Toggle speech bubbles - Why speech bubbles are amazing and needs to be implemented.

I tried to find out information on this subject and the only thing I could find was a transcript of the February stream Q&A.

Q: Are there any plans for speech bubbles or other instruments (best solution optional, because some love them as me, but also some doesn’t like it) to the the local (say channel) written text above (or near) the character.
A: Not right now. When there’s a lot of people in one area it gets really messy.

I believe the lack of speech bubbles is to the detriment of players engaging with each other in an immersive and personal way. A lot of modern MMO's relegate all communication to a box in the corner of the screen. A decision that I believe creates a disconnect between players and characters. At times it can be difficult to even realize that someone is talking to you or who is saying what or where player engagement is taking place. Communication no longer happens in the world, it happens in a cluttered, disconnected box in the corner. The world feels a lot more alive if you can actually see interactions in the world, real life communication isn't relegated to a box. It is a part of the world, it happens at certain places, at certain times, between certain people. It is pretty jarring, at least to me, that a lively conversation between random people in a town manifests it self as an awkward staring contest in the actual world.

Role-players especially tends to favor this, but you don't have to RP to appreciate a living, interactive world. I know some people don't like speech bubbles, so the best compromise would be to enable the possibility to toggle this on and off. So that people who don't like it or people who want to hide their UI for screenshots or other things don't have to see it. But for me personally, if there is a crazy man shouting in the town square then I want to be able to identify that there is a crazy man shouting in the town square.

Since the developers have been quite adamant about not allowing addons that would fix this, then asking here is really the only option. Please don't relegate all communication to a box in the corner. The world feels so much more alive when you can see the person who is typing and it all becomes a lot more personal.

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Comments

maouw

I appreciate speech bubbles too!
A chatbox only keeps a full log of conversations
but speech bubbles make it really intuitive to see where who's talking (especially when conversing with strangers), and give you a better feel for the pace of a conversation compared to a time-stamped chatbox.

Even if the speech bubble only shows the first 5 or 6 words that the person said, it communicates an extra dimension that you use in conjunction with the chatbox.

VmanGman

I agree that speech bubbles add so much to player interactions. Having the option to disable them is a much better solution than completely removing them.

CROW3

vmangman wrote: »

I agree that speech bubbles add so much to player interactions. Having the option to disable them is a much better solution than completely removing them.

I second this verbatim. And maybe add a duration timer for how long a speech bubble would remain on screen?

Sokken

CROW3 wrote: »

I second this verbatim. And maybe add a duration timer for how long a speech bubble would remain on screen?

Duration timer is actually quite an excellent idea.

Gankez

speech bubbles belong in games from the 90s ;p keep it in the box imo

VmanGman

Gankez wrote: »

speech bubbles belong in games from the 90s ;p keep it in the box imo

This is one of the most irrelevant comments I have seen on these forums yet.

Completely misinformed and illogical.

CROW3

It's just his opinion - nothing to get excited about. I just translate that to:

[ Off ] Enable chat bubbles

Geronimo

Sokken wrote: »

I believe the lack of speech bubbles is to the detriment of players engaging with each other in an immersive and personal way.

IMO it would be the opposite of immersive because IRL people don't use speech bubbles.

Gankez wrote: »

speech bubbles belong in games from the 90s ;p keep it in the box imo

I concur with this sentiment and would disable speech bubbles if they existed.

Instead I would support built-in real time voice communication either for just my party or with selective mutability options.

Magic Man

Agreed

VmanGman

Geronimo wrote: »

Sokken wrote: »

I believe the lack of speech bubbles is to the detriment of players engaging with each other in an immersive and personal way.

IMO it would be the opposite of immersive because IRL people don't use speech bubbles.

Gankez wrote: »

speech bubbles belong in games from the 90s ;p keep it in the box imo

I concur with this sentiment and would disable speech bubbles if they existed.

Instead I would support built-in real time voice communication either for just my party or with selective mutability options.

And looking at the chat box in the bottom left corner is more immersive? Some of you people are just ridiculous.

Speech bubbles that can be disabled do not affect you in any way so why would you argue against them?

They have already confirmed that there will be VOIP for group parties.

Geronimo

vmangman wrote: »

Some of you people are just ridiculous.

Speech bubbles that can be disabled do not affect you in any way so why would you argue against them?

@vmangman simmer down slayer.

Two people can have totally different opinions without either of the people being ridiculous. For example, I don't think the OP is ridiculous for thinking there should be speech bubbles.

I simply said why it would be distracting to me and that I will disable them if they existed, that is my opinion. Expressing that opinion is what makes a discussion which is what this forum is for.

Assuming "why would you argue against them?" is not a hypothetical question. The simple answer is, because I would not use the feature I think it would be a waste of time for the devs to delay the release to implement it when they are already not planning on it.

That's great news about VOIP, that's what I will be using.

VmanGman

@Geronimo in the line before that you argue against them by saying that they are not immersive... which is ridiculous because it’s not like the chat box in the bottom left corner is more immersive. Don’t quote me out of context. Calling chat bubbles immersion breaking is ridiculous considering that the other option is a chat box in the corner of the screen...

Your first argument of chat bubbles breaking immersion is an argument against chat bubbles... which is why I asked you why you would argue against something that doesn’t affect you since you can just disable it, slayer.

Geronimo

@vmangman Hopefully you saw my answer to your question above. Please note, I never said that a dialog pane was more immersive. I prefer VOIP

Xenotor

vmangman wrote: »

I agree that speech bubbles add so much to player interactions. Having the option to disable them is a much better solution than completely removing them.

I second this with the option to have a choice of who you disable.
for example i could Blacklist certain people or whitelist them and Blacklist every random player.

This way i don't get chat bubbles from randoms but i do get them from my group, family, friends and guild.
The monarchs and the majors should get special chat bubbles.

Geronimo wrote: »

@vmangman Hopefully you saw my answer to your question above. Please note, I never said that a dialog pane was more immersive. I prefer VOIP

VoIP is nice too, as long as its easy to mute someone with 2 clicks in a second.

But why not have both? VoIP and chat bubbles?

Sokken

Geronimo wrote: »

@vmangman Hopefully you saw my answer to your question above. Please note, I never said that a dialog pane was more immersive. I prefer VOIP

VOIP only applies for parties, raids, guilds and apparently also taverns. It does however not account for meeting randoms and does not really work for people who either don't want to or just can't talk in voice chat all the time.

When communicating by text only, then speech bubbles is the easiest way to tell who is talking and is the most immersive alternative. It can be quite difficult to even realise that someone straight in front of you has said anything to you if all text only appears in a box in the corner.

Also as have been said, please try to remain civil and constructive.

daveywavey

I'd disagree that speech bubbles are immersive. Anything like that that pops up in my screen as I'm looking at characters makes it feel more like a comic book.

At least a chatbox stuck in the corner is out of the main view of the screen, and feels decidedly less "comic book"y.

I don't mind very small speech bubbles for very short NPC text, but I don't want to see speech bubbles for Player text.

VmanGman

daveywavey wrote: »

I'd disagree that speech bubbles are immersive. Anything like that that pops up in my screen as I'm looking at characters makes it feel more like a comic book.

At least a chatbox stuck in the corner is out of the main view of the screen, and feels decidedly less "comic book"y.

I don't mind very small speech bubbles for very short NPC text, but I don't want to see speech bubbles for Player text.

And looking at the chat box in the corner is more immersive? Not to mention that sometimes you might not even notice that someone is trying to talk to you because you didn’t check the chat box in the corner of your screen. Are you RPing a hard of hearing character or why are you not responding to the person typing to you? Oh it’s because you didn’t check the very immersive chat box in the corner of your screen. That makes sense.

Just turn off chat bubbles and stop arguing against a system that doesn’t affect you at all.

Caeryl

Chat bubbles are convenient for raids as well. I’ve used them so groups can easily find down’d party members, as sometimes the corpses aren’t easy to find. (Ex. ESO when electric or flame damage turns your body into a grey dust pile on a grey floor)

I do prefer being able to restrict whose chat bubbles pop up, which is usually just group, guild, and raid members in order to keep my screen clear.

daveywavey

vmangman wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

I'd disagree that speech bubbles are immersive. Anything like that that pops up in my screen as I'm looking at characters makes it feel more like a comic book.

At least a chatbox stuck in the corner is out of the main view of the screen, and feels decidedly less "comic book"y.

I don't mind very small speech bubbles for very short NPC text, but I don't want to see speech bubbles for Player text.

And looking at the chat box in the corner is more immersive? Not to mention that sometimes you might not even notice that someone is trying to talk to you because you didn’t check the chat box in the corner of your screen. Are you RPing a hard of hearing character or why are you not responding to the person typing to you? Oh it’s because you didn’t check the very immersive chat box in the corner of your screen. That makes sense.

Just turn off chat bubbles and stop arguing against a system that doesn’t affect you at all.

Whoa whoa whoa, "simmer down slayer"...

Yes, having a chatbox at the corner of the screen where it's not affecting or impeding my vision is a lot more immersive than having bubbles of text shooting up in front of my face while I'm trying to look at the picture.

Just like when you attacked Geronimo before, I'm simply saying why I find speech bubbles to be less immersive. You're entitled to your opinion, just as I'm entitled to mine.

VmanGman

daveywavey wrote: »

vmangman wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

I'd disagree that speech bubbles are immersive. Anything like that that pops up in my screen as I'm looking at characters makes it feel more like a comic book.

At least a chatbox stuck in the corner is out of the main view of the screen, and feels decidedly less "comic book"y.

I don't mind very small speech bubbles for very short NPC text, but I don't want to see speech bubbles for Player text.

And looking at the chat box in the corner is more immersive? Not to mention that sometimes you might not even notice that someone is trying to talk to you because you didn’t check the chat box in the corner of your screen. Are you RPing a hard of hearing character or why are you not responding to the person typing to you? Oh it’s because you didn’t check the very immersive chat box in the corner of your screen. That makes sense.

Just turn off chat bubbles and stop arguing against a system that doesn’t affect you at all.

Whoa whoa whoa, "simmer down slayer"...

Yes, having a chatbox at the corner of the screen where it's not affecting or impeding my vision is a lot more immersive than having bubbles of text shooting up in front of my face while I'm trying to look at the picture.

Just like when you attacked Geronimo before, I'm simply saying why I find speech bubbles to be less immersive. You're entitled to your opinion, just as I'm entitled to mine.

But why would you argue against something that doesn’t affect you at all since you can just disable it?

It’s one thing to have an opinion and another thing to push forward your opinion when it has no effect on your experience, but it has a negative effect on someone else’s experience. I do not understand why this concept is so difficult for some of you to understand, slayer.

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