Krystal to the Rescue
Ok, since there is a concern that people are getting off track, finding the main points hard to follow (or hard to find period) as well as a concern that Mel won't be able to make sense of it all, I bring to you all, a summarization of the concerns related to chat (minus the discussion between patrons)
Hopefully this clears a few things up. If there's anything I have missed, please pm me. This took me roughly 45 minutes, and I'm sure there are a few things I've missed / not stated clearly.
Without further ado:
Complaints / Dislikes:
1) We have to remake all our characters that we have in the chats on the boards as well.
Concerns:
1) Obtaining all our screen names. What to do should someone "steal" our names
2) Can't use spaces; many of us who have a boards name with spaces have to try to recreate it without (and perhaps those of us with spaces did so because other attempts to do so without a space were already used)
3) Having to recreate our names floods our email with notification / verification emails. Not only does this fill our email boxes, it adds extra time to having to recreate names (many of us have 20+ names)
2) NO DESCRIPTIONS
Concerns:
1) Proposed solution of a description thread on the boards is time consuming and distracting, requires us to flit between screens and those of us who are slower readers may lose track of the chat. Also, those of us with slower connections / etc may take a while to load.
3) Lack of Security
Concerns:
1) Java applets are not known to be the most secure.
2) Concern over IP addresses being accessable by other users (this has been addressed, supposedly this is not a concern as they come up for you but to others as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) However, many of us would like to see that removed entirely
3) The possibility of someone obtaining the encrypted IP address and later decrypting it at their leisure
4) Lack of trust? with Sun Microsystems.
5) Java-hacked version of IRC. IRC is known to be insecure.
4) Inability to change colors for text
Concerns:
1) Color blind individuals will find the red and blue diffficult to read
2) Can't set things like /msg (the equivalent of /tell) to a different color to make it stand out more.
Given Reason for lack of color:
Concern over room disruption because of people doing funky color combos.
Counterpoint for reason:
We don't want to be able to force others to see our colors, just customize our own look and feel. This being the case, it would not be room disruption or indeed disruptive at all. If the new chat does not contain client customability but requires that colors we pick get sent to all, this is a step BACKWARDS in functionality.
5) Clunky Interface
1) Slow to load
2) Not intuitive
3) Too many ways to do the same thing (I don't need three different ways to send private messages thank you)
4) ! for actions is distracting
5) /me versus : (colon) -- hard to get used to, wasted keystrokes
6) Having to flit between tabs of private messages and chat... it is possible to lose track of the chat this way.
7) Lack of the "pause" feature as ichat has
8) Highlighting / copying pasting is non-intuitive and clunky
9) Lack of resizability -- addressed, supposedly we can "tear" tabs away and they go into their own window... ( Tear? Ok... I shouldn't have to "tear" things away... )
10) Not very cross-platform: Depending on your OS / browser, logging in is difficult to log in, if not impossible
11) Lack of "Username Says"---it is replaced simply by <Username> -- breaks the feeling of the role play
12) All old commands are moot: we now have to sit down and learn more commands
13) Being logged in to multiple rooms can be disconcerting. Also, it counts a user as being in each room. So if one user is logged into five rooms but only chatting in one, someone might go to one of the rooms a use is logged into but not chatting in, and have to roam around to find the one the user IS chatting in.
14) Lack of /think
15) Lack of bold, underline, and italics
16) Lack of predefined emotes, such as /hug, /wave, etc
17) Concerns with user options... not much to configure, hard to read right now (I believe it shows up as white on light grey..)
18) Lack of the ability to send private messages to multiple people at once (I do not know if this is possible, nor how difficult it is if it *is* possible. I have heard people say yes and people say no)
6) Community Issues
1) What if the boards go down, will that affect the chat?
2) Having Live and ISRP split -- makes it difficult to go to events when you're playing (most like the reminder shouts while they are rping so they don't lose track of time and can play up until the event) Also, having this split stops those of us who used to chat in pms with non-roleplayers in live while we role played -- again, we are splitting the community, and we're split bad enough as it is by our own designs.
3) Lack of the banners at the top which linked to thinks such as the greyhawk journal, prices for food, weather, etc...
4) Lack of /go
5) Having the list of rooms on a separate tab instead of just simply using /roomlist
7) Various other issues
1) Dislike having the same name on boards and chat
2) Lack of direct java support as a result of Sun?
3) Lack of being able to use other clients to log in ( IE: we can use ichat or cheetachat to log into wizards currently)
4) Having the chat and boards together
5) Concerns about the fact that Wizards kept software that was promised to do things it turned out it can't rather than sending it back and looking for better software
6) Java is known to tax people's systems
7) New skin is.. well... not all it's cracked up to be.
8) The handout for explaining the interface mentions some things that aren't actually there (hint hint: Button for configuring colors)
Things that are liked:
1) P2P Chat. Many find it nice to have it in a separate window.
Counterpoint: Ichat had the same thing if you right clicked on their name and selected to send them a pm. (As memory serves). Also, see dislike 5) 6).
2) Tabbed chatting... though many don't seem to see the ability to be in two+ rooms at once manageable / wanted.
3) New Menu for bots
4) Chat and boards together. See complaint 7)4).
Enjoy.
Edit: Added number 18) to the Clunky Interface Category.
Ok, since there is a concern that people are getting off track, finding the main points hard to follow (or hard to find period) as well as a concern that Mel won't be able to make sense of it all, I bring to you all, a summarization of the concerns related to chat (minus the discussion between patrons)
Hopefully this clears a few things up. If there's anything I have missed, please pm me. This took me roughly 45 minutes, and I'm sure there are a few things I've missed / not stated clearly.
Without further ado:
Complaints / Dislikes:
1) We have to remake all our characters that we have in the chats on the boards as well.
Concerns:
1) Obtaining all our screen names. What to do should someone "steal" our names
2) Can't use spaces; many of us who have a boards name with spaces have to try to recreate it without (and perhaps those of us with spaces did so because other attempts to do so without a space were already used)
3) Having to recreate our names floods our email with notification / verification emails. Not only does this fill our email boxes, it adds extra time to having to recreate names (many of us have 20+ names)
2) NO DESCRIPTIONS
Concerns:
1) Proposed solution of a description thread on the boards is time consuming and distracting, requires us to flit between screens and those of us who are slower readers may lose track of the chat. Also, those of us with slower connections / etc may take a while to load.
3) Lack of Security
Concerns:
1) Java applets are not known to be the most secure.
2) Concern over IP addresses being accessable by other users (this has been addressed, supposedly this is not a concern as they come up for you but to others as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) However, many of us would like to see that removed entirely
3) The possibility of someone obtaining the encrypted IP address and later decrypting it at their leisure
4) Lack of trust? with Sun Microsystems.
5) Java-hacked version of IRC. IRC is known to be insecure.
4) Inability to change colors for text
Concerns:
1) Color blind individuals will find the red and blue diffficult to read
2) Can't set things like /msg (the equivalent of /tell) to a different color to make it stand out more.
Given Reason for lack of color:
Concern over room disruption because of people doing funky color combos.
Counterpoint for reason:
We don't want to be able to force others to see our colors, just customize our own look and feel. This being the case, it would not be room disruption or indeed disruptive at all. If the new chat does not contain client customability but requires that colors we pick get sent to all, this is a step BACKWARDS in functionality.
5) Clunky Interface
1) Slow to load
2) Not intuitive
3) Too many ways to do the same thing (I don't need three different ways to send private messages thank you)
4) ! for actions is distracting
5) /me versus : (colon) -- hard to get used to, wasted keystrokes
6) Having to flit between tabs of private messages and chat... it is possible to lose track of the chat this way.
7) Lack of the "pause" feature as ichat has
8) Highlighting / copying pasting is non-intuitive and clunky
9) Lack of resizability -- addressed, supposedly we can "tear" tabs away and they go into their own window... ( Tear? Ok... I shouldn't have to "tear" things away... )
10) Not very cross-platform: Depending on your OS / browser, logging in is difficult to log in, if not impossible
11) Lack of "Username Says"---it is replaced simply by <Username> -- breaks the feeling of the role play
12) All old commands are moot: we now have to sit down and learn more commands
13) Being logged in to multiple rooms can be disconcerting. Also, it counts a user as being in each room. So if one user is logged into five rooms but only chatting in one, someone might go to one of the rooms a use is logged into but not chatting in, and have to roam around to find the one the user IS chatting in.
14) Lack of /think
15) Lack of bold, underline, and italics
16) Lack of predefined emotes, such as /hug, /wave, etc
17) Concerns with user options... not much to configure, hard to read right now (I believe it shows up as white on light grey..)
18) Lack of the ability to send private messages to multiple people at once (I do not know if this is possible, nor how difficult it is if it *is* possible. I have heard people say yes and people say no)
6) Community Issues
1) What if the boards go down, will that affect the chat?
2) Having Live and ISRP split -- makes it difficult to go to events when you're playing (most like the reminder shouts while they are rping so they don't lose track of time and can play up until the event) Also, having this split stops those of us who used to chat in pms with non-roleplayers in live while we role played -- again, we are splitting the community, and we're split bad enough as it is by our own designs.
3) Lack of the banners at the top which linked to thinks such as the greyhawk journal, prices for food, weather, etc...
4) Lack of /go
5) Having the list of rooms on a separate tab instead of just simply using /roomlist
7) Various other issues
1) Dislike having the same name on boards and chat
2) Lack of direct java support as a result of Sun?
3) Lack of being able to use other clients to log in ( IE: we can use ichat or cheetachat to log into wizards currently)
4) Having the chat and boards together
5) Concerns about the fact that Wizards kept software that was promised to do things it turned out it can't rather than sending it back and looking for better software
6) Java is known to tax people's systems
7) New skin is.. well... not all it's cracked up to be.
8) The handout for explaining the interface mentions some things that aren't actually there (hint hint: Button for configuring colors)
Things that are liked:
1) P2P Chat. Many find it nice to have it in a separate window.
Counterpoint: Ichat had the same thing if you right clicked on their name and selected to send them a pm. (As memory serves). Also, see dislike 5) 6).
2) Tabbed chatting... though many don't seem to see the ability to be in two+ rooms at once manageable / wanted.
3) New Menu for bots
4) Chat and boards together. See complaint 7)4).
Enjoy.
Edit: Added number 18) to the Clunky Interface Category.
