11 replies to this topic

[Gabriel Amarell]

As I understand it MWO is going to be entirely instanced. Fire up the game, log in, modify your mech and then join a game. It’s the formula that FPS uses (minus the mech modification) and I’m sure for those titles that works, but I am not so sure it’s the right approach for MWO. I come from WoW and what kept me playing that for as long as I did was camaraderie.

Would you not find it more enjoyable to know the people you’re playing with even if only superficially? What I would like is a chat room of sorts, let’s say a COM that you could join (or not join) to talk to other players while you customize your mech, make repairs, paint, buy hula girls ext. The other thing I would like to see is a lounge, again, a chat room where you can talk to the other players before you Q for a match.

No. I do not mean turn MWO into a chat room, If you don’t want to turn on the COM, don’t. If you don’t want to go to the lounge and talk, don’t. If all you want to do is customize your machine and Q and play lone-wolf more power to you. All I am advocating is in-game area where players who want to talk to each other could do so, maybe find potential lance-mates and Q for matches together, talk a little strategy.

Players will have avatars (pilots) if the avatar was customizable and you could buy new flight suits wouldn’t it be cool to have a place to show off your new duds to your friends. Even better, if you could park your mech at this lounge wouldn’t it be cool to take a walk through the hanger (as your avatar) and ogle your mech, or the other mechs parked there?

OK avatar customization and a 3d environment that you can walk FPS style is probably asking too much, but players are going to have hangers where their own machines are housed. Is it so much to ask that those areas be made visible (for those players who want to make them visible, you can keep it private if you don’t want to share). The hanger at the lounge I’m suggesting could be just that, players who decide to park their mech at the “lounge” would have their garage visible to other players at the lounge.

Even if the whole lounge and being able to see other people machines/avatars out of combat is a wash I really don’t think the ability to talk to other players in-game between Q’s is asking very much. The game from the beginning touts role warfare and team play, of course that doesn’t mean you can’t play lone-wolf but wouldn’t playing as a team be more fun if you could talk to the people on your team. I know, I know, the serious teams will have Ventrillo Team-speak or another 3^rd party program, but I would like to see in game text chat at the very least, god forbid some kind of in mission voice chat… (maybe a pay feature?)

[CoffiNail]

Vote is yes.

Decent players in MWLL can use team text chat easily and be very successful.

[Dihm]

Fine if it's a text based chat area, and shows a picture of your pilot by your text or something. 3D navigation in a dropship/planet/city/bar/whatever? That's been covered ad nauseum. It ain't going to happen.

There will be some method of communicating with your lance, with your company, with your unit, with your faction, in game, I'm sure, but it will be text-chat, as it should be. Devote the resources towards the actual gameplay, especially the meta-game.

[Acer Lerxt]

I agree with Dihm on both points.

No sense in wasting resources coding something that doesn't mean anything. Global Agenda has a central "meeting area" where players can hang out, and I can't remember the last time I paid attention to anyone in there.

[Dlardrageth]

"Walking in Space" was bad enough when CCP tried it for EVE-Online and pretty much utterly failed with it. I sincerely hope PGI doesn't waste a simple buck on it. I don't need to play "2nd life in the 31st century", that's not what I'm looking for in MWO. Limited interaction features, a non-static, basically animated game lobby are fine. Although avatars walking around and showing off their "fake" mammals or breast hair are a waste of time and resources, IMHO. This isn't supposed to be a MMORPG and I don't see much profit potential in this for PGI either. Especially not compared to the development costs for this we're looking at.

[Pulispher]

my only concern with in game chat is that wouldnt that change scouting?

[Togg Bott]

yes, EvE ,Walking in Space, was a waste of time, money and resources. HOWEVER EvE chat/speak/whatever they called it, was cool since you could speak, LIVE with the person you just popped/got popped by and it didnt take much of anything to get the connection running. met most of my corp. mates that way.... pop them... got popped by them.. talk... connection... PROFIT. a voice chat system is nothing but win for both the player and the company... beside...i have been described as Louis Armstrongs new voice.

Edited by Togg Bott, 23 March 2012 - 12:28 AM.

[Pvt Dancer]

I would like to see Voice chat on at least the Lance level or for the one side, but you know what? I can survive without it. I kinda like how WoTs runs their voice chat (yes, WoT has voice chat... they have it for platooned peeps) and would like to see something like that here. Be a nice bonus for a 'Premium Accout'.

I wouldn't mind seeing something for Fractions (a txt chat room), but real intel shouldn't be talked about there.... to easy for someone to create dummy accounts to 'spy'. Would be nice for faction players to hang out and just chit chat if they want to, but the boards can serve the same purpose (with the same level of security... none).

The reason I can see Piranha not having voice chat is that this is also a way for griefers to annoy people with music or foul language where people might be shocked that sometimes gamers swear! Bad enough jack wagons can do it in WoTs with hot key 'shout outs'. I would love to see some sort of 'Ignore/block' function no matter what.

[Acer Lerxt]

why not just use TS, Vent, or Mumble?

IMO, there's no point in a developer wasting time putting in features that have already been filled with another app. Having it integrated sounds well and good, but since most of the people who'd use VOIP are already running it anyway, it's got to be a really low priority.

[Ulric Kell]

Shattered Galaxy followed through on the concept of avatars existing in the world when not in battle but they really didn't use them to their full potential. Something like that would be pretty fantastic.

[Kylarus]

I was always a fan of the way voice comms were done in Fuels of War. All comms had a hierarchy that kept everyone from tying up the channels. In this instance, a lance would only ever talk to their lancemates, lance commanders (LC) would communicate with other LCs in their company, with their company commander(CC) being the highest up the chain they could in turn communicate with. In what I understand to be a standard game of 12v12, it would roughly break out to 3 lances a side, with three LCs, one of which would be the acting CC. Acting CC might be able to have comms with the enemy CC for adjudicating rules or something.

Pros:
Cuts back on unnecessary chatter
Prevents tactics bleedover between lances
LCs can coordinated their lance and with other LCs

Cons:
LC is primary point of failure in each lance for team communications
If LC is cored, that lance is SOL comms wise, unless 2nd, 3rd then 4th can take over comms.

[T0RC4ED]

Chat rooms and pre-drop lobbies are good, how else are we going to talk trash wile waiting for the next drop