Vandrel-Blitz
-
Posts
284 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Posts posted by Vandrel-Blitz
-
-
Thanks for the server forums Bioware
Much much much better
-
FINALLY we have a server forum!
holy crap that took forever
-
Dear developers and other employees of Bioware, Lucas Arts and Electronic Arts!
A large part of the player base cannot enjoy the game properly because of the lack of chat bubbles (aka speech bubbles). Therefore, on behalf of the affected players, we are hereby suggesting and formally requesting an option to toggle chat bubbles for spatial chat (/say, /yell, /emote). This thread has started in beta, reposted after the forum wipe and run a long time and has garnered a lot of support ever since. The community has come up with a lot of ideas on how to improve the situation. The following is what we propose:
Here are bullet points of what'sbeen suggested/proposed by the players:
- Add chat bubbles for /say, /yell and /emote chat that display whatever is said in these chat channels in it's entirety in addition to the chat window over the head of the player character that is saying it (both over your own as well as characters around yours).
Preferably have them enabled by default. - Add a client-side option to toggle chat bubbles on/off for any text players type in /say, /yell and /emote chat to Preferences->Chat.
This allows every player to decide for themselves whether they would like to see chat bubbles or not for whatever reason. Possibly give us an option to turn chat bubbles on/off for each chat channel individually and expand the choices to /party and /ops chat. - Add talking animations that triggers when typing into /say and /yell to visualize that the character is currently talking or shouting.
Existing character animations may be reused for this, like the one used by the /talk emote. - Lower the range of /say to 25 meters (currently 40 meters) and keep the range of /yell at 50 meters.
This has proven a good range for spatial chat in other MMOs to prevent clutter. - Add a slider to allow people to freely and individually adjust the range at which chat bubbles disappear from maximum range for each chat channel (25 meters for /say, 50 meters for /yell, 50 meters for /emote) down to a minimum value of couple of meters (10 meters?).
This will allow players to find a good compromise between the amount of chat bubbles, clutter and performance for their individual taste and computer. - Add a slider to adjust the duration of how long chat bubbles remain on the screen in seconds with a gracious maximum value.
This will allow players of all ages to freely adjust the duration of chat bubbles remaining on their screen according to their own preferences and reading speed. - Give us the option to freely adjust the font size in chat bubbles and whether the size scales with distance or not.
- Chat bubbles for each chat channel/type should have a different appearance style
Take a look what other MMORPGs like Star Wars Galaxies (still one of the best implementations of chat bubbles in MMORPGs to date) and/or comics typically use for what people say (bubble with rounded edges and tail that points to the character that says it), yell/shout/scream (jagged bubble with longer tail) and "emotes" (square bubble, maybe even without a tail) to distinguish between the various chat channels.
Chat bubbles could also be sporting the same hue/color (be it border or background, depends on the style you choose) each chat channel is assigned to on your client. - Change the /emote and /yell chat channels to be visible to the opposing faction, just like the /say chat channel is now.
There is no reason to block /emote and /yell (or even /tell and /whisper for that matter), as opposing factions can communicate via /say already anyway (and there is an /ignore feature for bad things, after all). Blocking those just limits cross-faction socializing between player and cross faction roleplay.
Here is a short summary of the reasons why chat bubbles should be implemented:
- Chat bubbles encourage face to face interactions with other players.
- They encourage multiplay instead of solo-play - most desirable in a MMOG.
- Chat bubbles improve communication and group/Ops group coordination between players.
- They are an essential tool for building and strengthening the community, which is the main reason that keeps people playing and stay loyal to a MMO(RP)G for many years and even decades, even when the PVE and PVP content may have run it's course.
- Without chat bubbles, many players "feel all alone" in the game (the chat window feels very detached from the game).
- They allow people to focus on the world in front of them, and not a tiny chat window in a corner or anywhere else but near the center of the screen.
- The fast scrolling chat window is impossible to follow conversations while in an area with a large amount of people.
- Chat bubbles greatly improve immersion into the game world (click here to read a post explaining how if you don't understand).
- The game world seems to be a lot less sterile and more alive when you can actually see player characters talking.
- Making new chat channels is not a useful alternative.
- People with various visual impairments/disabilities rely on chat bubbles in MMORPGs to even be able to effectively communicate and play with other players at all.
The same is true for many older gamers. - Without chat bubbles, roleplay and socializing is nearly impossible especially in crowded areas, it's tedious and simply is not fun - especially in areas where there are many people or during questing and other parts of the game.
- Chat bubbles help to pinpoint and find people that are talking in spatial chat in large and crowded areas.
- Chat bubbles aren't only for Roleplayers - they provide benefits for a great many players with all kinds of playstyles - be it socializers, roleplayers, Group/Flashpoint/Operations PVE players and PVP combatants (that don't rely on voice chat), community builders among others.
- A large amount of the player base want chat bubbles as an option. Bioware said they are implementing player's wishes - this is a top priority wish/issue for a large part of the player base.
- Chat bubbles have been a standard feature in almost every mainstream, premium priced MMO released during the past decade that a whole lot of players are used to. There also hasn't been anything invented that's remotely capable of fully replacing chat bubbles for communication between players in MMO(RP)Gs yet (text to speech technology combined with positional audio is still far off from sounding natural).
- People have started to cancel their subscriptions due to the lack of chat bubbles and missing official assurance by Bioware that they are being implemented soon.
- /say and /yell chat channels are practically useless without chat bubbles. They are like /general with lower range.
- Having a client side option to freely turn chat bubbles on or off to each player's liking will allow every player to enjoy the game, whether they need chat bubbles or not.
Everyone has fun, everyone is happy, everyone wins!
Related Links:
- German discussion of this thread / Deutsche Diskussion dieses Threads
- Suggestions of features roleplayers want to have added in this game. Includes chat bubbles and many other items.
- Thread to post questions that will be answered to the devs in a blog post. Make sure to ask about chat bubbles in that thread if you want them in the game and/or want to know what their status is. The more people ask about chat bubbles, the better the chance the developers will finally take notice and give us an update on
- Bioware asks to post UI Feedback and suggestions in this thread. Head over to the official UI Feature Feedback Request thread and request chat bubbles to be implemented as the next UI feature!
- If you're on Twitter, go to Bioware's Official TOR Twitter account and regularly tweet questions about chat bubbles and an ETA on them! Include the hashtagsandin your tweets and tweet them often about it until we finally get some concrete information and ETA on chat bubbles! Feel free to use these hashtags together in tweets to your friends as well!
- If you're on Facebook, go to Bioware's Official TOR Facebook page and ask them questions about chat bubbles and an ETA on them!
Articles about Chat bubbles:Timeline of statements about chat bubbles by Bioware representatives and developers:- November 2011:,Articles about the Fansite Summits from November 2011, where Bioware's Studio creative directorJames Ohlenpromised chat bubbles to be a"high priority in BioWare's list of things to do". On a side note, Principal Lead Combat Designerconfirmed this on the beta forums as well by posting"chat bubbles are a high-priority feature for launch or shortly thereafter"around the same timeframe.
- January 20th, 2012:The Old Republic's German Community Managerwrote the following in reply to a German thread about chat bubbles.English Translation:"We have definitely forwarded your wish. But you can certainly understand that it isn't of high priority at the moment. Hence I sadly can't tell you anything about it at this time, whether chat bubbles are coming or not (much less when they are coming). I myself have colored my chat channels in different (partially very bright) colors. This helps me keep the overview. But yes it's really hard at large RP-events when the chat is speeding to no end..."Original German text:"Wir haben euren Wunsch auf alle Fälle weitergegeben. Aber ihr könnt sicher verstehen, dass das im Moment keine hohe Priorität hat. Insofern kann ich euch leider zu diesem Zeitpunkt nichts dazu sagen, ob Sprechblasen kommen werden (geschweige denn wann). Ich persönlich habe alle meine Chat-Channels in verschiedenen (teilweise ziemlich grellen Farben) eingefärbt. Das hilft mir sehr, die Übersicht zu bewahren. Aber ja, bei großen RP-Events, wenn der Chat rast ohne Ende, dann wird es wirklich schwer ..."
- January 26th, 2012:An interview with Bioware'sCory Butlerfrom January 2012 which has the first official mention of chat bubbles sinceJames Ohlentalking about them at the Fansite Summit andGeorg Zöllerconfirming it on the beta forums in November 2011.When asked about chat bubbles in the interview,Butlerawkwardly avoids the topic by simply saying"I can’t really go into the specifics about chat bubbles just yet.".
- February 17th, 2012:in the February 17th 2012 Community Q&A post, Bioware'sDamion Schubertconfirmed that chat bubbles will be implemented:"They're definitely on the list. We’ve got many active roleplayers in the dev team and chat bubbles have always been important to us. We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. They’ll be coming soon, but in priority, the GUI team is focused first on GUI customization. I'll have a better idea of timing once we get past that. And yes, for people who hate them, whenever we do them, they'll be toggleable."
- March 5th 2012:Bioware's new Lead DesignerDaniel Ericksonconfirmed on the topic "The future of roleplaying" that chat bubbles are indeed coming and issues with chat bubbles having a negative effect on performance have been resolved:"Chat bubbles...yeah, chat bubbles. *bows his head in shame while applause roars through the room* So...this is...this is one of those weird...like... *sigh* ... there are things that you can always tell from our faces when we talk about it. There are things that are just kind of embarassing. Like we had chat bubbles in the game and for whatever reason there was a really strange technical... thing... with the chat bubbles that they totally dragged the performance of the game down. [takes a deep breath] We were like "chat bubbles...really? That's what's doing it?!" And you know, a tech came over and turned off the chat bubbles and framerate went way up and we were like "Oh god, okay." So...uh. We thinkwe've got that worked out though. So chat bubbles: YES!"
- June 29th, 2012:When answering a question about how much of the development is based on the developers' ideas and how much is based on Community input, Bioware's Lead DesignerDaniel Ericksonacknowledged chat bubbles as one of the most requested community features although they didn't see them as a "big must-have feature" and confirmed that they will be added to the game in the near future (although he didn't give any details on when that will be):"As we come to the end of our big must-have features (like Group Finder), updates are driven more and more by the community. Expect to see far more of the smaller quality of life requested features (color matching for companions, chat bubbles, etc.) start to get real traction under them in the near future."
- July 24th, 2012:Lead DesignerDaniel Ericksonmentioned chat bubbles in an interview conducted by the fine people over at:"Chat bubbles are on the short list, stuck behind must-have features like group finder and I expect you’ll see them arrive relatively soon."
A quote of the old, prose version of this post that was first posted in the TOR Beta Forums back in Summer 2011 for those that like to read it:
Still support this idea
Chat bubbles are a must!
- Add chat bubbles for /say, /yell and /emote chat that display whatever is said in these chat channels in it's entirety in addition to the chat window over the head of the player character that is saying it (both over your own as well as characters around yours).
-
Level 50 Warzone of The Shadowlands is bugged, no one on the server at level 50 can PvP right now cause the mission is stuck at 100% / 0% and will not end
Please fix this right now
-
This is correct. This is a change made exactly for the preparation of server mergers.
Wonderful to hear. Infact I've been fairly butthurt about having to transfer from my original server only to find that my last name that I've used since I started playing Star Wars Galaxies in 2004 was no longer available for me to use. This partially made me want to stop playing the game and I'm glad it's being addressed and fixed.
-
Rather old thread but it seems it's been confirmed that this will finally be happening following the server transfers. I'm more then thankful for Bioware's consideration on this and will go a long ways to show that they do indeed care about their customers.
-
We'll be implementing individual servers forums once automatic transfers are complete!
That's awsome news!
Thanks for the update on this
-
I know already what everybodies response will be; make new chat windows. So I'm supposed to make a new chat window for all these, and clutter up the already clunky UI? Right, great idea!
More chat channel tabs is not the way to solve this. Local chat bubbles are a must, and furthermore a industry standard.
The UI will see some customization options in the near future, but what we need with that are chat bubbles. It only makes sense.
If you don't like chat bubbles, fine....turn them off. But they should be "on" by default. People who don't like chat bubbles are like left handed people, everything in the world is right handed by default.
-
I never really cared for lava crystal in SWG. Never fit the story imo.
-
Nothing fancy, just a simple in-game message board where guild members could post messages to each other.
This would help in scheduling, trading and organizing in a HUGE way.
It would be a huge help to allow better communication between groups of members who aren't always playing during the same times.
I vote for this, would save me $14.99 a month for hosting.
-
-
When I was on earlier there were no light servers. Only standard and up. No need to merge anything. If you dont like the pvp on your server re-roll some other server.
It was like that because Bioware adjusted server caps ealy on so that they would read Heavy/Full. The population caps were extremely low to promote more growth and attract more players.
Eventually the server caps were eased off and increase. Now we're left with what we have now.
This statement pretty much sums it up....
"IT'S A TRAP"
-
Could use some community input, if you all don't mind. I'm looking to buy a gaming laptop in the $2000-$3000 range and was wondering if anyone had any ideas. I was leaning Alienware M17x, but I've read some luke-warm reviews and now I'm not sure. Thanks
ASUS G74SX BBK-8
Best bang for the buck and only $1,199 at Best Buy
-
I played SWG for 8 years.... there was no perma death
LOL
"Pre Pub-9"
When SWG/Sony announced the "village quest line" where any one could be a Jedi there was a little time before it went live. Soe said to the Jedi that went through the grind to unlocked before this. "This is your time" and made them pretty much unbeatable. If you examined them they showed like a npc not a player. I've seen one Jedi lay waste to two stacked tkm's at once during that time, one of the two was me. Hats off to all the SWG Jedi that unlocked pre-cu.There were a lot of factors to that. Stats mattered back then. Ranged/Melee defense and KD defense were huge.
Dual spec/dabblers were huge
Gear meant something. Post pub 10 with the FRS made it worth while to obtain the high res. robes.
It was indeed a lot of fun but it was also a much slower placed combat system and is not really in the same league as SWTOR combat.
Also, SWG CU Master Powers Cloaking was boss.
-
This is a cute idea, but I wonder how easy it would be to abuse by having someone the Guild just so they can get the item, and then leave.
If they made it where the person has to be the Guild at time of activation, then it would be much harder to abuse.
I like the idea, I'm not sure if it could apply to the stuff you mention, but it is a good idea.
I support this idea, though I think it'd be wise if the bind function prevented the player from leaving guild.
ex: Player equips item bind on guild. Item is bound. Player tries to leave guild and is prompted that leaving guild is not possible until item is removed from inventory (either destroyed or placed in guild bank).
A log would also be nice.
Guild bank log could feature a tab for equipment Binds. ex: player1 has bound itemX date/time.
-
Waiting for client to download as I type. So ecxited I could ****!
Well here I am, a many year veteran of wow and future total noob of Star Wars LOL. I had (well still have actually) a 3 raid team guild on BT but I am so sick of wow becoming a toddlers game.
I swear a my 2 yr old could drop his bottle on the keyboard and kill a Raid boss these days in warcraft, its that bad.
I'm gonna be a total noob, any tips/advice most welcome! If there will be servers to choose from, any advice will be welcome, also any guilds that wants a ex raid Gm from wow to be their new noob.. holla up man!
peace..
Welcome!
-
I think there are two different issues here.
Some people believe the whole game is losing players, and some are being defensive of that.
Others (like me) have been unfortunate enough to end up on a very low population server, and are asking servers to be merged to make the game playable for us.
I love the game and I am not part of the 'doom and gloom' crowd, BUT, I cannot ignore the fact that there is hardly anybody playing on my server. Having 15-20 people in your fleet during primetime is just not the way the game was meant to be played.
This was due to the early access stagger process Bioware conducted. If they would have left things open and free for customers to fill in the gaps then we would more then likely not have seen this issue.
They tried to keep things level on all servers and not let them flood, this however left the later (tail end charlie) group with the short end of the stick. First batch of servers have mostly stayed quite busy, where as the later servers have fell to little to no population, as most had migrated from the server soon after launch.
I agree on this matter, a merge is needed. We don't need 150 servers.
What server? I plan on counting how many people are online before I decide if the ghost town comment is accurate. If you wrote what server already I apologize. Reading boards on my cell phone is kind of difficult. Btw how does 30 people in the fleet make it unplayable? It sounds like you are exaggerating to prove your point.I doubt he's exaggerating, it's a well known fact that there's empty servers. Just go look at some of the server forums here that have little to no posts.
-
Nice to see so much support for chat bubbles. It's one of the hottest threads here.
Yet for some reason, Bioware chooses to ignore it. I really don't get it.
Coming from SWG it's been rough getting used to a MMO with no chat bubbles. In most cases I generally ignore chat because it's too cluttered and near impossible to easily see who's talking to you in the area, without changing your chat colors of course.
I preach about industry standards quite often, this is one in which I'd say is a must in any MMO.
-
I got mine today
Curious if it's a game card related issue
-
-
The analogy fails because Bioware doesn't supply a product
Wrong,
See, software sales in this industry include additional bits and bobs for the overall package you are purchasing. A customer pays "X" for "Y" giving them access to "Z". That's the product. The forums is part of the product.
You can debate service all you want, in the end it's a product. Bioware moderating the forums is a service. Providing technical support is a service. Forum access and use is a product. Customers are using the software (product) and forums (product). Bioware's daily functions to accomidate, support, administrate and moderate are services rendered.
How do I know this, again, I work in the industry.
You seem to be taking what I'm saying very personal.
That is where you are saddly mistaken. I deal with folks like you daily during working hours. Nothing new here.
You are reading far too much into what I wrote, and ignoring completely the meaning of what was actually written.
Funny, I seem to recall saying you're doing the same thing but rather skimming the post to pick apart key points for the sole purpose of debate.
I support your goal and most of your methods, but I don't care for the melodrama.
The only drama and exaggeration is that in which you seem to be trying to stir up. You structure your posts and choose your words to paint a picture that down plays the situation.
Additionally, there's no "out dated" responses here, as you noted. All responses and feedback from customers is valid, as we still do not have server forums. If we had individual server forums then everything would be solved and, of course, all comments would thus be out dated.
-
The best way to show to Bioware that individual forums are needed is to demonstrate there is an actual need, not to boycott them.
Why should we, the customers, have to demonstrate anything considering this is due to Bioware's failure to provide a working solution? They created the problem, the burden is with them.
I'm not being negative at all. I'm being quite optimistic. Quite the opposite, my post was targeted directly at the negative posts. From what I've seen of your posts, you've been quite persistent and determined with a lot of good work done in organizing your position. My only issue is that it just looks like you are exaggerating the problem.
If I exaggerated problems then I wouldn't have a job at the company I work for, simple as that. I don't just preach out of my *** here, I say this stuff with experience in this very industry.
The used car analogy just doesn't work because you are an individual providing feedback on a service that is provided to everyone.
But it does work. I, like you and everyone else here, are CUSTOMERS. As customers we have demands. It's up to the business to supply those demands. A business can either satisfy the consumer needs and generate more revenue or they can ignore the demand and sink. I'm not providing feedback, I am organizing what's called Course of Action (COA).
I haven't gone against the idea at all. I don't have to agree with everything said by every poster who is also in favour of the idea.
By constructing posts like these you are indeed going against the idea. You don't have to agree but you are quite frankly adding more ammo to Bioware's arsonal to fire back at us all.
There's no "well I'm in between", you're with a side or you're not. Support or don't.
Your analogies are getting worse. A closer one would be asking for a pencil but being shown a box of unsharpened pencils instead. It can solve your needs, but requires a little extra work from you.
Again, see above.
Demonstrate to Bioware that you need these forums, and my optimistic belief is that you'll get them. Bioware gave you server groups because they don't believe the community is big enough to support individual ones. Don't boycott the new servers because you don't like them, that only makes Bioware think they were right.
Why should we have to demonstrate anything? We didn't ask to demonstrate, we asked for a very specific feature. Asking doesn't mean we need to demonstrate. Laying out a COA doesn't mean we need to demonstrate.
Bioware already demonstrated to the customers that their solutions didn't work. But you're saying it's up to us to demonstrate? No.
I say the things I do because I am trying to help you get your individual forums. Nothing I have said will hurt your cause, because nothing I have said is news to Bioware. They have metrics & mods to filter out exaggerations & melodrama before being sent on to the devs. You say there's an issue, but Bioware looks at their metrics and says "we don't see it". The best way to get your forums is to generate the activity that will give Bioware the metrics they are looking for.
You're still missing the point here. There's a method to the madness with lobbying. The more voices and complaints the more chance for success the movement has. People who sit on the fence and try to play both sides do nothing to help the cause.
December 13th we started with nothing. December 19th, they acknowledged the complaints. December 20th, they stated their stance on the matter. January 13th they recended their decision. January 20th they implimented Change 1.
Now you tell me, how is any of this exaggerating?
There is action and reaction. Customers spoke, action. Bioware made the change, reaction.
What we have now is unsat. More action to follow and thus a reaction will come with.
I still think a reasonable interim change would be to add a filter to the server groups. Choose the server in a drop-down you want to see posts for, and it hides the posts from the other servers.
That, I'm afraid, is just not currently possible in vBulletin. Extreme development efforts would have to be put forth to create that feature in vBulletin as a addon/plugin. It would prove to be more cost effective for Bioware to give the customers what they simply ask for.
This is not some off the wall feature we are talking about here, let's keep that in mind. We are talking about a INDUSTRY STANDARD. Server forums exist in every major MMO in the industry.
-
For those who don't know, I recommend you check out MilitaryGamers.com
Great bunch of folks
-
I'm not against individual server forums, it just feels like the topic of individual forums has gotten more posts than the actual community/server forums. It puzzles me at how much energy and hatred a few people are putting into fighting for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist yet.
Your entire post here is nearly a direct copy paste from previous thread regarding vBulletin features missing.
Look, I've told you multiple times, read the thread. All the facts are there. Stop skimming and commenting on a few key points.
There's much more then a "few" people providing constructive feedback on the issue. This has been beaten to death since December 13th in 3-4 different threads.
Furthermore, customers are not using these GROUP forums because 1) we didn't ask for them and 2) we don't want to use them
I'm not as young as I once was. I've been there done that and now receive disability checks. I prefer things to be as easy on my eyes as possible. Trying to pick and scroll through pages of threads with server prefixes is not easy on the eyes.
You can continue to play Mr. Negative all you want on the issue but in the end the majority disagrees and you are still in the 10%.
And because you more then likely skimmed past it, I'll repost it for you to read here:
SWTOR customers are much like every-day use car shoppers. We've come to the used car lot of BIOWARE, where we're looking to buy a 2 door coupe. Bioware salesman walks up and tells you all about this 4x4 quad cab truck and how great it is. You simply responed with, I don't want a truck, I want that 2 door coupe over there. Bioware salesman comes back at you with, Well you see here, this truck would be better for you and you'll like it.
No matter what you say to the Bioware use car salesman, he is content with sticking to selling you the 4x4 quad cab truck, regardless that you've told him over and over that you want the 2 door coupe.
Eventually you leave the car lot with a 2WD, 2 door pickup because the Bioware used car salesman said the 2 door coupe wouldn't start and wasn't reliable.
If you're in favor of individual server forums then suppor the cause, don't go against it. No one is exaggerating the issue, the facts are clear and posted here. All Bioware's comments are posted here. A large collection of customer responses are also posted here.
Those are the facts, and they are undisputed.
I don't think I saw a single "Thanks for making things a little better. We'll see if we can make it work, but we still want individual forums, especially once these groups get too busy which I think it will".And you won't find many, because customers didn't ask for THAT. Would you tell someone thanks for handing you a sheet of paper when you asked for an eraser? Or would you say thanks to someone who sold you a 4x4 quad cab that you don't need when you asked for a 2 door coupe hybrid?
Yeah, I'd say thanks....... thanks for wasting your time and my time.
I'm also quite sure the web developers are thrilled about having to make Change 4 to Change 3 of Revision 12 to Change 2b for the forum layout because management has no clue what their doing. I know my fun meter would be pegged.
Also, I'll give you a example to review and let brew for a few:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/forums/show.m?forum_id=3
http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=329
Which of those 2 do you think is easier to read?
Heck, forget the F-G area, just look at: http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=340
That's like trying to read Russian. It's a complete mess.
Not to mention that there's zero regional seperation now. You've got East/West Coast and Euro all lumped together in areas. I think the only ones who really can benifit from server group forums is the DE and FR servers because there's so few of them.
Hi Shadowlands!
in The Shadowlands
Posted