Ingame PvP Chat Improvments

[Stickmasterluke]

I was playing a few PvP matches today, and I had forgotten how hard it was to simply communicate with the other player. I am not sure if I am the only one that feels this way, that is why I made this poll.

The general design is difficult for me to use. In some cases I had decided not to respond back to players because of the amount of time it takes to type and send a message, fumbling with the UI would waste my turn.

Good online games have healthy communities. Healthy communities are nothing without good communication. I believe that the benefits from a new or improved chat system are hard to gauge, but more valuable than generally perceived.

Do you agree?
How much of a priority do you think this should be?

[Dm]

I want and support this idea with all of my PvP-Y conversational might.

[HyTex]

An entire chat window alongside the game (in the same tab) would really make the game feel much less lonely, but simply having a faster way to chat with your opponent (and review previous messages) would be quite nice and should definitely be worked on.

[Eddygp]

An entire chat window alongside the game (in the same tab) would really make the game feel much less lonely, but simply having a faster way to chat with your opponent (and review previous messages) would be quite nice and should definitely be worked on.

I agree with you. I think that a sidebar might not be the best thing either, but just a better way to communicate decently would be greatly appreciated.

[Fippe94]

An entire chat window alongside the game (in the same tab) would really make the game feel much less lonely, but simply having a faster way to chat with your opponent (and review previous messages) would be quite nice and should definitely be worked on.

*cough*Kongregate*cough*

Sure it's chatting with everyone, not just whoever you're playing with, but it surely makes the game feel less lonely

[andretimpa]

I would really appreciate it if the chat box didn't appear in the middle of the board. As I'm not very chatty during my games I don't feel the impact as much, but it is kinda lame.

[Eddygp]

I think that chatting with you opponent AND spectators is fair enough. Just improve the system.

[BunKeR]

the in game chat interface is the main reason i choose to run this game off of the kong portal .

[RavingRabbid]

The Kong Chat is the main reason I run this game in the elements page.

That and Zanz gets the full ad revenue.

[Higurashi]

The in-game chat interface is great. The font could be a bit more readable, but other than that it's aaaalright.

The problem with in-game chat is the problem with PvP connections; it's slow and sensitive to desynch of data. Because the PvP system's connection itself is rather poor (plus Flash being sensitive), the sending of messages is equally sluggish. The game needs a better PvP connection, and with that we'd get a fast, responsive and reliable in-game chat.

What's more, it needs hyperlinking capabilities or at least a way to keep the text box from fading out so you can actually copy the text. A history log with each player would be the most optimal, but that would require immense storage on the server, so it's not an option. When I try to link people to a topic on the forums, they have to read it and copy it by memory, which is pretty hard considering how fast the text box fades.

This'd improve traffic flow to the forum rather considerably, and so I think it's a rather high priority. It's hella tricky to balance things between keeping the game small so more people can actually play it and adding content, so it's really up to what goals zanz has.

[aefields]

What Higurashi says makes a lot of sense.
Communications fading out before I can read them has frustrated me from the beginning
Currently, there is a bug such that I don't see my opponent's name.  That is the main reason I haven't played PvP lately.