Chat placement and movies make for unsocial play.

Let me try a different tact:

How is it that moving my chat window will solve this problem? See, when I'm trying to talk to someone else, it's where they have THEIR chat window that's important. Having the DEFAULT chat window in the upper-left makes is harder to notice because you're focused on the action.

I'm all for folks moving the chat window. Move it wherever you want! I'm just saying that the DEFAULT placement is poor.

No, that's the reason why it should be movable, which it is. Bottom left would still make no odds on a resolution that crazy. Defaults are irrelevant if you go off onto non-standard resolutions.

As this thread goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious why no one groups with the OP, and it has nothing to do with the default placement of the chat window.

Which is a non-issue. Because people see it just fine. Because anecdotal evidence isn't enough to support this ridiculous thread. Because 1 person whose eyes don't automatically notice movement doesn't mean that the rest of us have gimpy eyes.

It actually would make a difference, as already stated.

When the screen resolution increases, the UI should scale to fit. That way it looks the same regardless of resolution. SWTOR does this nicely in many cases.

The problem for the screenshot provider is that his resolution is overly wide. The game doesn't enforce aspect ratios. So you can choose a really wide and squished resolution. Another game (that will remain nameless) limits aspect ratio choices so that the UI scales to a similar size relative to the resolution chosen. Thus allowing the UI to look good at most resolutions.

Just a thought.

Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation.

Is it just that you can't tolerate opinions that you don't understand that you feel you should post negatively here? Or is it because you don't like contrary opinions? Or is it because you're a jerk and are projecting that character flaw onto me?

UI design makes a difference here. But, I'll bite:

Why is it that no one groups with me? Is it because I'm a jerk?

If so, take a look at the context, I only respond rudely to those folks (like yourself) that decide to butt into a perfectly valid thread and dump on it. When someone takes the time to post a response that adds exactly ZERO to the conversation; indeed a response that only exists to evoke a negative response or insult me. That person deserves rude treatment.

If you have evidence of my chat in-game that you'd like to point out to the rest of us, please do. Otherwise be quiet.

the thing is that as an Eyefinity user, I'm using 3 screens. This displays fine when set up properly, but all the other UI elements that I use, cant be moved. Raid frames are on the far left, companion controls on the bottom left, etc. opening a bag and the bank at the same time, I have them on opposite screens and dragging them from one side to the other is a pain. the bottom line is that the few of us that have this type of set up have been asking for a fix since closed beta, now were just waiting on the Devs to send us some love.

Ok, I think perhaps this is where we diverge. I don't care if the default UI looks like space-bunnies on acid (although if it does I would want to know why), as long as I can make it work for me. It remains the responsibility of players to put the chat somewhere they can pay attention to it. To say 'I can't pay attention to that' and then be too lazy to move it is rather inappropriate. Me, I haven't needed to, because I've played games with it up top and games with it bottom left, and I can work with either and don't miss chat, but that's just me.

Scaling would be nice, for more than just chat, but by your argument it still wouldn't change the problem, which is not really one I find myself agreeing with. It still sounds like you're finding a way to complain about cutscenes, and a fairly tenuous one at that.

Overall, I would have preferred it if Bioware had implemented a customisable UI, but since they haven't, and the chat box is the one bit that you can customise, I feel it's up to the player to invest a few milliseconds of their time to actually make things fit for them. Just my opinion.

These posts annoy the crap out of me. Blame the UI, and movies all you want, but nothing is preventing any of you from "being social".

If your guildies aren't talking to each other, guess what? Your guild isn't very sociable. The movies take up a small fraction of your time online, so yeah people aren't talking for the minute or two they're running. Deal with it.

Most people don't speak socially during raids, or while fighting so blaming the aforementioned game features are a double standard.

My guild chat usually has people talking and our TS3 server always has conversations.

Bottom line, if you need game mechanics to be social, you aren't a very social person.

Good points!

Customization would be nice, we all agree.

I think there's an extreme example that would illustrate the point (and you touched on it with the space-bunnies on acid comment).

Imagine that the designers decided to put the action icons around the perimeter of the screen. I know, it's absurd, but imagine that they did it. And also imagine that they allowed you to move them wherever you want.

The ability to move them wherever you want is a saving grace, no doubt. But, the fact that they were placed in rather unusable positions by default is a poor choice.

Customization is great! But the default ought to be as usable as possible.

It's a matter of opinion, of course. But I think it is a factual statement that many games tend to congregate their core UI elements around the bottom of the screen. Chat near the action icons. Action icons in the bottom middle. Etc. The current design overemphasizes the health of your current target (which is replicated on the HUD) and the minimap.

It's my opinion that the minimap and current target are less important than chat. But, again that's just my opinion.

There is a reason that so many people are feeling lonesome in this MMO. Some folks say it's the instancing, others say that we're not trying hard enough. I think it's the subtle interactions of default UI design and engrossing movies. And it makes me sad.

I wish the background would stay up or change the font size or colors

I agree with OP

ive had 3 people trying to get my attention and I didn't see them, 1 actually mailed me so I got the BLOOP sound which got my attention I was too focused on the cutscenes, and fighting to even notice the transparent text.

I can't half read that font they use anyhow so Its useless trying to read it, it does help to mouse over it so it's not 100% transparent, I wish I could change the color or font

cause there's a lot of us that just can't read it and don't even pay attention to it,

and dont try using Say, I was trying to use Say and there were 5 people around and noone ever saw what I typed, later in a group and in voice chat they scrolled waaaaay up to see if I was "telling the truth" and saw I had typed something.


Chat SUCKS in this game hardcore