Chat Bubble Revamp + Roleplaying Mode

[Sunsette]

This is inspired by another suggestion, but goes in a very different direction, so I thought it best not to hijack their thread further.

 

I'd like to propose the creation of the /rpchat command. This would not only activate the /roleplaying tag but also initiate a number of 'quality of life' changes to help with roleplayers in crowded scenarios:

 

1. Disables chat bubbles to global channels. No more immersion getting ruined because someone stopped for a minute to answer someone's questions in /help.
2. Makes emotes 'sticky' (the way some people use 'is typing' messages) so that they don't occupy more chat bubble real-estate. These wouldn't be permanent, but would last a few minutes.
3. Alter chat bubble size in conjunction with the new command /shout and /quiet. Shouted bubbles would be larger and visible from a much further distance, while /quiet bubbles would be smaller and visible from a smaller distance.
4. Add a new command /rpwhisper. This functions similar to the whisper function, but in RP mode, the whispers become boxy captions (the way many missions use them to simulate voiceovers) that pop up on screen detached from anyone.

 

In this way, chat bubbles would become much more useful for actually tracking what's going on in conversation in an immersive, comic-book manner rather than having to rely on chat logs which are prone to chat scroll.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Sunsette

[GraspingVileTerror]

For this, and the other thread, I'll just say that whatever ideas get shared, OPTIONAL should be the word of the day.

I'm absolutely alright with all of the suggestions, except for tying it to the "Roleplaying" tag.  I run with that tag up all the time, but I personally would not want to have to deal with the suggestions you've provided here.  I'm happy for other players to have them at their disposal, though.

 

My dream would be to toggle a flag on other player-characters as "Priority Chat," which would still allow other Local messages to filter in, but highlight the players who I want to focus on personally.  I'd disable the chat bubbles entirely and rely solely on the Chat Window.

[Vanden]

10 hours ago, Sunsette said:

Makes emotes 'sticky' (the way some people use 'is typing' messages) so that they don't occupy more chat bubble real-estate. These wouldn't be permanent, but would last a few minutes.

 

...What? Emotes are animations your characters do, how are they supposed to become “sticky” like custom AFK box messages?

 

10 hours ago, Sunsette said:

Alter chat bubble size in conjunction with /yell and the new command /quiet. Yelled bubbles would be larger and visible from a much further distance, while /quiet bubbles would be smaller and visible from a smaller distance.

 

You can already adjust your bubble size with the <scale x> parameter, which I believe accepts values between .5 and 2.

 

[Kismette]

Invisible chat bubbles and text?  This can be done, however it's somewhat annoying to do.  Copy the following to notepad/wordpad.

<bgcolor #0000001><color #0000001><bordercolor #0000001>

 

Then copy/paste it on chat... now the 'annoying' part, every single time, you have to make sure the cursor is at the end before typing your message.  You could bind it but, you'll have to keep doing the same thing too whenever you enter your message.

[GraspingVileTerror]

@Vanden, emote text is the white-colours, local-distance, italicized messages that drop the colon dividing character name and message text.  Which is used by players for writing description actions for their characters in roleplay.

[Vanden]

Oh, they mean the emote channel. That whole thing is a mess; what you type appears in a thought bubble above your character like it's something they're thinking, but in the chat log as though it's narration about what they're doing. There's practically no way to write something that works grammatically in both formats at once. They should split that function into two separate channels.

[Sunsette]

... hence my suggestion of turning it sticky like status messages.

 

I can count on one hand the number of people I've ever seen use it as thought bubbles. 

[GraspingVileTerror]

I've seen it slightly more than five times, Legacy and Homecoming combined . . . but I still wouldn't want to remove that functionality from anyone's play experience.

 

Long story short:  Yes to the point that the chat system is not ideally implemented for the variety of roleplay which players engage in.  More options to help flesh things out are good in my book!  The specifics of how any new tools get used by players can be something which organically emerges over time within the communities.

 

One alternative I wouldn't mind seeing are emote text in other chat channels.

If I could send my emotes in Team, for example, it would fit my roleplay style -and- my OCD quite nicely.  Maybe a new command like "/emt" and change ";" so that it sends in either Local or Team depending on which is the currently active Channel.

[Sunsette]

23 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I've seen it slightly more than five times, Legacy and Homecoming combined . . . but I still wouldn't want to remove that functionality from anyone's play experience.

 

Original suggestion tied it to the roleplaying toggle and I acknowledged your preference to disentangle the toggle for this from roleplaying. I'm not looking to remove anyone's functionality here.

 

26 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

If I could send my emotes in Team, for example, it would fit my roleplay style -and- my OCD quite nicely.  Maybe a new command like "/emt" and change ";" so that it sends in either Local or Team depending on which is the currently active Channel.

 

I want to avoid changing the existing behavior of any commands in this way since it might break macros and posting habits. I'd be fine with this suggestion broadly, but I'm more focused on making high-traffic situations usable in RP. 

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

I want to avoid changing the existing behavior of any commands in this way since it might break macros and posting habits.

 

You should probably be aware, then, that /yell is already an alias for /broadcast.