How to Roleplay in Defiance

I finally got the chance to play the Beta today, and though I absolutely love the game, several problems came to mind for how exactly to roleplay in Defiance. While out in the world, there is no chat bubble. There is only clan, party and global chat (essentially). I also couldn't find a way to do any emotes, or even /e, except for /dance (typical). You can't sheath or put away your weapons, so any kind of in person RP would be a little weird with everyone always being armed.

So, any ideas on how we should go about it?

The way I see it, when out and about killing things, party chat works well enough. When doing anything that's more calm, that has no killing involved, clan or party chat, but not in person. The way I see it, that's really the only way we can go about it. That, and forum RP, of course.

Discussing the same thing with the officers of my clan right now. And we are looking to a chat overlay such ans the enjin site chat client or something similar for rp. Or to run it all over guild at specific times were some of the ideas.

My clan has decided to use an external chat client for RP and invite interested people into the chat. It then just goes over the normal chat box in game. A good bit of us hate any kind of forum RP so we are all for finding in game solutions!

May I ask what program you're using Aliyah?

We have not decided on the exact program yet. Overwolf does not support Defiance yet and Evolve is.. not that great so we are looking for better options, we may end up using the chat overlay for teamspeak or something like that.

I'm a console user, so my only means of RPing will be this forum, or maybe a private vista if someone were to want to do a private RP. But I can't really RP in-game. Anyone else in the same boat?

Kabnit wrote:I'm a console user, so my only means of RPing will be this forum, or maybe a private vista if someone were to want to do a private RP. But I can't really RP in-game. Anyone else in the same boat?

I am going to assume that there will be a few with this issue and I hope we can find a way for you to get involved, even if it's posting a few forum focused RP stories.

In the end we decided to go with Evolve after all it is the most sensible solution we could come up with, a little bit of a pain but better then nothing. I still hope the bad chat system will eventually be fixed.

Aliyah wrote:In the end we decided to go with Evolve after all it is the most sensible solution we could come up with, a little bit of a pain but better then nothing. I still hope the bad chat system will eventually be fixed.

They've commented a few times it's going to be one of their first changes, to what extend, we'll see.

The chat interface is said to be among the "8 pages of patch notes" coming on the 15th.

Apparently their idea of fixing the chat interface differs from everyone else's idea of fixing the chat interface.

1. Area voice chat has been improved and is now on by default.
2. Voice and text chat channels can now be muted independently.
3. Text chat now displays for longer and no longer hides when sprinting or boosting.

1. Instead of giving us a functional chat window, they just implemented local voice chat instead. /golfclap

2. At least we can turn it off!

3. Hey, that 1 line of text we see at a time might last longer than 2.5 seconds now.

(I would provide the source, but this forum is set to disallow new members from posting external links - you can find the post in the Patch Notes section of the Defiance official forums)

It's really saddening that in order to facilitate any kind of roleplay in Defiance, we're forced into using 3rd-party programs. New roleplayers, of course, come into the picture totally unaware of the fact, and end up assuming that there's just so RP community at all - because even if we sat right next to them RPing, they're completely oblivious to it.

So what sort of fixes were you looking for then? A lot of people are being incredibly vague about what they want changed here.

A standard MMO chat interface; the kind we've had in MMOs for the past 14 years.
That's not really vague. The 'chat window' hasn't changed in so long, that it's self-explanatory (to those who PC game online).

So, bugs aside, how does Defiance's system not fit the bill? Other than a finicky control system and the inability to create custom channels I'm not seeing how it's the huge deviation you claim. Yeah it can stand to improve, but smug sarcasm about the way Trion are attempting to fix it isn't as endearing as you think.

The standard MMO chat interface is a resizable and movable interface window.
Chat stays visible within it for a lengthy period of time, so as to not be missed (it may fade out after 30-60 seconds). Text is usually color changeable and scalable in font size. Additionally, there may be contextual menus, such as being able to right-click someone's name and getting a 'add friend?', 'ignore?', 'invite group?', 'inspect?' and so forth popup.
The chat window would usually also allow you to change the opacity, so as to allow full transparency or a solid black background.

This is pretty much a staple of online (MMO) gaming on a PC, and has been the case ... forever. In general, PC gamers prefer to use text chat, not voice chat, when interacting with other people. Voice chat is often reserved for close-knit groups and guilds/clans, not for random people passing you by. It's the opposite for consoles, since they typically have no keyboard and a limited/cumbersome ability to type.

Unfortunately, Defiance was released for 2 console platforms, meaning majority wins when it comes to development resources.

With Defiance, we have a chat window that is largely off-screen - you have to dig through submenus to view it, and while viewing it, you cannot move your character or do anything else. There's a micro chat window off in the lower right corner, which cannot be moved, resized, or have its opacity changed. Text within it stays visible for no more than 3 seconds before fading away. You cannot alter colors nor are there any context menus. The window is so small, that only one person can really have a message there at a time - and only if it's a short message.

There, that wasn't so hard was it?

The point is Trion are working on the interface and there are considerably more important issues for the game as a whole, particularly when a great deal of people use the voice chat or external things such as Mumble. They never claimed to have fixed it entirely by increasing the length of time text remains in the window, so treating it as if they have is just asinine.

Four-Eyes wrote:There, that wasn't so hard was it?

Is there a reason for addressing me as you would a child, when I took no such attitude towards you?

Because you were pointlessly sarcastic and petty in your initial criticism. If you're happy to dish it out I think you need to be prepared to take it as well.

That aside, do we have many gathering points as of yet? So far it's a bit of a crapshoot as to whether or not someone else in the area is going to be IC or not. Understandable given the game's server structure, or lack thereof, but it's a weird adjustment nonetheless.

Four-Eyes wrote:Because you were pointlessly sarcastic and petty in your initial criticism. If you're happy to dish it out I think you need to be prepared to take it as well.

So... you're offended that I made a sarcastic comment towards someone who is not you, and use that as justification to be an arse?

Alrighty, then. I'll save myself the headache and drop you on the ignore list, on the forum and ingame. *shrug*

As I said, if you're prepared to dish out petty criticism then you need to grow a thicker skin and learn to accept it as well. I don't give a toss who it was aimed at, frankly, I just don't have a taste for that official forum style attitude polluting other areas. If you were slagging off another forum member the situation would be no different as far as I'm concerned.

Four-Eyes wrote:As I said, if you're prepared to dish out petty criticism then you need to grow a thicker skin and learn to accept it as well. I don't give a toss who it was aimed at, frankly, I just don't have a taste for that official forum style attitude polluting other areas. If you were slagging off another forum member the situation would be no different as far as I'm concerned.

To be honest, I find your whole defense for Trion out of reason, they are a big company who are making a game, cows go moo, cats go meow and Roleplayers say we need more roleplaying functionality, it's that simple, so I'd suggest not taking it all so personal, their a big company and can take a bit of worthy criticism.

I assumed Vyshan would be able to take some as well. Evidently not.

I wasn't taking anything personally, I just find the whole sarcasm sarcasm eyeroll smarm act rather irritating. It's not constructive and comes over as incredibly smug.

Geeze I am too busy to check in for a few days and people are already tearing into each others?

The chat window needs some serious improvement the fixed that they have announced are a step into the right direction but it still does not quite meet the kind of chat that I would desire from any game really.

I'd also love to be able to put the chat window somewhere else on my screen, where it currently is almost everything said slips my notice especially with the window vanishing as fast as it does.

My guild is looking at keep using Evolve for a while until chat becomes real chat.