Is it possible to add a window to view chat channels in the character selection screen?

[Random Axis]

Obviously if the answer is yes, I'd like it, but don't want to demand something the game architecture cannot do. Specifically the LFG channel would be all I need, but I'm keeping the request generic in case others want to read the sparkling repartee of General or something.

 

I think we've all been there when we log in, scroll through all those alt-itis characters, enter the game, and immediately find I should have picked a different character because of a group forming in LFG. I then have to back out and pick that other character. It feels like a lot of wasted time that could have been avoided if I could see the LFG channel from the start. 

 

To be super clear, I don't need to be able to interact with the chat at all; just see it. I'm fine waiting to send the "I'll do Manticore" tell once I enter the game with my selected toon.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

or as a purely hypothetical alternative

 

the option to switch characters without logging out of the game

cannot be used on a TF/SF

Cooldown of 600 seconds

character chosen must already be on the selected server

[srmalloy]

38 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

the option to switch characters without logging out of the game

I'm unclear as to what you're asking for. Logging out to the character selection screen already doesn't log you out from the game. Or are you asking for the ability to double-box with a single account using a client designed entirely around your playing a single character at a time? Or being able to double-box with two instances of the client by logging into a single account twice, so you can run two different characters without having to create a second account?

[lemming]

33 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I'm unclear as to what you're asking for. Logging out to the character selection screen already doesn't log you out from the game. Or are you asking for the ability to double-box with a single account using a client designed entirely around your playing a single character at a time? Or being able to double-box with two instances of the client by logging into a single account twice, so you can run two different characters without having to create a second account?

I think they want to be able to use LFG to choose which character they want to play. 

 

Though I have dual boxed and used my second account to think, oh yea, let's bring that one in for the TF that is recruiting.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Random Axis said:

To be super clear, I don't need to be able to interact with the chat at all; just see it. I'm fine waiting to send the "I'll do Manticore" tell once I enter the game with my selected toon.

 

Entering the character selection/creation screen doesn't log you into a shard, you're just connected to a database.  The entire server infrastructure would have to be rewritten to change how accounts log in and how being logged in interacts with shards.

[Random Axis]

4 hours ago, srmalloy said:

5 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

the option to switch characters without logging out of the game

I'm unclear as to what you're asking for. 

I'm pretty sure he's suggesting a swap to another character without going through the character select screen. Like if I were playing Batman, I could type /altswap Robin (I'm totally making up the command here), and the game would logoff Batman and go right to logging in as Robin. And the account would have a 10 minute cooldown to use that command again.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Random Axis said:

I'm pretty sure he's suggesting a swap to another character without going through the character select screen. Like if I were playing Batman, I could type /altswap Robin (I'm totally making up the command here), and the game would logoff Batman and go right to logging in as Robin. And the account would have a 10 minute cooldown to use that command again.

That's not the impression I'm getting from the OP. And that wouldn't work in CoX anyway. It works in other games, mostly single player games where you have access to set premade characters because those can easily be coded into the game itself for direct access, but for CoX to change your character since it can only load and run one character per active account, it has to log the first character off and then load the next character. (Which may not even be in the same zones, which would then require the game to load the correct zone for the alt being swapped to.) Since none of our characters are premades already preloaded into the game, the game has to look up the character ID it has on file for the target character, load the costume and power files including the power customizations, and then load the stored zone and mission data. (The order presented may not be the actual order followed, but you get the idea.) Custom characters, especially when a single account can have up to 1,000 such characters on each shard at the same time, is not something the game can have preloaded for quick changes between. (Edit: At least from my experience, not without an insane amount of memory space devoted to being able to do so. So even if such a command were to be implemented, it would still need to log off the current character and then log on the next character.)

 

No, what I see being asked for is a way to check active chat while on the character select screen so as to choose the character desired for a forming group in advance. I have no idea if that is even possible. Sure, we can select our shard when we log on the game and we pick from our list of shard characters, but I don't know if we are actually accessing the game at that point yet. Like @Luminara said, it is quite likely that we are only accessing the database of what we have available to choose from but are not yet interfacing with the game itself.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Rudra

[Troo]

17 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Entering the character selection/creation screen doesn't log you into a shard, you're just connected to a database.  The entire server infrastructure would have to be rewritten to change how accounts log in and how being logged in interacts with shards.

 

So you're saying there's a chance.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

20 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

So you're saying there's a chance.

 

unless something fundamental in the universe has changed

nothing is impossible,

just highly improbable "Admiral James T. Skywalker"

[Vanden]

19 hours ago, Luminara said:

Entering the character selection/creation screen doesn't log you into a shard, you're just connected to a database.

 

It does, though. That's why the total number of Heroes and Villains per shard on the Server Status page never adds up to the amount shown under Online Players; it's counting players on the character select screen.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Vanden

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

 

It does, though. That's why the total number of Heroes and Villains per shard on the Server Status page never adds up to the amount shown under Online Players; it's counting players on the character select screen.

True, but here's the question I would like answered: Is the Online Players tracking actual count of players in the game or is the Server Status page showing that data? If the numbers are different, and the Online Players count is lower than the Server Status count, then it seems to me that the character select screen isn't interfacing with the game itself, not in any meaningful way at least, just accessing the server's database. (Edit: Otherwise the numbers really should be the same.) (Edit again: You can interface with a server without needing to interface with a given program on said server, in this case, the game. Kind of like a pre-game lobby.)

Edited September 17, 2023 by Rudra

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

It does, though. That's why the total number of Heroes and Villains per shard on the Server Status page never adds up to the amount shown under Online Players; it's counting players on the character select screen.

 

No.  You've logged into the game with your account, entered the queue server and accessed the character database server.  The chat server, the map server, the market server and a few other servers haven't loaded yet because they don't load until you log on to a shard with a character.  A shard isn't a single hardware server, or a single software server, it's a collection of multiple software servers running in concert and handshaking amongst themselves and with your client, and none of that happens until you log on with a character.  As I said, the entire server infrastructure would have to be redesigned to remove the requirement to be on a shard in order to load the chat server for that shard.

 

You're in the elevator, not the office.  If you want to talk to your co-workers, you have to press the button to go to the right floor, or install a phone in the elevator and rewire the comm system.