117 replies to this topic

[Chavette]

1, Be able to reply/talk to people who are ingame. When you bring up a window, have it say "XY is currently in a match, message will be delivered when he is free."

2, Store messages until they get viewed.
-That means if the guy starts a match and gets messages, then during the match he crashes, or simply exits the game with exit game option at the end of the game, have the messages pop up with a timestamp next time he logs in.
- The same would happen after "timing out due to inactivity".

3, Offline messaging is always a nice touch, and isn't a very long technical stretch from the second point.

4, Have a way to open your fresh unread message in one click. If you get a message some "!" or letter sign should pop up and you get taken right to the new message. Currently its 3-4 clicks for individuals, and 3-4 for groups depending which tab were you on. This in unacceptable, because 99% of the people who get a new message in a lobby open and read it first thing they do, so why do they need 3-4 clicks to do it? The letterbox could also show the senders name.

5, The flashing in the current chat is way overboard, don't keep flashing if i viewed the message, and don't start flashing if I am viewing the chat window while the message arrives, and don't start flashing again after a finished a game.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Make the social elements obvious to the new player ... make it easy for them to join a group.

• If this is a team game, social elements need to be front and center.
  
• A meaningful news feed/ticker ... can include automated announcements with results from community warfare campaigns, ongoing tourneys, etc.
  
• Chat lobbies for general discussion, news, and recruiting.
  
• "Looking for a group" lobbies for each faction/clan (including lone wolves), separated into new players, casual players, and competitive players ... possibly have the casual and competitive lobbies unlocked through minor achievements (100 matches played, 100 wins, for example).
  
• Random, casual drops (no tourney points, no community warfare points, just random mech-on-mech goodness)
  
• Fully integrated VOIP (typing in a battle is difficult)
  
• Team lobbies for a minute or two pre-game, after everyone has joined, to talk strategy
  
• End of game lobby, for both teams together to discuss the match, with options to "add to friends", "report", and "congratulate" players
  
• Replay option (even if it's only a battle grid view) so we can see what went right and wrong ... teamwork should be greater than individual achievement, but if we can't review how we did as a team, we're not going to get much better at it

I could go on for hours ... and this is only my second online game experience.

Bottom Line: make it easy and rewarding for new players to join the community.

[Beef Hands]

Showing the selected mech of the current members in a group would be phenomenal.

[Valder]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 10 May 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

Make the social elements obvious to the new player ... make it easy for them to join a group.

• If this is a team game, social elements need to be front and center.
  
• A meaningful news feed/ticker ... can include automated announcements with results from community warfare campaigns, ongoing tourneys, etc.
  
• Chat lobbies for general discussion, news, and recruiting.
  
• "Looking for a group" lobbies for each faction/clan (including lone wolves), separated into new players, casual players, and competitive players ... possibly have the casual and competitive lobbies unlocked through minor achievements (100 matches played, 100 wins, for example).
  
• Random, casual drops (no tourney points, no community warfare points, just random mech-on-mech goodness)
  
• Fully integrated VOIP (typing in a battle is difficult)
  
• Team lobbies for a minute or two pre-game, after everyone has joined, to talk strategy
  
• End of game lobby, for both teams together to discuss the match, with options to "add to friends", "report", and "congratulate" players
  
• Replay option (even if it's only a battle grid view) so we can see what went right and wrong ... teamwork should be greater than individual achievement, but if we can't review how we did as a team, we're not going to get much better at it

I could go on for hours ... and this is only my second online game experience.



Bottom Line: make it easy and rewarding for new players to join the community.

This x1000. Right now you are forcing us to do this outside the game entirely, and it's costing you longevity of players that don't find communities like Comstar.

Edited by Valder, 10 May 2013 - 09:48 PM.

[Roadbuster]

Banditman, on 10 May 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

1. Robust chat. This means configurable, tabbed chat windows. I want a tab for Guild (private), Guild (public), Group and Faction. I want the ability to join other channels (and create those tabs) that might exist, such as "New Player", "Recruitment" and "Events". I want a tab specifically for private messages. I would say PGI dropped the ball on this, but I'm not sure they ever had the ball to begin with on this topic. Here's the ball. Run with it.

3. In game messaging. No, not chat. Let's say I want to talk to a Mercenary corp about a contract, but their leader or diplomatic contact isn't online. I want to be able to leave him a message. In game.

4. End of match results, in the front end. I want to be able to review the results of the last drop in the front end. In fact, I want those results to be hotlinked. If I finish a match, and want to message one of the guys (or girls, no judging!) I just played against, I click his name and select from a context menu: "Chat, Message, Invite to Group, Invite to Guild, See Stats, Ignore" There are probably other things that belong in that context menu.

Good points there.

Also, the chat window should be integrated in the main screen and visible at all times, at least in a minimal view so you can see what is going on.
Things like clicking a name in chat to open a context menu for sending that person a private message, invite, block,... would be welcome too.
And keep the UI and communication functions streamlined at all times.
Too many visible functions/buttons and windows make things confusing.

And I agree that PGI should give us more info about what they are working on and which features they are looking into. I'm aware that such information will make some players cry because they think all you say is already guaranteed to get implemented instead of seeing it as what it is. Ideas how to improve the game. But a closer contact with your playerbase can only lead to more trust and support from players.

[xengk]

I would like the ability to check messages from outside the game.
Say, if I am a lone wolf looking for work, it will be great if I can browse available contract without login to the game, maybe via the forum. Then message the corp officer on my interest to take the contract.
Same thing for the corp officer, he or she will be able to post and approve contracts without logging into the game, again maybe via the forum.

For House players, they probably can check House order while outside the game. So player can schedule and consolidate their effort to push House border.

Allow private message system to cross between the forum and game client too.

Further down the road, maybe allow access to the above feature via smartphone app. You get a notice whenever there is message or announcement, ala Watsapp.

[MustrumRidcully]

Bryan Ekman, on 10 May 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

Since Social elements of the UI are worthy of their own channel, please post your ideas here.

This thread will serve as the official and dedicated feedback channel. Please keep your feedback, responses, comments and concerns limited to this thread so that we may ensure no valuable opinions are lost.

My first advice is: Try out Champions Online, Startrek Online, or Neverwinter Online, and look at their chat system. I think Cryptic's chat system is one of the best systems out there for online games and it should serve as a good inspiration.

Chat Channels
1) General Chat. I think this is a must. yes, it can end up being depraved and full of kiddies with foul language. But it can also help a newbie to get answers to questions while in game.
2) Official Chat Channels. For the occassional in-game chat Q&A, for coordinating special events, and so on.
Probably some Faction-devoted channels that you can only visit if you're currently member of that faction (once faction membership is supported.
3) Private Channels. Created by players for their guilds/clans/corps. In fact, these should probably exist automatically once you actually officially support this, but even before (and after that), players will need this. Private Channels may be invitation only or simply require knowledge of the channel name.
4) A Chat Channel should also have an associated Voice Over IP Channel, if the tech allows it (with the option to turn it on or off for the players)
5) Allow players to have multiple channels open at any time (even in game), and switch between them (for example, via Tabs)
6) Team and Lance Chats should be just chat channels only available while in a match.
7) Maybe a combat log channel? instead of displaying stuff like "Component Destroyed" seperately, put the information into a chat channel.

You can't moderate all this sh*t and supervise it all the time, so only do this for official channels and just have any specific cases reported by players. Give the creator of a chat channel to moderate his own channel (or cease such powers to other chat channel members of his choosing).

(Note that Cryptic's chat is even more complex. Tabs are views on sets of channels. You can select which chat channels you want to read about in a specific tab. So if you want to follow "OrganizedPvP" and your Fleet Chat in one tab, you can.)

General Features
1) Allow people to control whether the chat window stays or closes after a while.
2) Keep the UI consistent. Ideally, seperate the Chat controls from the other code and turn it into some kind of seperate layer. I want to talk to people whether I am in the mech lab, shopping, or fighting.
3) Private Messages. Both in the mech lab as well as in the game, you should be able to send private messages. Note, this will alos require the ability to ignore other players, or suppress all PMs completely.
4) Allow the creation of at least text macros, like "Focus Fire on $Target" (with $Target being resolved to whoever I have targeted.).
5) Allow befriending in chat, by clicking on the player name.
6) Definitely include a bugreport macro in chat, that automatically makes a screenshot, and stores as many additional information as you can create on the fly without affecting performance.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 May 2013 - 05:20 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I'm gonna be blunt about this thread I think.

After sitting on it for a night and reading the posts.

If you guys don't have something in place for this stuff, I'm pretty concerned about getting it done in 3-4 months.

This should have been the first part of UI2.0.

Is this really the first time you guys are hearing all of this? None of you play the other games referenced and said "Hey, we need this in MW:O."?

And if you do have stuff like this in place, why not show us and save us typing all of this out?

[Darius Deadeye]

Banditman, on 10 May 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

Social to me is the interface for interacting with other players. My Friends, my Guild, chat, everything. It may also touch on what I consider the only reason to play this game: Community Warfare. Without that important feature all you have here is Counterstrike with mechs, and no means for anyone else to create a true metagame. Not something I am interested in sticking around for.

Here are features that absolutely must be a part of MWO:

1. Robust chat. This means configurable, tabbed chat windows. I want a tab for Guild (private), Guild (public), Group and Faction. I want the ability to join other channels (and create those tabs) that might exist, such as "New Player", "Recruitment" and "Events". I want a tab specifically for private messages. I would say PGI dropped the ball on this, but I'm not sure they ever had the ball to begin with on this topic. Here's the ball. Run with it.

2. Robust Guild function. While I think that the guild features of EVE are probably a bit much for this game, a good education in what EVE provides would be a great basis to cull ideas from. At a minimum, I need the ability to create my own ranks, assign various access rights to them and move players into and out of these ranks easily. I need to be able to send some sort of message to individuals, ranks or the guild as a whole. I'd like my Guild's mechs to share a common paint scheme. I'd like them to have custom decals. I'd like a tag for all guild members, though I have to believe after dropping against some PGI 8 mans, something of this nature is already in the works. I'd It would be a lot easier to know what features we need here if we knew more about how Community Warfare was going to work.

3. In game messaging. No, not chat. Let's say I want to talk to a Mercenary corp about a contract, but their leader or diplomatic contact isn't online. I want to be able to leave him a message. In game.

4. End of match results, in the front end. I want to be able to review the results of the last drop in the front end. In fact, I want those results to be hotlinked. If I finish a match, and want to message one of the guys (or girls, no judging!) I just played against, I click his name and select from a context menu: "Chat, Message, Invite to Group, Invite to Guild, See Stats, Ignore" There are probably other things that belong in that context menu.

5. Etc. Without knowing a lot more about how the community will interface with the actual metagame (Community Warfare), it's hard to say what else we're going to need. Probably about 10,000 things that we can't even imagine right now. If you really want our help in guiding development, we need to know a lot more than we currently do.


PGI wants this game to succeed, I believe that. Most of this community wants the same thing. Unfortunately, it's very hard right now for the community to help PGI see the missing parts, because we don't see any of the parts. Make no mistake. I don't consider what we have right now "MWO". Until Community Warfare exists, we have nothing but a mech sim.

I believe we all want a great game, and I think there are probably a lot of great ideas that the community can either help evolve or even conceive. We can't take those steps until we are more informed.

Most of that and we're covered. Everything needed is stated in the above.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Since I know you will read this Bryan.

Can you make sure and address the issues regarding people altering their User.cfg to have x-ray vision and the ability to turn off the "night" effect in River City Night.

The volunteer mods don't seem to think it's a big deal.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 11 May 2013 - 07:30 AM.

[Jman5]

Just a couple ideas off the top of my head:

1. Make chat windows scrollable with the mouse wheel.

2. A lot of times people will find themselves playing phone tag as one minimizes, the other maximizes. Starcraft 2 did a neat thing where the program would flash when you received a message. I would emulate this design to improve player communication between matches. If a player PMs you or sends an invite, flash or otherwise alter the minimized button. You do this in-game already with the social button flashing, but not when players are minimized.

[Synra]

I am coming in late here, forgive me for not having read the tons of UI 2.0 feedback that has come before.

Most of the changes I saw in the mock-ups for UI 2.0 seem fine. Maybe even unnecessary. It mostly does the same things, but organized a little differently.

But if one thing bothered me about what I saw, it was the "social" implementation, or lack there of. Right off the bat, Bryan lists their three 'design goals' for UI 2.0. Oh my god, why is "integrated Social features" not the number one goal on that list? This is the biggest thing that the UI has needed all along. This should have been a high priority a year ago. Instead, if I am reading this right, the very limited social button we have currently has been removed? Really?

Seriously, you guys are doing it wrong. This is what we need from UI 2.0.

1. Chat window always visible on the mechlab. Every page, every category. Open communication should be on your screen at all times.

2. The chat window should be robust with chat tabs such as:

- General lobby chat

- Merc unit (guild) chat

- Previous match chat. This is not an active chat window, it just allows you to review all of the chat messages from your last match. This would be handy for reporting offensive people, or adding new friends.

3. The chat window needs access to public lobbies for meeting other players and finding people to team up with. Not to mention guild recruitment, and other practical uses.

4. The Social button should not be removed, it should be one of those tabs at the top of the screen. Within the Social tab is where we find friends lists, ignore lists, guild roster, guild recruitment options, etc. It should also include options for editing the chat window, for things like changing chat colors, creating private channels, or adding new tabs.

5. Mercinary contracts. We are supposed to be mercinaries here, right? The game should support that idea and let players hire other players. This would be like bringing in a ringer for your sports team. Implement a five star rating system, which indicates the skill level of a given player based on past statistics. You already have ELO implemented! Only four or five star players are able to take merc contracts. A player operating under contract is paid additional C-bills after a match (taken from the profits of the employer). The mercinary player's ELO is ignored, and is matched to the same ELO bracket as his employer.


Well I guess that last one is more like a whole new game mechanic, but it's part of the social system in my mind.

What is Social? Social is interacting with other players in many different ways outside of combat. And that begins with a robust chat window on your screen. Not hidden away somewhere, not on private voice servers, etc. Social features in MWO should be the most prominant element of the Mechlab.

Edited by Synra, 11 May 2013 - 08:11 AM.

[Tahribator]

Please include a "Last Online X hours/days ago" to the friends list. I'd like to know which of my friends are still active, when do they regularly play and so on.

[Budor]

Game needs a global/faction chat in the mechlab to strengthen the community aspect and thus bind players.

Edited by Budor, 12 May 2013 - 04:35 AM.

[Arcturious]

In addition to most of the great points already listed, I want to expand in that offline messaging / whisper a player.

I would love to be able to create a profile for myself. When people click on your name at the end of results screen, it not only brings up things like their mech used, ability to message them etc but also their profile. They can list their clan, bio, Mechlab, stats etc

Let us control what is displayed via a configurable menu with security permissions. So people on my friends list get access to my stats and Mechlab. Public people get my bio and clan affiliation etc

Similar to the various games out there that have comparable features. WoW Armoury, EQ Players etc

I know this is probably a big ask but it would be a great tool to advertise guilds, Twitch channels, indicate if you are willing to group / mentor people, list your preferred voice chat servers etc etc

[Hobo Dan]

Synra, on 11 May 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

4. The Social button should not be removed, it should be one of those tabs at the top of the screen. Within the Social tab is where we find friends lists, ignore lists, guild roster, guild recruitment options, etc. It should also include options for editing the chat window, for things like changing chat colors, creating private channels, or adding new tabs.

Maybe the best comment here...

[Phoenix Branson]

I would suggest making the chat room look like a bar onboard a JumpShip for UI 2.0 (faction flag on the back wall will display the current channel... cool for immersion). A chat window must be available when viewing various tabs within UI 2.0: Home, Mechlab, Skills, Faction, and Store. The picture below illustrates my point. Bringing players together strengthens the community and increases the longevity of the game tenfold. The developers should also setup channels for everyone, such as:

* General Chat
* New Players
* Friends
* Events
* Strategy
* Recruitment
* Public Channels
* Private Channels
* Looking for Group
* Mercenary Corps
* House Davion
* House Kurita
* House Liao
* House Marik
* House Steiner
* The Free Rasalhague Republic
* Clan Wolf
* Clan Jade Falcon
* Clan Ghost Bear
* Clan Smoke Jaguar

Edited by Maverick01, 13 May 2013 - 07:47 PM.

[WarHippy]

I just want to add that under no circumstances should this game's social aspects be integrated with facebook or the like in any way shape or form. All social aspects should be firmly placed within the confines of the game and the game's website.

[Syrkres]

Player(Mech Warrior) tracking.

I have a ton of "friends" on my list, also players I run up against in a match.

A truly great feature would be the ability to add NOTES about any of them.

For example I run up against a player in a match that ends up with 7 kills. I want to make a note about him so I can track him in future matches.

Or I play with someone that is a REAL jerk and I want to make a note of it so I can try to avoid them in the future... Or opposite really cool (or good leader) and want to try to match up with him when I see him online. But with hundreds of friends it's hard to keep track.


Also another thing, when someone was last online. I've been looking for some friends, and not sure if they have given up on the game or what because I never see them online though I still have them in my friends list, but can't tell when they last logged on.

Notes and things like that can all be stored locally on the client side, while last log on time I'm sure you already have, and just need to display it.

[Utilyan]

The Main Lobby chat room should be a Solaris Arena with players actually fighting in a sandbox play ground where everyone can spectate as an actual spectator to the fight...... You get a cheer button and people can bet CBs with other players ect.

Have some mod who oversees the chat they can setup rules, max fighters/teams/ffa ect/small tourneys.....


You could have classrooms........ A noob guantlet where weapons wont fire unless he targets the enemy. Or a mech can't turn unless he zooms out....