Consolidate Friend and Global Friends Lists

[krj12]

I've never really understood why this game wants a delineation between friends and global friends - I've never seen it in any other game.

Typically, in every MMO I've played, your friends list is global,  you will see the person listed with their global handle and with the name

of the character they're currently playing.

 

In CoH, they're separate and distinct, and you have to keep flip flopping between them, based on how you're friended to them.
 

My suggestions would be:
 

1.  Combine the two, any friend you have is global
 

2.  Show their global handle, their current character, and if possible the character name they were playing when you first friended.

3.  I could be wrong, but friending appears to be unilateral in some cases.  Never fully understood that.  It should always
be reciprocal and require confirmation from the other party.

 

[EmmySky]

Global friending requires permission while Server friending does not. 

 

I don't see a reason for the distinction other than maybe if someone were AFK or denied the global request you would still have an option to save them on your list so you remember who they were.  

 

Added to that, I think the ignore list could be tossed up there as well.  Since they are color coded blue instead of green you could tell the difference.  Also add in the 'currently on X name Y server' info for ignores so if, through no fault of your own, you end up on the same team as them you can immediately recognize the fact and not wonder why the team chat seems so wonky (because you arent seeing half of it lol).

[MetaVileTerror]

It's most likely a hold-over from the fact that the Global Chat System was developed later in City of Heroes life than regular Friending was.  The code being janky spaghetti and all, it might not be feasible to fully integrate the two.

[Burnt Toast]

I never friend anyone.. I just global friend people. 

[Steampunkette]

There are two main reasons to keep them separate, in my mind.

 

1) Just because I want to hang out with one of your characters, perhaps for RP Purposes, does not mean I want to join your random 8 person Peregrine Island team when I log onto a different character, nor get random pressures to do so.

 

2) If I want to check if a given name is taken while in game and talking to friends, I can add that name to my local friend's list to see if it's available without logging out, entering the character creator, and trying to make a character with that name.

 

If you don't like local friends lists, just GFriend everyone you'd otherwise add. There's no good reason to spend hours or days recoding the game to get rid of the "Friends" List.