MetalMaiden |
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Is there currently, or are there plans for, a way to see which characters are logged into the game? Right now I can hope to see the person in general chat or send him/her a whisper. I'd like to see a way to search for a character to determine if he/she is logged in. It would also be helpful to filter this list by settlement, company, etc.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
Is there currently, or are there plans for, a way to see which characters are logged into the game? Right now I can hope to see the person in general chat or send him/her a whisper. I'd like to see a way to search for a character to determine if he/she is logged in. It would also be helpful to filter this list by settlement, company, etc.
That ability has some significant PvP consequences.
Just saying.
Kadere Goblin Squad Member |
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Consequences that more or less need to be taken on board, though. I think that the negatives are fairly minor. The ability to see if a particular player is online and interact with them remotely (for whispers, party and company invites, etc) is crucial to usability in an MMO, in my opinion. Maybe not MVP, but close.
EVE manages well enough - it just about only used for telling if a supercaptial fleet is logging in, and there is no analogue for that in PFO. That only works because those characters only login when they will see use - in the PFO context, even watchlisting an entire enemy settlement will leave you with far more noise than meaningful information.
However, in an open world PvP game that information should not include WHERE the player is. That information would be a much greater concern.
MetalMaiden |
I came from a game that had very limited PvP, so it's not something I considered. But how else can you communicate with your friends or other company members? Send everyone a whisper and hope they respond? Or send messages in general chat to see if they respond?
I agree with Kadere
The ability to see if a particular player is online and interact with them remotely (for whispers, party and company invites, etc) is crucial to usability in an MMO, in my opinion. Maybe not MVP, but close.
My MMO experience is pretty limited, so I'm open to other suggestions.
Takasi Goblin Squad Member |
Deianira Goblin Squad Member |
As this is intended to be a heavily group-focused game (and very large groups - settlements, nations, alliances - at that), we absolutely need a way to see who's online. The world will feel very lonely without it.
I agree with Kadere's recommendation not to include location. Individuals can give out that information via whisper.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
I suppose the PvP main consequence is if you get known as "that guy who sneaks into town and kills the crafters" as they will get early warning of you logging.
As far as location goes in EVE you pay agents for that info. Its an essential feature of bounty hunting.
In PFO the equivalent would be paying an NPC divining type to cast a location spell for you.
Kadere Goblin Squad Member |
KarlBob Goblin Squad Member |
I believe the whisper system tells you "X is not online" when you try to whisper to someone who's offline.
For communicating with people in your company or settlement, GW could create chat channels keyed to those groups, like the current Party channel. You might still be asking "X, are you online? Where are you?", but they would be alerting a much smaller (and hopefully safer) group of people of their presence if they replied in that channel.
Eventually, PFO could borrow a trick from EVE, and have a two-column display in at least some channels, with the chat itself in one column, and a participant list in the other column.
MetalMaiden |
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I wanted to clarify that I didn't intend for my original idea to include location. I agree that it should not include that info. I also support the list, however it's displayed, being limited in some way like your settlement or company. Or maybe limited to players who give you permission to see their online/offline status? Or a combination of both. In a game with so much encouragement and need to work with other players, I'm sure we'll find ourselves working with players outside our own settlements or companies. And thus find ourselves wanting to see if those players are online.
Mbando Goblin Squad Member |
Tyncale Goblin Squad Member |
It does seem puzzling to me that the standard logic of MMO chat commands--e.g. "/who" commands, second <enter> to retype text, etc.--isn't here. Why reinvent the wheel?
I think it is not a matter of that GW does not know about these tried and true features, but rather that implementing them costs more development time then we probably are thinking. As much as I wished Unity was a tool that had a bunch of boxes with chat options that you could simply check, it probably does not. (If it does, shame on GW!)
Mind you, Mbando, I am not trying to be facetious, I have had my own doubts about GW "reinventing the wheel" a few times, or even "rediscovering the wheel" which seems even more inefficient. :)
Especially when the whole "being able to do ranged attacks while moving is vastly superior to melee" went down, I figured GW should have known this would immediately become an issue, because MMO's have always been struggling with balancing this. However I realized that PFO is doing things a little differently, the most important thing being that they are not shooting for perfect balance between 2 roles (and off course the plan to implement Ammo), so I figured this is just one of those things that gets balanced along the way. Which they are doing with the temp Stationary measure.
But yes, some MMO features are such no brainers that you simply expect them to be there from day 1. Even so, PFO is different enough in scope, that some of those features may become less of a no-brainer. Like how much info a "/who all" should display in a PvP game with bountyhunting. Location? Level? Roles? Affiliation? This could be crowdforge stuf.
But yeah, /r for replying to your last whisper is still a no brainer. :D
Caldeathe Baequiannia Goblin Squad Member |
Remember that at the bottom of every decision (not just programming, but interface and lore) must lay the fact that this is not a world developed in a vacuum as so many MMORPGs are, or a world to which they have exclusive and immaculately clean rights. They must test agaisnt the Golarion pattern and anything that would put Goblinworks/Paizo into conflict with the SRD licence scheme on D20. Regardless of right, they can not afford to trigger a legal battle against Hasbro's deep pockets. That will, of necessity, add a layer of complexity to every single decision they make and action they take.
Rorin Doombringer |
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One thing to consider in the "/who" is who doesn't want to be seen online. They should and will most likely code in the need to be able to not display your online status publicly and that is do to STALKERS.
Some may jest, but I was in a game where this became a problem with one of our guild members and she basically quit the game due to it. With this person stalking her and literally pm'g her and whispering her to death until after many many reports and in action by SOE's support team, she just quit the game altogether.
The ability to turn the show status function off, should be available, in the case of these situations where you do not want to be stalked.
Otherwise, I'm all for the /who, i used to use it constantly on my Jawa bounty hunter in SWG and loved it.