything up in the air and mix it all up and confuse everyone, not to mention make all-talk text and statuses harder to pick out from one another. This is just poor design/UI choice.

Edited by jay35, 16 April 2013 - 07:06 PM.

[Sable Dove]

Just realized they added a new, readable colour for lance commander. Why not use that for team chat?

[DarthPayne]

PGI, please just make chat text colors configurable/customizable and everyone will be happy.

[LoneGunman]

Given chat text history with MMOs, I think white should be the "default" color for all/global chat. Blue for team is great as is the turqoise for lance. Gold should be for commander or something else. Definitely harder to read (maybe something redder?).

I caught myself a few times thinking I accidentally did a chat-all instead of team chat as commander. So much for that secret command for my team, I thought.

[RandomMaster]

Here is a thought. Player customized colors. Let the players choose their text colors?

Edited by RandomMaster, 17 April 2013 - 12:58 AM.

[Inertiamon]

Here's a thought, take a note from a games developer who's spent good time and resources actually getting it right and stop flailing around trying to reinvent the wheel over functionality that should take 5 seconds and google to get right.


Say, 255, 255, 255
Emote, 255, 128, 64
Yell, 255, 64, 64
Guild Chat, 64, 255, 64
Officer Chat, 64, 192, 64
Guild Announce, 64, 255, 64
Achievement Announce, 255, 255, 0
Whisper, 255, 128, 255
Real ID Whisper, 0, 255, 246
Party, 170, 170, 255
Party Leader, 118, 200, 255
Raid, 255, 127, 0
Raid Leader, 255, 72, 9
Raid Warning, 255, 72, 0
Battleground, 255, 127, 0
Battleground Leader, 255, 219, 183
Real ID Conversation, 0, 177, 240
Experience, 111, 111, 255
Guild Experience, 111, 111, 255
Honor, 224, 202, 10
Reputation, 128, 128, 255
Skill-ups, 85, 85, 255
Item Loot, 0, 170, 0
Currency, 0, 170, 0
Money Loot, 255, 255, 0
Tradeskills, 255, 255, 255
Opening, 128, 128, 255
Pet Info, 128, 128, 255
Misc Info, 128, 128, 255
Battleground Horde, 255, 0, 0
Battleground Alliance, 0, 174, 239
Battleground Neutral, 255, 120, 10
System Messages, 255, 255, 0
Errors, 255, 0, 0
Ignored, 255, 0, 0
Channel, 192, 128, 128
Target Icons, 255, 255, 0
Battle.net Alerts, 130, 197, 255
Creature Say, 255, 255, 159
Creature Emote, 255, 128, 64
Creature Yell, 255, 64, 64
Creature Whisper, 255, 181, 235
Boss Emote, 255, 221, 0
Boss Whisper, 255, 221, 0

[Inertiamon]

Same goes for the HUD and minimap as well - especially for the 8-10% of the customers that it impacts drastically. Honestly no clue why is this nonsense even a conversation given the wealth of free guidance and testing tools out there.







http://msdn.microsof...p/aa511283.aspx - this is a commonly referenced doc, and contains possibly the best color advice ever for a designer. Design your application in monochrome. The answer to the question "could I play MWO in monochrome is without doubt - no. Changing that to a yes helps everyone, not just CB players.

Edited by Inertiamon, 17 April 2013 - 03:02 AM.

[Blue Footed Booby]

It boggles my mind that in the Year of Our Lord 2013 game developers continue to have color coded chat, with the colors defined any other way than via an XML file in the user directory. It's easier for them to update, it's customizable by the user even without the devs spending time on an interface, and it makes it simple to add in-game customization options at a later date. I think UI font, at least for chat, should work the same way, and ideally stuff like chat window fadeout time and transparency as well. It's a comfort feature for power users, it can't be used to cheat, and PGI can add "customizable UI" to the marketing bulletpoints.

[Wildstreak]

Gold is a bad choice for chat color as it can get confused with those Kill/Disconnect messages.

[Darling_In_The_MeXX]

I agree that the colors need to be tweeked.