Speech Bubbles - Thoughts?

[Demacia]

In a game like PSO it's awesome but in an MMO, no thanks. Even if it was implemented it should have an option to toggle on/off.

[Onidemon]

Perhaps give us some options like show bubbles only from your party, linkshell, close vicinity, friend list...etc, that should take care of crowded areas

Well they could make bubble only visible by yourself. Other people's bubble won't be visible to you. That would be needed for heavily crowded areas.


I really hope the SE or the community reps take a look at this thread and fwd it to the dev team. Speech bubble would make talking to NPCs and reading in general a lot more enjoyable.

[Akuun]

Onidemon, you've stated your opinion, and others will state theirs, you don't need to slam everyones opinion that isn't your own. Move on.

As for your example, you're showing the same thing FFXIV uses when you talk to an NPC
There is already a special dialog window. It would seem you have forgotten.

[Corpse]

No to speech bubbles. But they should have the characters mouths moving when we type stuff down, so our characters look like they're actually talking x)

[Majidah]

I copied and pasted some of the lodestone graphics and put together some terrible looking bubbles, just to illustrate things a bit.

http://i53.tinypic.com/ajv2at.jpg

Say bubbles could change in size and opacity based on how far away from the character they are located. This would simulate depth.
Shout bubbles could pop in full size and full opacity. I'm thinking they should last less time in screen than Say bubbles.

If you ask me, it already makes that random googled screenshot I found a lot more lively than the chatlog.

edit:
Some more ideas.
When a character is targeted or a bubble is mouse highlighted his opacity could be set to full. Maybe even the bubble say if we are dealing with say.

[Punainen]

I don't want any speech bubbles. Too cartoony, and I don't need anything crowding up my screen any more than it already is.

[Majidah]

I don't want any speech bubbles. Too cartoony, and I don't need anything crowding up my screen any more than it already is.

But that's just the thing. If bubbles are only displayed within a certain range, and those outside them have a lower opacity/become invisible, then the screen would hardly get crowded unless you all stand in a cluster of people who start spamming in say. But even so, by targetting what the player that interests you you'd be able to read just what interests you...

And I don't think what I just posted was cartooney. And even if it was, vagrant story's wasn't.

[Alise]

I think it will make city more lively, it is good idea, but it may be hard to implement.

[Zacko]

I don't want any speech bubbles. Too cartoony, and I don't need anything crowding up my screen any more than it already is.

It could be turned off by default and then it wouldn't bother you. Wouldn't that be ok? No need to use it if you don't like it.
But if it's not hard to implement and when there's time for it, why not?

[Dreamer]

Why is it still an issue if they're turned off by default?