Gonna throw in my voice here in favor of speech bubbles.
The fact that this game doesn't have them is a SERIOUS
drain on my enjoyment of the social aspect to this mmo.
And it's honestly a bigger issue to me than things like
the lack of inventory space, or even them cutting
the amount of max level dungeons per patch!
I can't follow conversations in crowded, talkative places.
I don't get to use any emotes during ACTUAL social interactions, because
what's the point? I'm not looking where the characters are.
The "WE ADDED LIP FLAPPING" update was laughably useless
because, well, that's such a tiny detail that I am absolutely NEVER
going to see, because it's all the way over there, away from the
actual, more important, thing that triggered the lip flaps. Like,
am I supposed to look at a character's lips flapping, then check
back to my chat box, then back to the character? That's far too
much eye movement and refocusing for such a small animation.
I don't get to enjoy someone's character while I'm interacting with them.
Like, with this formatting I've chosen, did you notice which face I
chose? I don't blame you if you didn't notice, because IT'S ALL
THE WAY OVER THERE. You're not engaging with a person, you're
just reading some text. And never mind when you add in
movement into the mix I can't tell when someone says
hi to me, or when someone tries to get my attention when I'm
questing, because all of my social interactions are quarentined
to the lower left corner of my screen nowhere near the center
portion of my screen, AKA where I look when I'm actually
enjoying the game. I can't signal to someone to do something
or go somewhere in the middle of combat (say, a new player)
because they're focused on the boss, their bars, and literally
anywhere that isn't their chat box. So instead of standing on a spot
and saying "X, come over here" I have to go there, jump up and down
play with the player markers to MAYBE hopefully get their attention.
So, I've just stopped participating in this game socially, which sucks
because my MMO-player types are explorer/social.
I've made a similar post before and I won't stop echoing these sentiments
until I can actually have a natural conversation in the game with another player character,
instead of through a scrolling jumble of unconnected chatter.