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Chat Bubbles: We need an option to enable them for say, yell and emote chat!


Glzmo

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Chat Bubbles: Please add speech bubbles and a toggle option to enable them for /say, /yell and /emote chat!

Originally posted December 17, 2011.

Last Updated December 17, 2023. <- Over 144 months - that's right, over 12 years - with hundreds of pages and thousands of posts/views in support and still going strong and mostly floating on top or near the top of the Suggestion Box forum with more and more players supporting the cause every day make this the longest running active thread on the forums - Thank you!

 

 

Introduction

Dear developers and other employees of Bioware, Lucas Arts, Disney and Electronic Arts!

 

A large part of the player base can't 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 shortly after chat bubbles were removed from the game for "optimization", reposted after the forum wipe and has now run an incredibly long amount of time while still remaining constructive and has garnered a lot of support ever since.

 

Fact is, chat bubbles make a big difference in the perception of human (and alien :rak_01: ) presence around the player in the game. With chat bubbles the chat text is strongly associated with the likeness of the player's character that you're talking to, leading to a much richer (and more natural) form of social environment. The game world simply feels too sterile and lonely without them.

One could say that chat bubbles are for the roleplaying and social aspects of the game what the group finder is for the PVE aspect and the warzone queing and the galactic starfigther hangar interfaces are for the PVP aspect. These three have been implemented a long time ago, yet players of the social and roleplaying aspects have never received their equivalent - speech/chat bubbles.

 

A large part of the player base, and an even larger part of the potential player base (and the player base that left the game because the feature has been missing so long and wish to return once it's implemented) needs an option to toggle on chat bubbles. Indeed, chat bubbles are a "must-have" feature to be able to enjoy the game and their playstyle for many of the socializers, roleplayers, casual players as well as players suffering from certain medical conditions out there. People are leaving the game every day due to this feature missing. On the bright side, many have voiced interest to return once the feature is implemented...but the longer it takes, the easier it will be to loose them permanently.

 

 

Background Information

The actual reasons why chat bubbles have been removed and what is required to implement them properly

 

So why were chat bubbles removed from beta, you may ask. Many newer players and developers/community managers that have joined the game/team late may not be privy to the facts.

There are also many myths that are owed in large part to the misinformation spread by certain former community managers (that joined the team post-launch) without a clue what the original situation was. To make it worse, that information was taken by their successors as fact which spiraled us to where we are now.

I've been following this issue since closed beta and have archived information on it for posterity, thus I'll share it with you.

 

The Facts

1. There were performance problems during beta, due to chat bubbles alone occupying roughly 400MBs of video memory (just like Nameplates in beta did before they fixed them just in time for the launch of SWTOR).

During beta and the launch of the game, 256-768MB of VRAM on a video card were common (1.5-3GB were high-end with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580), so you can see that 400MBs of video memory being taken up was a big deal back then. Jump ahead to today where the lowest-end video cards even have 2GB of Video RAM, this really isn't a big issue with today's video cards anymore.

For exampkle, I myself was lucky enough to have a Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 with 3GB of video RAM during beta and didn't experience any performance issues with chat bubbles enabled whatsoever, just like others that already had 1.5-3GB video cards back in the day.

 

2. The Developers knew how to fix the performance issues as they have done so for Nameplates as well (nameplates were fixed just in time for the launch of SWTOR). They simply ran out of time to finish it in time for the launch of the game which EA didn't want to push back. Even though the performance fix may no longer be needed with modern video cards, Bioware developers should knows how to fix it and should be able to do so rather easily when looking at the code for fixing nameplates.

 

3. Chat Bubbles have been optional in beta and developers always said they would be. This means you could easily turn them off in your client options in case they happen to have a negative effect on performance on your system or you simply don't like them, just like you can do with other options like nameplates, shadows, anti-aliasing, and much more.

 

4.While I've posted all kinds of Bioware responses (and there have been alot of uninformed ones over the years) on the topic in the timeline further down in this post, the only developer post that is truly relevant when it comes to facts so far is by the person that worked on the GUI back in Beta and in the early days after release then GUI developer Cory Kolek, and explained the problems with chat bubbles and why they haven't been implemented yet in detail.

Here is the quote of that very post from January 18th, 2013 here so you don't have to search for it (click on the little arrows in the quoted posts to get to the original posts):

 

CoryKolek said:
Glzmo said:
Since you're a GUI guy, would you be the person to work on chat bubbles as well?

 

I don't have much else to say on the topic than what was already said in that thread.

 

I can get a bit more technical on the topic though. As it was said before chat bubbles were a huge performance hit on the game when we had initially implemented them in beta. We're talking upwards of 400Mbs of video memory used on chat bubbles alone. Nameplates had the same issue. We fixed nameplates but have not had time to do the same with chat bubbles. If you played in beta and saw our initial implementation of them they weren't very pretty or as fully featured as we'd like them to be. So, yes, we would like to implement them again, but when we do we want to do it right.

 

To summarize, the performance issues aren't very relevant with current hardware, yet they are fixed rather easily. All we need is for the developers to add them back, add the checkbox to the option and possibly apply the performance fix. If they add some bells and whistles, fine, but perhaps save that for a future patch instead of stringing us along even longer.

Well over five years after launch, there really isn't any valid reason or excuse on why competent developers at Bioware wouldn't be able to finally implement optional chat bubbles in the game anymore.

 

Even simple chat bubbles or overhead text for /say, /yell and /emote chat that we had during beta would go a long way.

 

With that out of the way, on to the actual request. We're hereby requesting to implement at least the bare minimum implementation listed below (although it would be nice (but not necessary) to implement some or all of the additional community suggestions further below as well):

 

Bare Minimum Implementation

The following is the Bare Minimum Implementation that a large part of the player base feels to be a must-have and most would feel comfortable with:

 

 

 

  •  
    Add chat bubbles
    (or, at the very, very least overhead chat text) with all the typed text in
    /say, /yell and /emote chat channels
    to appear above the head of the player characters that are saying it (above the head of other player characters as well as your own), in addition to the same text being displayed in the chat window. The implementation we had during closed beta would suffice as a bare minimum requirement, so feel free to reuse those assets.
  •  
    Add a client-side option to toggle chat bubbles on/off
    on each computer individually so people can choose whether they wish to see chat bubbles above player characters' heads or not.

 

 

 

Additional Community Suggestions

 

 

The following are
additional suggestions by players in this thread
which would improve the experience even more and could be added after the bare minimum implementation detailed above has made it into the game. They are some of the ideas the community has come up with on how to design and implement chat bubbles really well (click on the button labeled
SHOW
below to view).

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
  • 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).
  • Have chat bubbles preferably 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 your companions when you click on them and they start talking and moving their lips.
  • 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 amount of chat bubbles that can be on the screen at any given time
    from 0 to a maximum number of whatever the maximum for the engine/datatype may be.
     
    This will allow players to adjust the amount of chat bubbles, clutter and performance for their individual taste and computer.
  • 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 on the screen, 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 should remain visible while the chat window is toggled off in order to allow people to choose to rely solely on chat bubbles and not on the chat window if they decide to do so.
  • Chat bubbles for each chat channel/type should have a
    different appearance style
     
    (SWG still has one of the best implementations of chat bubbles in MMORPGs to date). Note how different chat bubbles styles 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 in the chat window of 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.
  • Add a separate option to show/hide chat bubbles
    (or just chat in general)
    from opposing faction players
    (be it in warzones only or globally).

 

Reasons: Why Chat bubbles?

The following is a short summary of the reasons why chat bubbles should be implemented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  • Chat Bubbles strongly associate the chat text with the likeness of the player character
    that you're talking to,
    leading to a much richer, more natural and more immersive form of social environment
    .
  • Chat Bubbles
    make a big (positive) difference in the perception of human presence
    in the game.
  • Chat Bubbles are for Roleplayers and Socializers what the group finder is for PVEers and the warzone queueing interface is for PVPers
    . They allow people to find roleplay and social play around them and more easily focus on it.
  • 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
    into the game world (
    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 or at least overhead chat text 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). If such a basic feature is missing, many players won't even consider playing a new MMOG.
  • 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

The following are hyperlinks related to the topic of chat bubbles (click on the button labeled SHOW below to view).

 

 

 

 

  •  
    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.
     
     
     
     
  •  
    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 hashtags
    and
    in 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!

 

 

 

 

 

 
Media Articles about the lack of Chat bubbles

 

The following are articles from various media on the topic of missing chat bubbles in Star Wars: The Old Republic (click on the button labeled
SHOW
below to view).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Timeline of Official statements by Bioware on the topic of Chat Bubbles

Would you like to know what exactly the developers and other Bioware representatives said about chat bubbles? This is the place (click on the button labeled SHOW below to view)!

The following is a timeline with quotes from various official non-beta statements of TOR developers and other Bioware representatives on the topic of chat bubbles including links to the statements where available (click on the button labeled SHOW below to view).

 

 

 

  • November 2011:
     
    ,
     
    Articles about the Fansite Summits from November 2011, where Bioware's Studio creative director
    James Ohlen
    promised chat bubbles to be a
    "high priority in BioWare's list of things to do"
    . On a side note, Principal Lead Combat Designer
    confirmed 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 Manager
    wrote 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's
    Cory Butler
    from January 2012 which has the first official mention of chat bubbles since
    James Ohlen
    talking about them at the Fansite Summit and
    Georg Zöller
    confirming it on the beta forums in November 2011.
     
    When asked about chat bubbles in the interview,
    Butler
    awkwardly 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's
    Damion Schubert
    confirmed 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 Designer
    Daniel Erickson
    confirmed 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 think
    we'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 Designer
    Daniel Erickson
    acknowledged 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 Designer
    Daniel Erickson
    mentioned 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."
     
     
     
     
  • November 28th, 2012:
     
     
    TOR Lead Designer
    Damion Schubert
    and Executive Producer
    Jeff Hickman
    mentioned chat bubbles in the
    approximately 20 Minutes and 54 seconds into the video:
    "
    Earlier this year we had the guild summit. Guild capital ships, Guild calenders, Guild progression, chat bubbles, ability to sit in chairs, ready chat, and chat channel customizations were mentioned. When is this coming?"
     
     
    Jeff:
    "From my standpoint, these are all great things. I want to be frank with everybody as I can. The studio has undergone a lot of change since those conversations. You can see, we are busy working on a lot of things. We havn’t stepped back on what we are working on but we changed some of the things that we are working on. While some of these things and some of these things are still on the list to happen in the future. Some of them are backburner list. I just don’t want anybody to think we have forgotten about them but I also don’t want people to think they are coming next week. Those are things that have being pushed out quite abit due to the studio changes. I love the idea of Capital ships and that is a big pet project of yours (Damion). I just want to make sure that everybody knows that these things a bit further out.
     
     
    Damion:
    At the guild summit I introduced everybody to the wall of crazy, which is a big list of features that we have on the wall that we want to do. All the features are on the list but it is a prioritized list that is competing with the things the game needs, things we had to do to get the F2P stuff happen, things that the content guys need in order to make content more reliable. The smaller things on that list have a much greater chance to happen sooner – every now and then programmers have a bit free time and you can hand them stuff like that. As an example there, inventory sorting that is coming soon. I had a programmer that had a day and that was the thing at the top of the list that fit in the bucket of time we had."
     
     
     
     
  • December 5th, 2012:
     
     
    TOR's Senior Community Coordinator
    Allison Berryman
    talked to lead Designer
    Damion Schubert
    and posted the following feedback from him:
    "Hey everyone - I asked Lead Designer Damion Schubert if there are any new updates on this topic. We still do not have an ETA for the implementation of this feature, but we're definitely aware it's something players want. We did attempt a version of chat bubbles once, but they introduced some severe performance issues, and we'll need to address that before they can be implemented. Thanks for your patience!"
     
     
     
     
  • January 18th, 2013:
     
    TOR UI programmer
    was kind enough to post an update on why chat bubbles haven't been implemented so far and told us that they would still like to implement them:
    "I don't have much else to say on the topic than what was already said in that thread. I can get a bit more technical on the topic though. As it was said before chat bubbles were a huge performance hit on the game when we had initially implemented them in beta. We're talking upwards of 400Mbs of video memory used on chat bubbles alone. Nameplates had the same issue. We fixed nameplates but have not had time to do the same with chat bubbles. If you played in beta and saw our initial implementation of them they weren't very pretty or as fully featured as we'd like them to be. So, yes, we would like to implement them again, but when we do we want to do it right."
     
     
     
     
  • March 25th, 2013:
     
    In a Developer Q&A with DarthHater.com, the Lead Designer for Rise of the Hutt Cartel
    Bruce Maclean
    was asked about chat bubbles and other things roleplayers want, but dodged the topic of the former once more:
    DarthHater:
     
    "Many players that are interested in Role Playing are curious about the following features: Chat Bubbles, the ability to sit on all forms of furniture, being able to enter their own backstory prior to the start of their class story (in the form of a paragraph that could be read upon inspection), or just updates in general that will support the ability to Role Play."
     
     
    Bruce Maclean:
     
    "We’re always looking to add things that enhance and support roleplaying, but we have to weigh the impact some of these new features might have on performance or other quality-of-life improvements. There may be room for us to create specific social spaces with sittable furniture, for example, but converting all furniture in the game would be a monumental task."
     
     
     
     
  • October 13th, 2013:
    New York City Community Cantina Tour 2013 Q&A
     
     
    At the NYC Cantina Tour Q&A, the developers were asked about chat bubbles by fellow community member
    and replied that
    "Chat Bubbles are indeed being worked on"
    , and they
    "Want to offer them even better than before"
    . In addition, they stated
    "We have a prioritized list of features we want to add in the game. Chat Bubbles are relatively high up on that list."
    .
     
     
     
     
  • October 19th, 2013:
     
     
    Damion Schubert
    had the following to say when asked about chat bubbles:
    "They are on the list."
    Schubert continued to say that they are not soon, but they are on there somewhere.
    "We have some nice big juicy things that are better that are on the list after space. I wish I could say more, but I can't."
     
     
     
     
  • August 6th, 2015:
     
     
    Michael Backus (Lead Designer):
    "I'm gonna be honest about this question right now. I...before I came to Germany sat down with the engineers to talk about chat bubbles. Uhm...there is...I'm not gonna get too technical but there is (CL Form?) in engineering and there is a performance issue with chat bubbles and I'm investigating a way to solve that because I really, really would like to give you guys chat bubbles!" *pauses for huge applause from the crowd and the other devs on the panel*
     
     
    Eric Musco (Community Manager):
    "We know it's been requested, so we're just always trying to find a way to get to get it in."
     
     
    Michael Backus (Lead Designer):
    "I promise you we're investigating it and I promise as soon as you...as soon as we know it's a thing you guys will hear a big announcement about it."
     
     
    Eric Musco (Community Manager):
    "I would bet that'll be the perfect kind of thing we would announce potentially on you and how a cantina as part of the questioning of our point answers, right, because it has been asked for in every cantina since we've been doing them over the years.(...)I'm saving it for the cantina, yes - I've claimed it! I've stated the claim."
     
     
    Audience shout in:
    "If you make chat bubbles make them an on and off preference!"
     
     
    Eric Musco (Community Manager):
    "Oh we will, oh we will."
    [/color]
 

 

 

 

Original Post from the Beta Forums

A quote of the old, prose version of the original post that started it all and was first posted in the TOR Beta Forums back in Summer 2011 for those that like to read it (click on the button labeled SHOW below to view).

 

 

\ said:
Greetings, Bioware developers working on Star Wars: The Old Republic!
 
We really, really need a client-side option to enable chat bubbles for /say and possibly /yell and /emote chat to appear above character's heads and display the text that they type into those chat channels.
 
Socializing, roleplaying and even multiplayer combat, both PVE and PVP with other players is incredibly tedious without them.
Many people prefer to have their eyes on the action, which means they miss the chat around them when they focus on the action. Some choose to focus on the chat and miss the action entirely - forget to heal their mates, etc..
 
Also, it ruins
to not see which character on the screen says what at any given time.
 
That's why we need an option to turn on chat bubbles (speech bubbles). Make it an optional toggle on/off option so every user can decide for themselves if they want chat bubbles to show on their client or not.
 
There are some visually impaired people that would thank you for chat bubbles as well.
 
Also, if there are indeed performance issues with the speech bubbles still (reportedly, that's why Bioware removed them during beta), a toggle option will give the users a chance to either sacrifice performance for playability and turn the chat bubbles on or turn them off and gain some performance.
 
Everybody wins! So please, developers, I beg you dearly to add chat bubbles already, they are an essential part of MMOs for many players. Thank you very much!
 
 
PS.: It may be wise to limit the range of /say chat to 25 meters and keep /yell at 50 meters while at it to minimize clutter.
 
PPS.: While at it, please add some speaking animations when saying something in chat to complement chat bubbles as well (there is a nice animation bount to the /talk emote already, perhaps you wish to use that one).

 

PS.: The development team will receive cupcakes once chat bubbles are in the game. The longer they wait, the older the cupcakes get. So hurry up, it's for your own good! ;)

Edited by Glzmo
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The developers said during beta that adding chat bubbles for spatial chat was a high priority feature for launch. I am baffled as to why they haven't delivered.

 

All I know is that without chat bubbles, it's incredibly hard to talk to other players near you and not fun at all. I can't socialize and roleplay with other players (I tried hard, but it didn't work).

 

For me, chat bubbles are an important feature. I want to keep track of the action in the game and see which character talks right away. I am a roleplayer and roleplaying with others while questing and doing other game things is almost impossible because there are no chat bubbles (I tried very hard, but it just doesn't work).

I always miss most of the things people type in /say, /yell and /emote chat, the chat window moves too fast at times, too and it's hard to see which character on the screen is speaking or to link the chat to the characters on the screen. I want to focus on the game, not on the chat window.

 

I have pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, but if there won't be any chat bubbles at least announced in the next couple of days, I will cancel the pre-order and not play the game until chat bubbles are added. They are just that important for my enjoyment of the game to me. And I really, really want to have fun when playing SWTOR.

Edited by Meluna
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This is pretty much a standard feature of ANY modern MMORPG. I probably won't continue playing past my free month if chat bubbles or at least overhead text has been implemented. It is a crucial feature for my style of play and pretty much necessary for any kind of social interaction between players. I can't understand how an MMORPG that is supposed to be the most modern doesn't have anything like that in the game at launch already. Edited by Stubacca
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This is pretty much a standard feature of ANY modern MMORPG. I probably won't continue playing past my free month if chat bubbles or at least overhead text has been implemented. It is a crucial feature for my style of play and pretty much necessary for any kind of social interaction between players. I can't understand how an MMORPG that is supposed to be the most modern doesn't have anything like that in the game at launch already.

 

its not a standard feature, in fact not many mmo's have this feature and thats a relief, bloody hate chat bubbles appearing everywhere. totaly no need for them.

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its not a standard feature, in fact not many mmo's have this feature and thats a relief, bloody hate chat bubbles appearing everywhere. totaly no need for them.

 

I hate chat bubbles too. It's just another form of spam.

 

So as long as they introduce it with an option to disable. I'll be happy :)

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I personally do not care for chat bubbles as I do not like the spam from them in the middle of my screen. I realize that it may be a feature for RP but honestly if you have more than 1 or 2 people chatting at the same time, THAT becomes tedious too.

 

I would say that with all the other more serious issues with the game in regards to stability, performance, scalability, ect. that this is a feature that can easily wait until the next major patch.

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The developers said during beta that adding chat bubbles for spatial chat was a high priority feature for launch. I am baffled as to why they haven't delivered.

 

Perhaps because most people didn't want chat bubbles?? As part of the beta, I am sure you saw a number of the countless polls that all showed the majority of the people didn't want them.. I know I did and I was in the beta.. Oh.. No the developers did not say that..

 

For the most part the RP crowd and or the SWG crowd want them.. Other than that they are deemed as a being an annoyance and harmful to emmersion..

 

 

I personally don't care.. As long as their is an option to completely turn them off.. But then the ability to turn them off kinda defeats the purpose of having them.. I have no issue if they are added for the RP crowd.. Again, we need a means to turn them off completely for everyone else.. I don't want to walk through my capital planet or my fleet station and see a comic strip of people talking.. In either case.. I don't see them as a priority..

 

You all should learn to use regular chat.. It is a wonderfull thing.. :cool:

Edited by MajikMyst
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I have to agree, that chat bubbles are needed.

 

I only purchased this game to play with old friends from SWG. My friends are playing on a RP server. I do enjoy a bit of RP, but having to watch a ridiculous chat window and try to figure out who is talking kills the immersion of the mmoRPG.

 

I thought I was going to be playing a "new" game. Chat windows/tabs are as old as the original text based adventure games.

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Perhaps because most people didn't want chat bubbles?? As part of the beta, I am sure you saw a number of the countless polls that all showed the majority of the people didn't want them..I know I did and I was in the beta..
Haha. I like your sarcasm. But it could confuse people who don't undestand that.

 

To clarify for those that weren't in the beta, pretty much all the polls and threads about chat bubbles (and there were many as there was a very large amount of people that wasn't happy that they weren't in) I saw during my months in general beta were clearly supporting an option to enable chat bubbles.

 

Of course, there were some inconsiderate people who thought "I hate/don't care about chat bubbles, so nobody else shouldn't even get an option to enable them", but luckily, they were in the minority. Most people were considerate enough to understand that some players can't enjoy the game without chat bubbles for spatial chat and supported adding the option, even if they themselves don't wish to use it.

 

Oh.. No the developers did not say that..
There was a thread (which I shamelessly stole most of the top post from) that Mr. Zoeller himself responded to in which he said chat bubbles were a high priority for launch. Everyone that paid attention to the topic in the general beta forums during the last couple of weeks of beta knows it.

 

James Ohlen said the same during the fansite summit not so long ago, too.

 

I really hope chat bubbles will be implemented soon, as without them, socializing, roleplay, PVE questing, finding people in around you to group up to finish a common quest instead of trying to steal the kill/klick and even PVP is completely tedious, annoying and not fun at all.

Edited by Glzmo
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its not a standard feature, in fact not many mmo's have this feature and thats a relief, bloody hate chat bubbles appearing everywhere. totaly no need for them.

 

It is, if you look at most of the modern MMORPGs that had some kind of success (WoW, LOTRO, Age of Conan, Everquest 2, Guildwars, Star Wars: Galaxies) you will realize that most of them have chat bubbles or at least overhead text.

 

If you hate them most of these games have the option to turn them off. Would it hurt you guys if you could just switch them off and people who really want them or can not play without them can use them? I don't know how anyone can be annoyed if they implement it like that.

Edited by Stubacca
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I agree we need chat bubbles.... just today I was standing outside of a phase entrance and needed help completing the next part and people were running in and out of groups and I asked about 7 or 8 people in spatial /say with no responses... it took spamming general chat to find a person to group with even with the abundance of players around me. Chat bubbles would have alleviated this problem I think.
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Bubbles are very much needed. Especially for the RP servers, which are 99% free of RP due to the lack of chat bubbles at the moment.

 

This is what I'm noticing all of the time as well. Even though I pretty much do RP 24/7 in any other MMORPG, I didn't have any RP experience yet even though I play on an RP Server. I tried to with my Guildies but we pretty much gave up on it, because so much was going on in the chat window that you just oversaw most of the conversations.

 

Since RP and social interaction is pretty much the main reason why I play MMORPGs, I just can't imagine to play the game in the long run. I rather return to LOTRO in which the quest might not be that engaging as in TOR, but I can play without paying a monthly fee because of my lifetime VIP membership there and I have all the RP features that I need (overhead text, a bunch of emotes which are pretty much all animated, a world that I like equally to Star Wars world).

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I'd like to see chat bubbles (with a globab toggle) but with an added option to highlight a player and block their chat bubble from appearing. That way I don't have to have my screen fill up in social areas with guild/market spam etc.
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YES PLEASE.

 

Bioware a chatbubble is a STANDARD mmo interface come on...

I hate it that when i say something in spatial chat now its gone because of other spam before the player its aimed at even knew it was there.

 

And even without chat spam its hard to see.

 

Make it optional or not i dont care, just implement a basic thing like that already in an mmo...

 

And an UI that is moveable and resizeable.. but this might be in in the future already.

 

All this would make SWTOR even better.

Edited by chainless
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I would personally love the option of chat bubbles.

 

I like to observe other people RP, I am too shy to jump in straight away, so I like to show interest until someone notices me :)

 

But I find, just like other people have said here, too hard to follow an RP conversation at the moment, especially in busy areas, I loose too much time trying to figure out who among the crowd is speaking, before I can read the reply which has already been buried by another hundred messages.

 

To this purpose, I created a "RP" tab, that only filters /s /y /w and emotes, it helps a little.

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