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Tabula Rasa will die by it's chatbox
blackbellamy
Member Posts: 4
Yup, silly as it sounds, the downfall of Tabula Rasa will be it's chatbox.
Let me give you some background: I'm a professional with many years of experience doing software quality assurance for web-based applications. I specialize in interface and usability testing.
Hands down, the Tabula Rasa chat interface is the very worst I've ever seen out of all the MMOGs I've ever played, and I've nearly played them all. It seems to me that whoever designed the chat box was hell bent on making it as unfriendly to use and as non-functional as possible.
The most egregious flaw is the placement. After dozens of MMOGs who either place the chat on the lower left or allow you to reposition it, Tabula Rasa places it in the upper left. Why try to force this new paradigm down our throats? Is there some benefit to the placement?
By default, the chat box has no background unless you're actively using it. By placing it in the upper left, the background becomes the lighter sky instead of the darker ground, making the text unreadable.
You can't change the font size.
You can't resize the box.
You can't create several chat boxes.
You can't reposition it.
It's like the designer is willfully preventing you from communicating with other players. I'm not sure if it's arrogance or incompetence but the breadth of the disaster is stunning.
There's a lot of other shortcomings to the interface and the way the information is presented to the players, but these all pale to this.
Listen up any Tabula Rasa folks who are reading this:
I'm sure the interface guy or whoever designed the chatbox had a real good and eloquent reason for designing it the way they did. And it's very disappointing that no one had the courage to say holy fucking shit this is a goddamned disaster on an epic scale. As someone who has the final go/nogo say for deployment of code, I would fucking raise holy hell and quit rather than go live with something as excrecable as this.
When they shut down the final Tabula Rasa server 6 months from now, a lot of fingers will be pointing every which way, but in the end this game will die because it's consciously and deliberately preventing people from communicating with each other.
Comments
Well considering it is in beta still I am guessing this will be a non-issue because I am sure many have already complained about the chat box. Considering that it is in beta still why are you even talking about it? I am sure you could complain about a slew of things wrong with the game but surely most of them will be fixed before live.
Hehe, made me Lol IRL. But yeah I agree, it bothered me during beta. Why lock it, and why not make the UI fully customizeable. I guess they are limiting it to avoid bug fixing for it <shrug> I think its a major detractor for the game, but I dont think it will "kill" it.
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Played (In order of favorite first to least): DAOC, EQ2, EVE, WOW, Vanguard, AC2, City of __, Guild Wars, LOTRO, EQ, Sword of New World, FFXI, Lineage 2, Second Life, DDO, Anarchy Online, RF Online, Archlord, Uru, Ragnarok Online, Shadowbane, Planetside, Auto Assault, Ryzom, Matrix Online, Horizons, Entropia, Sims, Runescape, Lineage 1, AC1, Dungeon Runners
Haha, maybe if they paid their QA people more then 8$ an hour they might actually have the nerve to speak up when devs do stupid crap like this... rather then being a yes-man in fear of losing their jobs.
In the end I bet it does get fixed though, probly not that high on their list of crap to do ...but lets hope they do actually do it.
Thanks for the reply.
Please don't think I'm being rude, but telling me to NOT to complain about problems will make your game worse, not better. The devs and other TR personnel who troll the various forums need to know about a problem before they can address it, right? Telling me you think that maybe other people reported this problem is not being helpful - that's just making excuses.
You don't need to get all fainboi about it. I don't hate your game. In fact if I did I wouldn't take productive time out of my day to write this - my attitude would be fuck them.
While your sentiments are hopeful, unfortunately you don't have the perspective of someone who is more closely involved in the software development process.
Also, you don't sound like you participated in a great many MMOG betas to understand that with one month before release, no fundamental change will happen. If you look at the existing issues list, there's nothing on there about making the chat box friendlier or anything about the interface at all. It's all broken quests and bad items and non-working instances - all the stuff that actually might get addressed.
The chat problem, or rather the communication problem will likely not be given priority because it appears the TR folks have failed to put their interface through any sort of usability testing, and as far as they're concerned you can type into the box and the text appear above so what's the problem? If they had put it through usability testing they would have garnered tons of feedback similar to mine. I know this because I run focus groups and believe me, people just love to comment on whether icon A looks better than icon B.
I see this happen all the time. Dev gets the functional specs, builds the app, and it looks like crap and feels like crap and makes you all aggravated when you try to use it. Dev then says well it's according to spec, and his boss starts pressing for deployment because all the specs have been met, and if the QA guy doesn't have any balls or is politically marginalized well then that's when you get something like TRs chat box.
Did you report this as a bug?
Did you start a thread on the Tabula Rasa beta site about it?
If not, you have failed as a beta tester. This is not the right forum to discuss this.
-Viza
They are all ready revamping it.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I'm trying to get as many people as possible riled up so they all think about the awful chatbox and then they can all submit bug reports about it - just like I did.
That's great news! Can you point me to the info or a thread with some developer input about this matter?
Thanks for the reply.
Please don't think I'm being rude, but telling me to NOT to complain about problems will make your game worse, not better. The devs and other TR personnel who troll the various forums need to know about a problem before they can address it, right? Telling me you think that maybe other people reported this problem is not being helpful - that's just making excuses.
You don't need to get all fainboi about it. I don't hate your game. In fact if I did I wouldn't take productive time out of my day to write this - my attitude would be fuck them.
While your sentiments are hopeful, unfortunately you don't have the perspective of someone who is more closely involved in the software development process.
Also, you don't sound like you participated in a great many MMOG betas to understand that with one month before release, no fundamental change will happen. If you look at the existing issues list, there's nothing on there about making the chat box friendlier or anything about the interface at all. It's all broken quests and bad items and non-working instances - all the stuff that actually might get addressed.
The chat problem, or rather the communication problem will likely not be given priority because it appears the TR folks have failed to put their interface through any sort of usability testing, and as far as they're concerned you can type into the box and the text appear above so what's the problem? If they had put it through usability testing they would have garnered tons of feedback similar to mine. I know this because I run focus groups and believe me, people just love to comment on whether icon A looks better than icon B.
I see this happen all the time. Dev gets the functional specs, builds the app, and it looks like crap and feels like crap and makes you all aggravated when you try to use it. Dev then says well it's according to spec, and his boss starts pressing for deployment because all the specs have been met, and if the QA guy doesn't have any balls or is politically marginalized well then that's when you get something like TRs chat box.
I do not want to get into an e-peen swinging contest but I have participated in many, many betas. Some things are addressed prior to launch and some are not. I do not see this as a game breaker in the least like you do.
As a few others have mentioned, this is not the forums to be talking about a game that is in beta. It violates the eula.
Also I am not a fanboi but thanks for assuming that.
sorry,.....but chat box is the least of the games worries....collision detection....hooo boy.....does it suck bad
That's great news! Can you point me to the info or a thread with some developer input about this matter?
from the Beta forum:
#88955 - 09/13/07 10:31 AM
As always, Cuppa will have the full list to you. This is an informal list created by me in response to some questions asked in a previous post.
Crafting: Simplifying the system means we are trying to make certain drops more common so that it is easier to modify the weapons. Right now, it is difficult to find the weapons to match the enhancement recipes. Now, you will be able to add enhancements to items that don’t already have that particular enhancement.
The goal of the crafting system is pretty straightforward: it allows items found to be made better. This way crafting doesn’t compete with normal loot drops, but rather works in conjunction with the loot system to make it better. Finding the best “drop” in the game will make crafting even better.
Balance: Yes, we will be tweaking the Net Gun. We will also be looking at improving the damage choices for the Medic and we will be looking at making the Exobiologist a little less dependant on corpses. Damage buffs will be reduced slightly to make it so they aren’t as high, and don’t multiply so much. We are also examining experience gains.
Tech: This isn’t my field of expertise, but our tech team is hard at work on the login issues being reported. The tech team will be looking, very closely, at any data loss associated with characters. Also, there is a change that should positively affect frame rate. This change will reduce, very slightly, the accuracy of selecting a target, but will yield good performance gains. There will be an option to go back to pixel perfect targeting if the new system isn’t to your liking. There will, as always, be more tweaks to improve our AI.
UI: We are improving chat by making the tabs default to something clearer and more related to their functionality. Also, we are looking into having the tabs be right-click activated for channel options. We are adding the ability to resize the chat box, and we are addng overhead chat. Note the overhead chat part will be optional. Oh, we are also adding tabbed inventory to help with the influx of items created by the crafting system.
Control Points: All of the control points are going to be fully functional and are frankly, a hell of a lot of fun. If you have enjoyed Imperial Valley, you should enjoy the rest of the control points very soon. Also, the missions associated with Control Points are being completed and will have their proper rewards, including some titles.
Missions: We are finishing up the last of our ToO missions, and all the titles will be in. As always, we continue to work with our QA team and our all of you to find and fix any mission bugs that come up.
There is a lot more going on, but that should be some of the high points.
To the OP. Are you out of your damn mind? Your conclusion the TR will go down because of it's chatbox is very silly. I have been in beta for months and the chatbox should and will be customizable at release. It's placement on the upper left is due to the fact your hot bars are on the bottom right and left of screen. TR is trying something new. Have you even read any of their comments on game? They are trying to have a complex UI but with minimal screen invasion. I for one think they are doing a great job with such a complex UI with as little on screen as possible. You did not mention how quickly the chatbox dissolves when not uses to help keep the screen clear of distractions. Communication in TR work fine. Maybe you are stuck in your old habits. The problem is you not TR or it's chatbox.
TR has it faults. I am not a fanboi. Nor do I work for TR. I simply think your post has no merit. TR will not fail because of it's chatbox or anything else. TR will be a good deal of success with many many happy players. You will also see many UI changes over the next months. You are right your post does sound silly. You background in web-based interface usabiltiy testing means nothing to me. You simple want the same old dry interface you are use to. Get out of the stone age and give TR some credit for trying new things. Not all their ideas work but TR has proven through the entire beta they are working hard to make TR a new experience that is fimilar but new to mmo veterans.
Um hey, Blackbellamy, you're being a little dramatic wouldn't you say? Do you get this wound up about all life's little problems or do you really have _that_ much time on your hands?
I'm sure people will say you are overreacting. But I think your comments are a reflection of a lot of different parts of this game -- not just the poor chatbox.
If you step back and look at ALL the interactive features of this game -- the clan system, the grouping, the trading, the chatting you can basically come away w/ almost no other response except for:
holy fucking shit this is a goddamned disaster on an epic scale.
It's like Barrens chat x 1000 in beta.
I don't like it when games re-invent the wheel, however, you're right on this. They shouldn't force this new concept down our throats. I'm sure there will be action taking on their end to fix this mess.
Nothing wrong with being passionate on this site fool. If you don't want the drama then don't read forums lol.
You know, not long ago they didn't have channels, and when they got it in they didn't have a single message presenting where they where
(I'm the infamous "Remember Kids, it's /g!" spammer btw)
So, don't judge something that's in development will ya,
I ain't saying you're a freaking idiot either, for the very same reason.
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
The chat box definately needs to be repositionable, I'd never place a chat box on the top left, that makes no sense, Usually it's on the bottom left or bottom middle.
This is 2007. Any game coming out should have the ENTIRE UI customizable. It is like putting out an FPS with flying vehicles and not supporting joysticks. Also, the entire keyboard and stick/mouse buttons should be bindable.
Dude, that is the gayest thing ever... But I totally agree with you.
Played almost everything...
Currently playing nothing...
Waiting for: Darkfall, WAR, Guild Wars 2.
the current chat box is a place holder :x
That's great news! Can you point me to the info or a thread with some developer input about this matter?
read the forums yourselfthey talked about it 4 months ago. it wont always be locked, it just is for now on the beta client. the retail client will be a bit different