Communicating people, Free Typing vs Preset Chatacter Quotes

[pwhampton]

One of the things that will come up is how we will be communicating to each other in game. I can envision two separate methods for this to be done; Typing to talk like in every other multiplayer, or having set commands to tell your ally to "go explore caves, go get wood, food, lets fight, and all of that mumbo jumbo.

 

The first style would be easy to incorporate and would give players the most flexibility for communication, but it will definitely have its flaws. The first flaw would be that it would take away from the emersion of the game, I don't know if Klei is going for emersion or not, This means that people would normally be saying things that would not normally be said in a survival situation like the one you are in, like talking about your dogs or other idle conversation topics. Another downside to free chat is the higher chance of people being plain out mean, people causing confusion, and the largest issue being language barriers.

 

The second style is preset quotes the character says that you have to open up a list to select what you want your character to say to your buddy. While less flexible, this can allow more character quotes so your character can remain acting like who they are, thus helping with the emersion of the game. Another perk is that you do not have to worried about profanity and bullying within the game. The last major point and the best in my opinion, is the fact that this can solve the language barrier issue. If all of the characters have preset commands and the player can read those commands in their own language, a person who can only speak English could still communicate clearly with someone who could only speak Russian.

 

My personal opinion is to have both available and the player can set it to either/or both methods in game creation. This will help you just get a regular game in with a random person and not worry about communication difficulties, but be able to start up a game with a friend and have normal chats with him.

 

[jbeetle]

My personal opinion is that anything other than direct chat is just a neat gimmick and a waste of time. However, I'm not going to be all grumpy if the devs feel otherwise.

[Maximum124]

I sort of want it how TF2 has their chat system, except when you type something the character says it. And then there's also a list of commands that you can choose from. I'd rather just have free chat over a list of commands, but if it's possible to get both then I'm all for it.

[ThePreChewedTree]

I sort of want it how TF2 has their chat system, except when you type something the character says it. And then there's also a list of commands that you can choose from. I'd rather just have free chat over a list of commands, but if it's possible to get both then I'm all for it.

That would be cool, Except Ds characters can't really talk without sounding like instruments so it wouldn't really work.

[mitboy]

It would be interesting to give the opportunity to do pantomime. Portray hunger, even if you are not hungry. Portray overheating, even if you are not overheated. Maybe, only for Wes

[J20hawkz]

My suggestion in another thread was to leave things how they are. As things are now, when we inspect something for example our character will say something in a musical tone with text above their heads. The same can be in multiplayer when we want to say something to another player.

A toggle to show/hide a chat log is a good idea, will keep the screen clutter free. There needs to be a filter and also an anti spam system to stop trolls from spamming unnecessary comments over and over. I'll go into this more in a separate thread, after some clarification.

[Maximum124]

That would be cool, Except Ds characters can't really talk without sounding like instruments so it wouldn't really work.

 

Not actual talking but the way that they speak in the game, you know what I mean.

[GreySlime]

what about a dayz-styled chat?

 

you can write a message or speak in a microphone, but only the players in the area near you (maybe somthing like 2 ingame-screen max distance) can read or hear you... i think this will fit better with the survival nature of the game, you can communicate only with someone near you as in real life (there aren't phones yet in ds)...

 

i hope yo understand what i mean... sorry for my bad english...

[ThePreChewedTree]

Not actual talking but the way that they speak in the game, you know what I mean.

That would be cool!

[pwhampton]

jbeetle, having other options to communicate to get rid of any language barrier issues that may occur is hardly just a "gimmick" and is certainly not a waste of time.

[jbeetle]

jbeetle, having other options to communicate to get rid of any language barrier issues that may occur is hardly just a "gimmick" and is certainly not a waste of time.

The gimmicks I'm referring to are proximity-based chat and things like that. and they are gimmicks. things that sound awesome but don't serve any real purpose in a game like this.

[NeoDeusMachina]

I will personally only use voice chat when playing with my friends. I just find it much more convenient and efficient, plus we can talk about other things unrelated to Don't Starve at the same time. I have no idea if the developpers are planning on including any voice chat in the game, and that could be rather useless considering there is a steam voice chat.

 

Otherwise, I think a normal chat system is the best. It gives versatility to those who can't use voice chat. I would seriously hate having to deal with premade quotes, learn them all, and murder a pig out of frustration each time I can't say something that I want to say =)

[mrtwoface]

I think the variety of situations that could arise would call for more then just preset phrases in order for players to properly communicate with each other. Then again, there are a lot of people who would abuse the privilege of free chat. Ultimately I think it is up to whoever is running/creating the server to make that call. 

[randompandora]

I don't think anyone else considered anything other than direct chat until you brought it up.   Why not make communication more difficult and cut out the ability to say exactly what you mean?

[Doctor H. Derp]

Any attempts to limit the ability for players to talk to one another is immediately going to be countered by Skype, for an example.

 

Even if it were the devs' intent to try and keep conversations limited and muted between players in the same world, it's just never going to happen. No players, beyond a rare few, are going to subject themselves to that when they're playing with their friends.

[The Letter W]

Preset quotes should be enough imo. In a game where there's only eight minutes or so in a day and I doubt it's going to pause when you're typing, I don't think you should be wasting time doing that. All the Typer Shark in the world can't prepare you to type HELP fast enough to not die from a rampant Deerclops that somehow got ahold of a Telelocater. Also like someone said, it helps with the inevitable language barrier that's going to happen from jumping in to random games. 

Simple commands like HELP, EATING, HEALING, NEED HEALING, CRAFTING, DYING, OH GOD HOUNDS, etc. should probably work fine. 

And well, if you're serious about it you'll probably be using Steam voice chat or Skype or LINE or what ever else newfangled program people use.