In-Game Communication
Authors:
In order to support an immersive gaming experience, I think we need to support a number of different communication mediums:
- Instant Messaging
- Forums/Bulletin Boards
- Announcements
- Newswire
- Trade
E-Mail support is needed for battle reports and notifications when the player is offline. Given the bent towards both manual and automatic fleet movements I think e-mail notifications of commander actions are vital. Sidenote:I think we should only allow automatic battle when sufficient tech is reached. There's a fine balance between playing the game and watching the game.
Instant Messaging
IM would give players the ability to chat with each other in an in- formal way. It would facilitate battle coordination as game commands would be present in the same interface. It would also provide a higher degree of privacy for players as they wouldn't have to share their real IM names if they didn't want to.
Issue: Best platform for P2P chat?
Forums
Forums give players a place to store information on a long-term basis. They should be available for all paying players and guilds.
Issue: phpBB or something more integrated?
Announcements
Announcements would come in the form of popup messages or a scroller. This would provide fast notification to guild members of an engagement in the event that the affected player is not online. Configurable by the player to determine which messages are received.
Newswire
Newswire would be a digest version of the announcements.
Trade
Trade messaging would notify players when trade agreements are nearing expiration or have been changed by the other party. Trade messages would be stored separately for easy access.
