Social Tools

[Vloshko]

An anonymous source has told me that guild/alliance/crew (I'm gonna use "guild") systems may not have been designed yet. Guilds (or whatever you choose to call them) need to exist. At the very least: guild chat, guild name below player name, and a color that designates friendly guildie vs everyone else [blue or green are great(green is easier to see)]. Stretch goal: permissions.

From several videos, it looks as though there will be some parts of stations that have semblance to social hubs. Will there exist any that are not player controlled?

It's important to have a wide scale in-game support of social channels. For instance in WoW, here are a few chat channels that exist LFG (Looking for Group), General (connecting faction cities), Local (zone specific), Guild, Party, Raid, and Trade. Note that you will only receive messages in these channels from players in the same faction as you (in case anyone isn't familiar with WoW); all players can see /say, though some rules apply, but I'll keep this simple.

If there is a Dev checking this, many others and I would love to hear about social tools that will exist.

What chat options will be available? Different text channels? Voice, if so what proximity can we expect?

Even if you're not a Dev, I'd love to hear what some of you are expecting or wish to see social tool wise.

 

[Mito]

I think most of us also want VOIP as it would be really useful in trade and pirate enounters

 

[Kmank]

I really hope they give a lot of support for groups and factions. LFG hubs, in game job boards, all of it.

 

[YakkoForever]

When EA comes out there should a way of inviting people to your guild, players excepting or refusing invites, and a guild members list.

Multilevel structures and permissions are important to guilds long term.
being able to have your trusted members act as administrators is useful. also having station controls or ship controls locked to high ranking members is really important. if any member can change station settings then none of the guild who own a station can add new members for risk of them turning traitor and destorying the station.

 

[Kane Hart]

If anyone played Age of Conan or Anarchy Online then you know what I want. API to the chat system for Factions. With some sort of Basic HTML support on the backend.

We made these chat bots in game that would let us display anything and everything we wanted. They were quite complex from events, to item database look up, to finding groups to even requesting song requests to Grid Stream Radio.

I doubt will see this but it was one my favorite features from AO.

 

[Vexus]

I think there will be guild-like systems so I won't get into that except to point out it doesn't have to be too complex as players organize externally to games much better.

Baseline channels for General, Guild, LFG, Trade and so on are probably a good idea. Trade channel for example would be quite useful in separating out that kind of traffic from the main text channel. Beyond that, if players can create their own channels, we get some PoE style private chat channels that are used for specific purposes.

My initial thought was just let players design these channels, nothing pre-defined. Maybe they can be undefined until players define them and then the devs enforce them. Then you get the best of both; an early, unregulated environment where players find the best solution, quickly solidified as "take your trade chat to freq 2" and people demand that rule be enforced. As such the presence of default channels is more a bypass for all the social interaction that would need to be managed until the playerbase set their own rules, and might just be easier to set those things in stone from the start.

It will be interesting to see how many players receive your message. Maybe there's 500 players around, and your message is heard by a lot more people than you thought (say you are selling something and you underprice it a lot, it will be interesting to see the flood of interest when you didn't think so many people were listening, and then hopefully grouping will allow them to become visible to you in the case of instancing).

 

[Recatek]

At the very least a tag would be useful, though we haven't even seen evidence that players will have nametags over their heads.

 

[Vloshko]

At the very least a tag would be useful, though we haven't even seen evidence that players will have nametags over their heads.

I'd be surprised and disappointed if there aren't player names overhead come EA.

 

[CalenLoki]

I'm all against persistent floating nametag over player characters.
1. It looks bad
2. It gives away position
3. It obscures vision
4. It reduces importance of character customisation (both if you want to show off and remain unnoticed)

Instead it should be only visible if you point crosshair at other player.
And it shouldn't be instant - the further you are, the more time it takes to show tag. Just so you can't find someone by accidentally swiping through him.
Except allies, which should be instant.

I agree with colours. That helps

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

I think it's important to note that faction stuff is going to be in the game, just potentially not at the EA launch. As for current communication options, there are, I believe, 2 text chats: one for close by and one for relatively long range.

VOIP has been suggested numerous times, and I believe the devs were surprised at the player demand for it, so I doubt it will be absent in the game, though maybe not at EA launch.

 

[DirtyBoyFrey]

I'm all against persistent floating nametag over player characters.
1. It looks bad
2. It gives away position
3. It obscures vision
4. It reduces importance of character customisation (both if you want to show off and remain unnoticed)

Instead it should be only visible if you point crosshair at other player.
And it shouldn't be instant - the further you are, the more time it takes to show tag. Just so you can't find someone by accidentally swiping through him.
Except allies, which should be instant.

I agree with colours. That helps

Personally, I'd rather you not be able to determine a player's name just from looking at them, unless they like show their credentials (ideally some sort of chip or card) or something. This would allow situations like we saw in the Boltcrackers video where you could pretend to be a member of a faction by just copying their customization and blending in. Plus, it would allow for stuff like stealing someone's credentials to go extra stealthy.

Most likely, though, you'll be able to determine identity much more easily, like with nametags mentioned before. I always find it more interesting when customization options actually end up being more 'meaningful' in that they could literally give you an identity.

 

[Erohiae]

Personally, I'd rather you not be able to determine a player's name just from looking at them, unless they like show their credentials (ideally some sort of chip or card) or something. This would allow situations like we saw in the Boltcrackers video where you could pretend to be a member of a faction by just copying their customization and blending in. Plus, it would allow for stuff like stealing someone's credentials to go extra stealthy.

Most likely, though, you'll be able to determine identity much more easily, like with nametags mentioned before. I always find it more interesting when customization options actually end up being more 'meaningful' in that they could literally give you an identity.

I agree

 

[CalenLoki]

Personally, I'd rather you not be able to determine a player's name just from looking at them, unless they like show their credentials (ideally some sort of chip or card) or something. This would allow situations like we saw in the Boltcrackers video where you could pretend to be a member of a faction by just copying their customization and blending in. Plus, it would allow for stuff like stealing someone's credentials to go extra stealthy.

Most likely, though, you'll be able to determine identity much more easily, like with nametags mentioned before. I always find it more interesting when customization options actually end up being more 'meaningful' in that they could literally give you an identity.

That's definitely interesting approach. And slightly hardcore.
So no identification at all, unless they decide to identify themselves?

I'd still go with "face recognition", as it more resembles real world human interaction (you can change clothes, but swapping face is slightly more complicated).
I know that we're robots, so your option is more realistic.

 

[Jetthetank]

Well, I think the confirmed ID is through every players CV, that has a "front page" if you will, for public ID whhich is customizable so you choose what it shows.
I like that idea, because Why in reality would you have a nametag over your head? and with a CV it seems like a cool realistic sort of immersiveness.

 

[CalenLoki]

How do you access that CV? By looking at someone or by browsing (if you know the name)? If the later, is there other way to tell enemy from ally in hectic gunfight?

In real life you'd recognize all 100 members of your company by face.

 

[Vloshko]

When EA comes out there should a way of inviting people to your guild, players excepting or refusing invites, and a guild members list.

Multilevel structures and permissions are important to guilds long term.
being able to have your trusted members act as administrators is useful. also having station controls or ship controls locked to high ranking members is really important. if any member can change station settings then none of the guild who own a station can add new members for risk of them turning traitor and destorying the station.

There has to be a way to invite of course, players accepting the invite can be shown as a message in guild chat. I don't think declining should appear anywhere. If they are kicked out, it should appear in guild chat as well.

Your second part is exactly what I was hinting at with the "stretch goal".

Instead it should be only visible if you point crosshair at other player.

I also agree with this and your reasons.

Personally, I'd rather you not be able to determine a player's name just from looking at them, unless they like show their credentials (ideally some sort of chip or card) or something. This would allow situations like we saw in the Boltcrackers video where you could pretend to be a member of a faction by just copying their customization and blending in. Plus, it would allow for stuff like stealing someone's credentials to go extra stealthy.

Most likely, though, you'll be able to determine identity much more easily, like with nametags mentioned before. I always find it more interesting when customization options actually end up being more 'meaningful' in that they could literally give you an identity.

I'm not sure if there are going to be specializations or not. If there are, you could spec into it, or as you said with stealing a card for future use; that'd be awesome. Normally, in games like this I go by unique identifiers that are member specific in regard to my guild. Except, we're normally all in voice together, so pretending to be one of us and pulling it off is quite unlikely. Which means that this would only hurt less educated and organized players. If that's a key factor in determining the loss of a ship in "extreme" cases, that would be poor game design.

 

[Vloshko]

2 text chats: one for close by and one for relatively long range.

Source?

 

[Vexus]

I like the idea of player-tags for people in your group, because usually you can identify friends by their appearance, so tags for people in your group are pretty important for gameplay. Outside of that, I know there's the "CV" system where you can check another player's credentials so to speak with your universal tool. I think keeping tags off enemy players, and enemy ships, is a good gameplay element, allowing for stowing away on some random ship for example. Potential middle of the road feature would be allowing players to scan the CV information from a slight distance using the universal tool, so you don't have to be in someone's face to check who they are. Tags for everyone, always on, is not a good feature, and it should take more than just aiming at someone to see 'who they are'. We need players to be able to convince someone, "We are not the robots you are looking for."

 

[YakkoForever]

Name tags vs no name tags no that is the question.

I can understand why people don't want name tags. some people think name tags look silly. Other people think they prevent stealthy and spy like gameplay. both of these arguments are somewhat valid. I personally give the latter argument more credit for being gameplay issue.

Personally I am a fan of the hover then name tag display. As a veteran of Worlds Adrift I know what it is like to get robbed by some untraceable scoundrel and that is why I like name tags.

without name tags there will never be a consiquence for doing bad things as nobody can ever trace you down. its impossible to tell who is who without nametags. this makes being a douche griefer super easy as nobody can track you down and enact vengeance on you.

I have an intresting solution for how to keep stealth gameplay alive while keeping name tags in game. the solution is predicated on the idea that you can break the head off an an enemy. What if the heads are what decides the name tag? so you can steal someones head and take their name tag.

Say I am trying to sneak into a ship of people. I could try and find one of them by themselves say that this one is named fred. I could kill fred steal his head and replace my own head with his. then everyone who looked at me would see fred as my name tag.
obviously, if you die and respawn you would respawn with your own head and not fred's.

 

[Vloshko]

I like the idea of player-tags for people in your group, because usually you can identify friends by their appearance, so tags for people in your group are pretty important for gameplay... I think keeping tags off enemy players, and enemy ships, is a good gameplay element, allowing for stowing away on some random ship for example. Potential middle of the road feature would be allowing players to scan the CV information from a slight distance using the universal tool, so you don't have to be in someone's face to check who they are. ... We need players to be able to convince someone, "We are not the robots you are looking for."

I think group tags are essential, especially if you can choose to disable/enable them. I agree with keeping tags off enemy players and enemy ships; the potential mechanic that you mention to scan from a slight distance is good too. I hope I didn't make it seem as though I was suggesting tags for everyone always on.

Name tags vs no name tags no that is the question.
without name tags there will never be a consiquence for doing bad things as nobody can ever trace you down. its impossible to tell who is who without nametags. this makes being a douche griefer super easy as nobody can track you down and enact vengeance on you.

...

Say I am trying to sneak into a ship of people. I could try and find one of them by themselves say that this one is named fred. I could kill fred steal his head and replace my own head with his. then everyone who looked at me would see fred as my name tag.
obviously, if you die and respawn you would respawn with your own head and not fred's.

For your first point in the quote above, I'd add that it also makes it difficult to effectively be a bounty hunter.
For the second part, I think it's a good idea and it's along the lines of what DirtyBoyFrey was talking about.

[unrelated note: where'd the like button go?(we don't need it to count towards anything, just to show "agree")]