Move kill spam to its own channel

[Wiley]

I can somewhat understand your reaction.  By your join date you might not have bee here when we used to have it.  But new players coming from other games would probably find it weird if we didn't have kill msgs.

However, by your use of pejoratives like "spam" and "clutter" you are implying that the kill messages are less valid system host msg than others.  Hitech might disagree.  From a social engineering standpoint, they may be more import. 

I think an argument could be made for color coding categories of system msgs to visual differentiate them more?
Yellow for kill msg? 
Blue for capture/object damage msg?
Grey for action verification like bomb door opened?

But to me, the kill msg seems as valid as any of the other current system msg, maybe more.

It worked well in the early days until we got to about 500 players.  Hmmm come to think of it, maybe the beginning of the decline correlated with the removal of it.  Hmmm, interesting.   






 

The thing is
HOST: X was killed by Y.
HOST: X was killed by Y.
HOST: X was killed by Y.
it really makes it difficult to see
HOST: X was killed by Y.
HOST: X was killed by Y.
the command messages that you cannot separate from
HOST: X was killed by Y.
the kill messages.

Color coding wouldn't change that as they often scroll by too fast it wouldn't matter what color they are as unless you're watching the buffer constantly or have it giant on screen you can completely miss seeing them.

Personally I kind of like it, as it gives more information about what just happened around me when I see two merging dots and an explosion, or when I see a squaddie's name go by.

Again, as the snail said it's a really weird hill to die on like some people are, and to me it's just a QoL thing.  Yes, I can get the information I want from the scrolling window or little dots on my dashboard but it is less friendly than it could be with a relatively simple change.

Wiley.

[Shuffler]

I say those that oppose the info being turned back on should revolt. You can do this by flying in protest and not shooting anyone down.

I saw a few folks say they were going to vote with their checkbooks. None left... I guess they noticed they were paying with a credit card. 

[CptTrips]

Again, as the snail said it's a really weird hill to die on like some people are, and to me it's just a QoL thing.  Yes, I can get the information I want from the scrolling window or little dots on my dashboard but it is less friendly than it could be with a relatively simple change.

I disagree.  The human eye is very attuned to color.  It might scroll off, but you peripheral vision would catch a glimpse of a color you are interested in and you can scroll back up to see what it was.  (The color-blind already have problems because color is used extensively in AH.)


A perma-squelch list would also be a relatively simple change.  Hell, I had a 3rd party free utility 1/2 written that would allow you to mange a list of id's to squelch and you could run it after every log-in and it would squelch them all through key cmd automation sent to the AH process.  I dropped it because I figured it would really piss off Hitech.     He didn't just forget to implement perma-squelch.  There are social design reasons he doesn't want to provide it.

He didn't just accidentally add kill messages back to the system buffer.  He is trying to achieve something.  He didn't forget there is a trade-off between information saturation and creating a sense of arena activity.  He was the one who originally removed it for that reason when we got to 500 players.  I'm sure he debated the trade-off.

In a MMOG social design and social cues are as important as flight model.

Now he might make me look like an idiot the next patch  , but I think he should keep it for a while.

I would at least try colorization before allowing it to be removed. 

[Wiley]

I disagree.  The human eye is very attuned to color.  It might scroll off, but you peripheral vision would catch a glimpse of a color you are interested in and you can scroll back up to see what it was.  (The color-blind already have problems because color is used extensively in AH.)


A perma-squelch list would also be a relatively simple change.  Hell, I had a 3rd party free utility 1/2 written that would allow you to mange a list of id's to squelch and you could run it after every log-in and it would squelch them all through key cmd automation sent to the AH process.  I dropped it because I figured it would really piss off Hitech.     He didn't just forget to implement perma-squelch.  There are social design reasons he doesn't want to provide it.

Not gonna lie, I'dve used the crap out of it.  Most of the guys that irked me to that point are gone now, but I almost was going to put a squelch button macro on one of my joystick buttons at one point.

He didn't just accidentally add kill messages back to the system buffer.  He is trying to achieve something.  He didn't forget there is a trade-off between information saturation and creating a sense of arena activity.  He was the one who originally removed it for that reason when we got to 500 players.  I'm sure he debated the trade-off.

In a MMOG social design and social cues are as important as flight model.

Now he might make me look like an idiot the next patch  , but I think he should keep it for a while.

I would at least try colorization before allowing it to be removed.

Ok, let me put it another way...  Let us have the combat trim/gear up/down and similar HOST messages and landed kills in their own channel so I can keep them in my main chat window.

Like I said, I actually like them and would keep them on, they just interfere slightly with stuff I use all the time when I'm flying.

Wiley.

[CptTrips]

Ok, let me put it another way...  Let us have the combat trim/gear up/down and similar HOST messages and landed kills in their own channel so I can keep them in my main chat window.

Well I always thought stuff like that was weird to put in the system msgs.  I think of system as overall arena or server activity.  Internal aircraft notifications seemed out of place.

You know that green text in the center screen like "Auto take off enabled"?  I'd have all internal aircraft notifications popup temporarily there.  Toaster-popup kinda of notification message.
Trim, gear up/down, flaps.  Anything internal to your own aircraft and not wider arena/server.  That would separate internal stuff, from information about the world outside your aircraft.

[Wiley]

Well I always thought stuff like that was weird to put in the system msgs.  I think of system as overall arena or server activity.  Internal aircraft notifications seemed out of place.

You know that green text in the center screen like "Auto take off enabled"?  I'd have all internal aircraft notifications popup temporarily there.  Toaster-popup kinda of notification message.
Trim, gear up/down, flaps.  Anything internal to your own aircraft and not wider arena/server.  That would separate internal stuff, from information about the world outside your aircraft.

If it was a movable element, sure.  Not real keen on pulling lead on a guy and having "combat trim on" in the middle of my screen.  The autotakeoff message doesn't matter as much because you're generally not setting up gunnery on takeoff, and if you are, you're not usually using autotakeoff.

It works fine in the message buffer.

Wiley.

[CptTrips]

If it was a movable element, sure.  Not real keen on pulling lead on a guy and having "combat trim on" in the middle of my screen.  The autotakeoff message doesn't matter as much because you're generally not setting up gunnery on takeoff, and if you are, you're not usually using autotakeoff.

I checked before I wrote that.  It doesn't appear to be in the gun sight for me. But yeah, movable would be cool.

[Wiley]

I checked before I wrote that.  It doesn't appear to be in the gun sight for me. But yeah, movable would be cool.

I'm generally more concerned with stuff in the general vicinity of the gunsight rather than the gunsight itself when I'm shooting.

I am skeptical that there was a long, drawn out thought process and rationalization for the kill messages being in the HOST channel versus something else, similar to the combat trim etc messages going in there.  HOST seems to kind of be the "misc" channel.  I'm just saying it's a bit of a pain the way it works at the moment.

On the upside, I learned where the "CT" light was on my favorite planes, but it's less convenient than it used to be for little to no benefit I can see.  On the downside, I have taken off several times and not put my gear up in some planes because the light is out of the way.

Wiley.

[The Fugitive]

For me, it is easy enough to set it up in two windows, 5 lines each. Flying prime time US I have no trouble watching the "comments" go by and any movement on the System tab only takes a quick glance if it is something I need to see. If it is and it gets past the 5 lines, I expand the window and get caught up. Do I do this while fighting, no! but I barely look at my gauges when Im fighting.

[waystin2]

For me, it is easy enough to set it up in two windows, 5 lines each. Flying prime time US I have no trouble watching the "comments" go by and any movement on the System tab only takes a quick glance if it is something I need to see. If it is and it gets past the 5 lines, I expand the window and get caught up. Do I do this while fighting, no! but I barely look at my gauges when Im fighting.

(Image removed from quote.)

Stop making sense or we will kick you out Fugi.

[Eagler]

Tried that last night and end up with 2 tab2s setup showing only the kill messages i was trying to isolate with the popup edit button and tab1 gone 

I could not see country or ch200 until I restarted AH.

I will try to set this up again.

When you tilde does both windows expand?

<S>

Eagler

[popeye]

When you tilde does both windows expand?

Yes.

[The Fugitive]

yes, but both windows are adjustable  for size. you can make the text window grow to 10 lines and the system window grow to 20.

[Lazerr]

For me, it is easy enough to set it up in two windows, 5 lines each. Flying prime time US I have no trouble watching the "comments" go by and any movement on the System tab only takes a quick glance if it is something I need to see. If it is and it gets past the 5 lines, I expand the window and get caught up. Do I do this while fighting, no! but I barely look at my gauges when Im fighting.

(Image removed from quote.)

Same setup i used since the 2nd day it came out.  I like the information of th3 kill buffer, just not how it shows.

Most of the complaints are folks in here throwing such a loud tantrum, they cant hear the people trying to help them with a better setup.

I was the text buffer had a little more color to it to kind of accent things, spice stuff up a little.

[Wiley]

All I want is the ease to see the CT/Flaps/gear and similar messages not in a constant scroll buffer, whatever form that takes.

Wiley.