Live Widget Chat Box

[Clouds]

Live widget chat boxes enable users to communicate with other alliance/galaxy members. No login details are required as you are already logged into the game and it's a live feed, so no need to faff around with expanding any boxes or clicking any confirmation buttons.

I cannot speak for other alliances, but in Vikings, I have noticed an increase of folk using the comment boxes on the alliance defence page, as it seems to be more convenient to 'communicate' than popping on IRC.

My suggestion is to go a step further and have some sort of live chat widget box that allows members to communicate via a live feed. Similar to the current notes system on the defence page, but have it viewable on every alliance related page.

Currently, you need to expand a defence call, write your stuff in the note and click 'update note'. This can be quite tedious especially when viewing from a phone.

Planetarion needs to move to more browser based user friendly for users to communicate. Not only would this be more 'noob' friendly, but it'll be keeping up with the times.

Maybe make this feature available only to upgraded planets.

It's quite simple really, if you want to expand on the playerbase, you need to make it more noob friendly, and IRC is not noob friendly.

I have had 'noobs' apply to Vikings, where we have accepted them on a trial bases, but they ended up quitting because they couldn't get the hang of using IRC.

I have added a few examples, picked up from external websites, so you can get a better idea:

http://www.bestfreeonline.net/wp-con...Chatbutton.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...VwxLcqzGzAbRPg

[Korsan]

I once suggested a live feed box which is permanently visible on every menu of pa where people can also drop messages which then will be displayed like on a news ticker for everybody in the universe.
Set up a service like this with some pennies per sms and you also have an additional income for the game. And the best is: It is totally optional and doesn't interfer to gameplay.
Also the news about big battles and alliance relations or position changes between top players/alliances/galaxies can be displayed there, like some "intergalactical news feed".

The idea of having an alliance communication on related pages is also very nice and should be really considered.

I don't think stuff like this need to much time to add but then.. I am not a coder so I might be totally wrong there.

[Mzyxptlk]

I started listing some requirements that a replacement for IRC should satisfy. I had written down about half a dozen of them when I realized that "easy to use" was really not compatible with many of them.

A shoutbox could be used to supplement the SMS, WhatsApp, ingame mail, email, IRC and call systems we currently have in place. But not in a million years could PA Team write an easy to use replacement for IRC. Even if it were possible (I don't believe it is), it would require a massive time investment, and writing chat systems is really not PA's core business.

(Here's the list I started on: temporary and permanent channels, public and private channels, access levels within those channels, private messaging, persistent user names, a good API interface for bots, logging, etc. Oh, and easy to use.)

P.S. The main difficulty with implementing a shoutbox for PA is that it pretty much requires AJAXey pages that do not fully refresh when you hit buttons, because otherwise the shoutbox keeps disappearing. Could be somewhat solved with iframes, but ew.

[Influence]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I started listing some requirements that a replacement for IRC should satisfy. I had written down about half a dozen of them when I realized that "easy to use" was really not compatible with many of them.

A shoutbox could be used to supplement the SMS, WhatsApp, ingame mail, email, IRC and call systems we currently have in place. But not in a million years could PA Team write an easy to use replacement for IRC. Even if it were possible (I don't believe it is), it would require a massive time investment, and writing chat systems is really not PA's core business.

(Here's the list I started on: temporary and permanent channels, public and private channels, access levels within those channels, private messaging, persistent user names, a good API interface for bots, logging, etc. Oh, and easy to use.)

P.S. The main difficulty with implementing a shoutbox for PA is that it pretty much requires AJAXey pages that do not fully refresh when you hit buttons, because otherwise the shoutbox keeps disappearing. Could be somewhat solved with iframes, but ew.

tbh, there is no need to 'replace' irc... the shoutbox can link to any irc-channel just aswell. But like you said, creating this irc-connected shoutbox would be time intensive, and require a complete re-code of the UI to make pages partially refresh.

regardless, this would definitely have a big effect on the ability to keep more players around.

[Nitros]

Agreed. Also helps new players to see whats going on and gives them the option to ask question and be helped more easily.

[Forest]

Icq!