Hello,
Automatic system messages sometimes open windows in your user interface that cover the ones you are using - and this can mislead players.
Tonight I had an instance of an automated roleplay/mission “alert” message covering my Local Chat window. They looked “the same”, and this made me make unfortunate choices.
Looking very similar (red on black text on the left, just one player in the room on the right) it is less than inmediate to distinguish these auto-opening windows from the Local Chat - which is widely used as the first awarness system in all the sectors that don’t hide the players-present list.
It’s not about salt for losing a ship (there’s salt, but it’s not about it) and it is definitely not about the ganking player’s actions: it is about agency and control on your experience as a player.
The specific case was about a Chat Window from EDENCOM warning me about a Sansha’s Nation incursion as I entered the low-sec system in which the incursion is. It covered my local chat window perfectly, convincing me I was alone in the system: that’s why I didn’t even try to cloak/MWD trick my way through a camped gate. I got ganked by one of the 65 players in the “empty” system.
It’s not my first ship lost, it is not even the biggest isk-loss of this year.
But it would be as easy as to apply a different color to the auto-opening windows, or some blinking if there is some “sacrality”/brand-recognition issue in the all black style of the interface.
To add insult to the injury, the contest of the auto-message was a safety alert - I got a lot of salt about getting killed by a “safety alert”, lol.
Cheers!
So if I understand correctly the incursion chat channel automatically opened, covered your local chat channel and gave you the false impression you were alone in the system, which lead to your death?
Oops, I can see how that happens!
Here’s a tip:
Drag your local chat out of your other chat windows.
You could have a separate tab for every channel, but personally I only keep local chat separate for exactly the reason you use it for: to keep an eye on possible threats in my local system.
Unlike my other chat channels I use local chat more for intel rather than for chatting, so where my other chat tab with many channels is low and wide for easy reading my local chat tab is narrow and tall to fit many names.
How this helps?
Incursion chat channels only ever pop up covering my main chat tab where all my other chat channels are; my local chat is unobstructed as always.
Give it a try!
Hello Gerard!
Thanks for the tip, and for being there trying to help strangers!
I’m already doing that though, separating Local from other chats.
This System Alert chat opened in front of the other separated tab in my screen’s lower left corner, where I keep the Local separated window.
My point is: make the window another color, make it blink a bit to make sure the player you are “helping” and “roleplaying with” actually recognize the message as what it is, and not as Local. Another good way to relay those mission/roleplay messages could be leaving them in the Opportunities window or in the Mission/Resources one with the nearby combat sites and the like.
Again, cheers everybody!
EDIT: typo
The point is, pay attention to the game.
We don’t need everything flashing every time something happens.