Messages above heads

[Fanomatic2000]

I think it would be easier if you could see the messages that players are typing above their head.
Something similar to \"Tibia\" would be good.
I just hate when you have to read what everybody is talking about in the box below. It becomes more easy if you could see what a specific character is talking about just by looking at them and read above their head.

You get my point?  )

[Princess Aelya]

agreed. but what happens when many players are in a tavern or something and talking all at once? The words would stack up on top of each other and it would be next to impossible for you to see who is saying what.

[Fanomatic2000]

The name is in the beginning of every message, so you always know who\'s saying what. Ex. Rolf says: Hello you stupid dwarf! Guran says: Nothing wrong with that.

[boonet]

hmm... the messages over heads could be more transparent as the distance of the person who speaks increases from you. And louder sentences could be less transparent.

[kinshadow]

Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
I think it would be easier if you could see the messages that players are typing above their head.
Something similar to \"Tibia\" would be good.
I just hate when you have to read what everybody is talking about in the box below. It becomes more easy if you could see what a specific character is talking about just by looking at them and read above their head.

Imo, that is completely impratical for a 3D game.  In a 2D iso game (like UO), there are only so many players on a tile and thus very little overlap.  In a 3D game, the projection of the world on to the screen looses too much postional detail to allow for anything other than line of sight data.  Things like sound, which do not respect line of sight (they ricochet), can not be represented in that same 3D context graphically.  You can have a theoretically infinite number of \"speakers\" in a line.  How would you corelate all that speach to each unseen player?  How would you keep it from blocking out the graphics when too many people are speaking at the same time?  I would hate someone spaming me and block my view of the monster I\'m fighting.  I don\'t think that transparency fixes the problem, it just makes one of the messages easier to read.  This would make it easier for grief players to spam the world in areas where the speech may be crucial.

[Fanomatic2000]

There IS ways to stop people from spamming.
You shouldn\'t be able to type the same thing many times in a row.
It\'s extremely annoying when you have to read from the box at the bottom of the screen. If you fight or do something else and you cannot take your eyes from the screen (which I prefer not to anyway) you will miss the messages.
We need a better messaging-system X(

[kinshadow]

Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
There IS ways to stop people from spamming.
You shouldn\'t be able to type the same thing many times in a row.
It\'s extremely annoying when you have to read from the box at the bottom of the screen. If you fight or do something else and you cannot take your eyes from the screen (which I prefer not to anyway) you will miss the messages.
We need a better messaging-system X(

That doesn\'t keep people from typing trash or using a series of spam messages.  Perhaps a solution would be for an indicator to appear for a brief time over the person\'s head (by their name?) when they speak.  That way you know when someone you are looking at has said something, but it doesn\'t add to the screen clutter.  Additionally, if you miss something, it may be good to be able to click on a specific person (or group) and get a history (either in the window or \"over their head\") of the recent things they have said and that you have heard (parsed from your chat record).  That way, if you miss something they said in your chat dialog, then you can quickly get that info without scrolling.  Conversly, it alows you to ignore the people that are spamming.

[Aruneko]

But what about if someone behind you says something?  Say that you are fighting monsters with a friend; he is a healer.  He suddenly yells \"Ambush!  Orcs behind us!\"  But can you see his text?  The chat box would be in the way, so it isn\'t displayed.  You can\'t see his head, so how can you see the text?

[Fanomatic2000]

It\'s easy. When he yells he type \"y\" for example, and then the text comes in the upper corner.
You should ALWAYS see the \"yelling text\".
You cannot block a guys line of sight if it stands in the left corner.

[Culsoron]

I dont like the idea of text above people\'s heads, it will be anoying, but the yelling idea is good, but it could easily be used for evil. Someone could yell all the time, and that way ruin the whole idea. What about, like in Counter-Strike (God I hate comparing the beautiful planeshift with the ugly CS) , some pre-set messages like \"go go go\" are spoken aloud and the rest of the talking is text. This would be useful in combat and not as big a potential problem outside battle.

[Voldengrath]

Above head text is bad
I dont like having everyone talking in my lower screen either
but I dont think that only hearing certain players at atime would be bad as well. I just think the lower screen seeing everyones message will be the best way to go.

Pick your poison right?

[Fanomatic2000]

Still, it\'s easier if you can see what person is typing what.
I have played Dransik, and I think that the message-system there sucks pretty bad.
Spamming will be forbidden, and I\'m sure the developers can do something about it. In TIBIA for example you cannot spam, because you cannot type the same thing more than ONCE. It won\'t help if you change the message, cause if it\'s almost the same you cannot send it for like 1 min.