I wanted to share a few Rookie pilots experience with the UI.
Two very green pilots wanted to completely hide the chat window and was curious why this would show up when logging in. I advised it does that for the first 30 days, per the same Q&A I’ve seen posted in the channel Rookie Help. So there was at least 3 people looking to completely hide the chat window.
This rookie, me, I’ve played EVE a bit in the past and returning to the game again. Let me show my layout. example_layout.png - Google Drive
You can see I’m doing the 5 starting Career Agent missions, so I’m in one of the starter systems. Note how I have Local. I don’t see Local as a useful way to communicate and hide the ability todo so (unless I can type in that rectangle bottom of the window, untested). To me Local is just for spamming wts in Jita or trolling. But Just found out from a steam forum chat about hiding the chat window, that PvE does comms in Local. If that’s true, I listed my take bottom of this post and hope the new UI accommodates:
dude
the local chat is used in eve to avoid being turbo ■■■■■■
some old players even put the local window separated from other chats occupying a HUGE part of the screen
local chat + Dscam are the only intel you ever need not to suck at eve
i know its ugly
but is a part of the gameplay and you will have to deal with it
my suggestion is to set it so it just show names …
I’m curious about what Shotgun said there, is it true what he said about NPCs?
The local chat window isn’t just for chat. It’s an intelligence tool that lets you see what players are with you in system, and it’s also a way for certain NPCs (not just players) to communicate with you. Disabling it would lead to severe deficiencies in gameplay, which is why it’s one of those UI elements that can’t be removed permanently.
No actual real newbie would want rookie chat to go away. There’s simply no reason for it and since they don’t have a bunch of chat tabs yet it doesn’t affect them.
The only ones wanting it gone are people who are used to playing and they can’t handle something new (so they’re not new players) or ones who have so many chat tabs it gets difficult to figure out which is which (so not new players 99% of the time).
And yes, local is very important for various reasons.
Another sometimes-useful thing that shows in local is your list of system changes. I’ve had to backtrack my path a couple times for various reasons, and the “System changed to: X” type notices there were a handy quick reference.
> Message > This is a distress call to anyone listening in the vicinity! We are a Guristas research and trading facility that’s under heavy attack! Please come to our aid before lives are lost!
Frostpacker witnesses such npc communication in local.
Yes hiding local chat is a new thing and it could eliminate the ability to see NPC messages like that one. I do feel hiding local chat is important, due to the spam. Again I’m not hiding local players in local, just the messages that players send in local. Why is mostly due to the spam in local that I’ve no way at all to stop.
The second highest comment I believe is to eliminate local spam. Both suggestions would fix my issue in the OP, unsure about other pilots issues with having is visible.
