I.Kapodistrias
07-19-2011, 04:22 PM
Chat is lame. We all know that. Does 2K knows how important is for CivWorld?
As a fellow member of this forum said: "social stimulus is good both for player's enjoyment AND game's popularity!"...
Let's note here all problems about chat and our suggestions about how we can have a much better communication between us, the players.
Problems:
National chat seems to make the computer slower or/and crash the browser.
The player's names are changing when they talk to you, making a big annoying confusion.
Close button clickthrough. You have to be very very carefull if you don't want to invade someone or even leave your civ every time you close the chat window!
"Send a message to another nation" doesn't seem to work. That button send me to global chat. I can't talk to another nation and only that nation. I don't know if it is a bug though or just nobody in 2K thought it.
Number of available characters are very limited.
Copy-paste is not possible.
I can't talk first to someone unless I visit his city. I can just open the chat and click on his name, but only if he was talking to me before and sometimes I have to search between other people's messages to find his last message to me... Which bring us to the next problem:
Personal chat is all mixed with everyone you had a personal chat, making it possible to send a message to the wrong guy (veeeery bad when you were planing something cunning) and almost impossible to see the entire history of the communication you had with a player planning anything.
I think offline messages are not visible. If this is true it is very time consuming to communicate with someone, especially with that character number limitation and all those access problems.
Even if you are online, it is not clear enough if you have a new message. Since you have to close the chat window in order to continue playing while you wait for a reply, sound alerts and world news are just not enough. Sound alerts have the same sound for everyone, making us not take it under big consideration (especially since it makes the sound twice when YOU type something) and
World news itself doesn't seems to be really usefull either for communication or for informations the way it is designed imho.
Characters other than latin are not possible. Although I must admit, it would be not good at all typing in any other language than english on global and national chat, on personal chat I would like to be able to type in greek for my friend doesn't understand english perfectly and thinking of leaving the game because of that.
No ranks or ministries are visible next to the name of the speaker. It sucks when noobs ignore people for not understand yet the importance of communication in the game, but it would be almost acceptable if he wasn't the king speaking. If I was a noob and somebody talk to me I would like to know if he was the King.
Suggestions:
First of all, the obvious: fix the bugs!
I don't know if the name changing issue is a bug or the wrong answer to privacy concerns (somebody on this forum was worried about other people seeing his real name). I suggest the ability for us to choose the name, if this is the case, but that name should stay stable during all game. Default name before we change it, must be our real name of course.
Give us the ability to be found on facebook if we want (and block others finding us on fb if we don't). Some of us are finding it really enjoyable to make new friends through a game and really affective on the going for victory. IT IS a cosial game after all!
Add on chat window a tab "other nation", with, of course, a list to select which civ you want to talk to. The ability to send a message to all members of another, specific civ of your choice, is not insignificant.
Bigger messages, copy-pasteable, with special characters too.
Offline messages must be visible, (stored for later reading) if this is not true. I am really not sure if it is...
Add a big envelope icon, next to the world news icon, flashing when you have new, unread personal messages. This way you can't miss another personal message again. Sounds alert could also be set to ring only for personal messages if we want to.
In fact, personal messages could be seperate from the rest of the chat window. The idea of having an inbox instead of a chat for personal messages seems to me more fuctional and less confusing. This inbox could open by clicking on that big envelope icon I suggested before. On the chat window can remain the other 3, the other 2 old tabs and the new tab I suggested, "another nation". As "another nation" should have a list, the big envelope should have its own list, listing player's names categorized in nations for quick access the history of messages with that player. Each personal conversation should have a special window. Clicking a name should appear just the conversation with that person only and the ability to reply of course.
The big envelope icon can even replace the world news icon if you think there is no enough space on the screen. World news can be found on chat window as a special tab. The chat icon can be flashing when new messages wait to be read and four small numbers could be on it too, showing, even before you click it, how many new messages you have by global chat, another nation's chat, national chat and world news. A small number could be on the big envelope as well.
Having an inbox instead of a chat, might help the lag issue too, but I don't know for sure (actually this is not a suggestion, just a strong hope :p )
About the problem of the chat window hiding the (small anyway) screen: Many have suggested that the chat window must be moveable. But is this really the answer, since we want to see the game AND the chat? Probably not, cause if the window was moveable I bet it would be hiding behind the icons. The ideal solution would be to be placed where right now are the facebook ads, at the right of the game screen. Of course I doubt 2K would like that or facebook would allowed it. The other three solutions I came up with are a) place it below the game screen as a separate chat screen, b) allow the ability to open the chat (and only the chat) on a different browser window (we will see twice as many of their precious ads) and c) instead of being moveable, make it minimizing on the game screen! Of course none of them really solve the problem, but all these 3, especially the third which seems to me the easiest to be done, would make our lives much more easy! :)
I admit I have read all the previous threads about chat and I know some of the problems refered above are already mentioned. The reason I made this thread is not only because I don't just mention (known) bugs, but problems in general and suggestions as well, mostly because the aspect of communication between us during a game seems to me so essential, that deserves a special thread for the bugs and the suggestions related to it.
Lets have a list of those bugs and suggestions exclusively for chat and communication in general. Feel free to post your own relative problems and ideas.
As a fellow member of this forum said: "social stimulus is good both for player's enjoyment AND game's popularity!"...
Let's note here all problems about chat and our suggestions about how we can have a much better communication between us, the players.
Problems:
National chat seems to make the computer slower or/and crash the browser.
The player's names are changing when they talk to you, making a big annoying confusion.
Close button clickthrough. You have to be very very carefull if you don't want to invade someone or even leave your civ every time you close the chat window!
"Send a message to another nation" doesn't seem to work. That button send me to global chat. I can't talk to another nation and only that nation. I don't know if it is a bug though or just nobody in 2K thought it.
Number of available characters are very limited.
Copy-paste is not possible.
I can't talk first to someone unless I visit his city. I can just open the chat and click on his name, but only if he was talking to me before and sometimes I have to search between other people's messages to find his last message to me... Which bring us to the next problem:
Personal chat is all mixed with everyone you had a personal chat, making it possible to send a message to the wrong guy (veeeery bad when you were planing something cunning) and almost impossible to see the entire history of the communication you had with a player planning anything.
I think offline messages are not visible. If this is true it is very time consuming to communicate with someone, especially with that character number limitation and all those access problems.
Even if you are online, it is not clear enough if you have a new message. Since you have to close the chat window in order to continue playing while you wait for a reply, sound alerts and world news are just not enough. Sound alerts have the same sound for everyone, making us not take it under big consideration (especially since it makes the sound twice when YOU type something) and
World news itself doesn't seems to be really usefull either for communication or for informations the way it is designed imho.
Characters other than latin are not possible. Although I must admit, it would be not good at all typing in any other language than english on global and national chat, on personal chat I would like to be able to type in greek for my friend doesn't understand english perfectly and thinking of leaving the game because of that.
No ranks or ministries are visible next to the name of the speaker. It sucks when noobs ignore people for not understand yet the importance of communication in the game, but it would be almost acceptable if he wasn't the king speaking. If I was a noob and somebody talk to me I would like to know if he was the King.
Suggestions:
First of all, the obvious: fix the bugs!
I don't know if the name changing issue is a bug or the wrong answer to privacy concerns (somebody on this forum was worried about other people seeing his real name). I suggest the ability for us to choose the name, if this is the case, but that name should stay stable during all game. Default name before we change it, must be our real name of course.
Give us the ability to be found on facebook if we want (and block others finding us on fb if we don't). Some of us are finding it really enjoyable to make new friends through a game and really affective on the going for victory. IT IS a cosial game after all!
Add on chat window a tab "other nation", with, of course, a list to select which civ you want to talk to. The ability to send a message to all members of another, specific civ of your choice, is not insignificant.
Bigger messages, copy-pasteable, with special characters too.
Offline messages must be visible, (stored for later reading) if this is not true. I am really not sure if it is...
Add a big envelope icon, next to the world news icon, flashing when you have new, unread personal messages. This way you can't miss another personal message again. Sounds alert could also be set to ring only for personal messages if we want to.
In fact, personal messages could be seperate from the rest of the chat window. The idea of having an inbox instead of a chat for personal messages seems to me more fuctional and less confusing. This inbox could open by clicking on that big envelope icon I suggested before. On the chat window can remain the other 3, the other 2 old tabs and the new tab I suggested, "another nation". As "another nation" should have a list, the big envelope should have its own list, listing player's names categorized in nations for quick access the history of messages with that player. Each personal conversation should have a special window. Clicking a name should appear just the conversation with that person only and the ability to reply of course.
The big envelope icon can even replace the world news icon if you think there is no enough space on the screen. World news can be found on chat window as a special tab. The chat icon can be flashing when new messages wait to be read and four small numbers could be on it too, showing, even before you click it, how many new messages you have by global chat, another nation's chat, national chat and world news. A small number could be on the big envelope as well.
Having an inbox instead of a chat, might help the lag issue too, but I don't know for sure (actually this is not a suggestion, just a strong hope :p )
About the problem of the chat window hiding the (small anyway) screen: Many have suggested that the chat window must be moveable. But is this really the answer, since we want to see the game AND the chat? Probably not, cause if the window was moveable I bet it would be hiding behind the icons. The ideal solution would be to be placed where right now are the facebook ads, at the right of the game screen. Of course I doubt 2K would like that or facebook would allowed it. The other three solutions I came up with are a) place it below the game screen as a separate chat screen, b) allow the ability to open the chat (and only the chat) on a different browser window (we will see twice as many of their precious ads) and c) instead of being moveable, make it minimizing on the game screen! Of course none of them really solve the problem, but all these 3, especially the third which seems to me the easiest to be done, would make our lives much more easy! :)
I admit I have read all the previous threads about chat and I know some of the problems refered above are already mentioned. The reason I made this thread is not only because I don't just mention (known) bugs, but problems in general and suggestions as well, mostly because the aspect of communication between us during a game seems to me so essential, that deserves a special thread for the bugs and the suggestions related to it.
Lets have a list of those bugs and suggestions exclusively for chat and communication in general. Feel free to post your own relative problems and ideas.