QW ingame chat/lobby interface

(Vam) #1

Considering that Quake Wars is going to be a multiplayer game only, I’m wondering what improvements have been made to the user interface for allowing players to communicate to each other inside the game. Some people might consider this a bad idea but I believe allowing players to communicate amongst each other ingame is a good idea, perhaps even allowing them to visit webpages from within the game itself. Much like what Tribes was like.

A few of my most favorite Activision games had an ingame chat interface sort of like a “lobby” which allowed people to chat amongst each other and setup games and such. For example the old Mechwarrior and Interstate games were like this.

I’m wondering since there is no single player mode to the game, if things like this have been enhanced in the engine? I read some previews stating that extensive work has been done on the network protocols to allow larger games, with as little lag as possible, now I’m wondering what else has been improved for the multiplayer experience. =)

(fattakin) #2

Good point, its surely time to move on from the basic list of servers approach. Be nice to have some kind of xfire feature built in, where you can see the server your buddies are playing on and join them / message them in game.

(kamikazee) #3

Ok… Will there be some option to turn those messages off as well?
I wouldn’t like to get slaughtered because some message pops up in the heat of the fight. It’s even worse when it would be like on of these:

WHERE U @?

WANNA PLAY ON <insert random server here>?

Can you help me with <insert random problem here>?

etc… :smiley:

(Kaider) #4

Tribes 2 had the best interface of any game in my opinion. Even in-game email for people to reach you by your (registered) in-game name. And the ability to create your own IRC chatroom was great. And lets not forget the buddy list with the tribe/warrior search, and a customizable page for yourself and your Tribe. Those were the days.

(Vam) #5

I’d love if QW had half of what Tribes2 did as far as user interfacing went. I hope this game deploys something a little more interesting than the standard server based approach. Looking at Quake4 for instance, its hard to meet new players because the game has such a small userbase playing online. Unlike the old DOS based activision lobbies (which were built into the game), the userbase wasn’t extremely large but it made the experience much better and allowed you to meet new people and run some very fun online tournaments.

And after all, for many people, meeting new faces online is what makes a game great and keeps people interested and playing long after the game has been released.

I’m sure some of the SD devs agree!

(RX|marrafakka) #6

Just don’t let the typed messages disappear with all the radio-spam, such as seen in BF2.