Chatting really lacks in Battlefield games

[Xoir]

Remember in CS when you died you'd be able to speak with the other dead players for the rest of the round? That was kind of nice. I know that CS is a different game, but creating a friendlier chatting atmosphere would be a good thing for BF2142, I have no doubt in my mind.

How are we to put the buddy list to use when every minute spent on the battlefield is spent, well, in battle?

How about a mere 30 seconds after a round for some "gg" or "damn, that was close" or "nice work, man, you did well." Maybe even some smack talk.

Any other ideas? Comments? Am I wrong to suggest this?

[CarbonFire]

Agree wholeheartedly.

Especially on Conquest, theres that 15 second aftershot where you just stare at one part of the map, yet can't chat or use VOIP to talk with anyone. I'm sure theres a REASON for this, but I agree that it detracts from any real sense of community or common shared experience.

BTW, you know you can send buddy requests in-game right?

[finc.hairy]

BTW, you know you can send buddy requests in-game right?

yea you can. you can't chat to buddies though without escaping but still. would be cool. though if you join a squad you can talk to everyone in there at least!

[mikeon]

There's always making the wait time 90 seconds so that everyone can talk.

Right now, I don't try to read the chat, it gets covered up in the radio messages from people tossing grenades asking for medics, or the commander spotting.

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

The real problem, as mikeon pointed out, is that the radio spam makes text disappear too quickly on a server with 32 or more people. The radio messages should have their own 3 lines to fill up and team, global and squad chat messages should have their own 4 or 5 lines to fill up. It couldn't possibly be that difficult to program but the way it is now makes chat all but useless.

[Xoir]

The real problem, as mikeon pointed out, is that the radio spam makes text disappear too quickly on a server with 32 or more people. The radio messages should have their own 3 lines to fill up and team, global and squad chat messages should have their own 4 or 5 lines to fill up. It couldn't possibly be that difficult to program but the way it is now makes chat all but useless.

Yup, that's another fine idea, but then you're left chatting while people are out to kill you. That's why I think the game should go on "pause" for a short time.

[Bommando]

hehe, the funny thing is, on our servers, we increased the round start timer to allow people to get into squads, have a plan of attack, assign kits and for a CO to have plenty of time to step up.

You know what the majority of chat is in the first minute?

"OMG, looooong start time."
"Wow, start already."
"ZZZZZzzzzzz....."
"Damn, WTF with the long start time?"
"Let's get this thing started."

It's like the game is full of retards on a meth rampage.

Needless to say, our start timer remains long and the mouth-breathers can play elsewhere.

[Revoluti0n]

Remember in CS when you died you'd be able to speak with the other dead players for the rest of the round? That was kind of nice. I know that CS is a different game, but creating a friendlier chatting atmosphere would be a good thing for BF2142, I have no doubt in my mind.

How are we to put the buddy list to use when every minute spent on the battlefield is spent, well, in battle?

How about a mere 30 seconds after a round for some "gg" or "damn, that was close" or "nice work, man, you did well." Maybe even some smack talk.

Any other ideas? Comments? Am I wrong to suggest this?

CS is a completely different game, once you are dead you don't respawn.
Instead you have to wait until someone resuces the hosties, defuses the bomb, or dies.

BF2/2142 differs in that you keep going until the tickets are all done. So, based on this, there is little time to just sit and talk. I mean, you are playing a game after all and NOT sitting in a chat room right?

A possible solution would be to download teamspeak and/or ventrilo and play on servers that use either or and ask to join them.

[Deesies]

First they need to seperate text chat from the radio spam box. Anything typed is almost always shoved off the "page" by radio commands.

End game comments should come back for sure.

[bman427]

People use voip now days.

[vbl]

Battlefield 2142 doesn't have the downtime that CS does, but there's still a lot of chatter - it's just among friends over VoIP.

[finc.hairy]

I'm amazed at the number of people that don't use mics or headsets in this game. Like wow!

[WarGimp]

I do wish you could continue to yap to your squadmates during the "cool down" period. Ya know, when the Titan is blowing up or during that static shot of some part o the map.

I'm really not sure why in-game VoiP gets shut down the moment victory is declared. Maybe it has something to do with reducing the burden on the server while it sends the round's stats up to the master server?

On a tangent, I also wish that on servers that auto-swap sides, it would leave squads in-tact. That really wouldn't be hard to do. Save a temp variable with the player IDs and squad name in it, switch sides, assign players back to their squads, delete the variable. Done and doner.

[Bommando]

On a tangent, I also wish that on servers that auto-swap sides, it would leave squads in-tact. That really wouldn't be hard to do. Save a temp variable with the player IDs and squad name in it, switch sides, assign players back to their squads, delete the variable. Done and doner.

I remember a DICE representative stating that team swapping was not a built-in feature, but a custom script used in conjunction with 2142CC. Maybe a part of Mod Manager.

Thus, while it's not hard-coded into the server software, anyone with good Python knowledge should potentially be able to code this in. Not that you'd necessarily want to, since even the existing feature is prone to bugs, where people sometimes cannot leave a squad and you see a few 7 or 8 man squads.

[Aedus]

hehe, the funny thing is, on our servers, we increased the round start timer to allow people to get into squads, have a plan of attack, assign kits and for a CO to have plenty of time to step up.

You know what the majority of chat is in the first minute?

"OMG, looooong start time."
"Wow, start already."
"ZZZZZzzzzzz....."
"Damn, WTF with the long start time?"
"Let's get this thing started."

It's like the game is full of retards on a meth rampage.

Needless to say, our start timer remains long and the mouth-breathers can play elsewhere.

Aye i've played on your server, it's a good-un

I had a nice time between rounds for a piss and a drink (Not at the same time obviously)

[dbec1]

I was thinking it would be great if they could add optional chat windows for sqaud only, general chat, then tactical chat(granada!) I know the screen is already clustered, but optional is the key word.

[nutcrackr]

never really played bf games to chat. Sometimes there might be a conversation about the lag, or hackers or team killers but usually I play on servers with players that kill each other. CS is a very chatty game because it hasn't got the amount of stuff you can do in bf. Also once you die chatting keeps it interesting.

[The Auriga]

I'm amazed at the number of people that don't use mics or headsets in this game. Like wow!

I can barely make out what people are saying most of the time. And what I do hear is either German or swearing/insults. I'd use my mic but I'm worried that no-one will be able to make out what I'm saying.

[RAZE]

I don't talk to anyone at all during the game, and it sucks! I'm so used to playing Halo 2 competitively and calling out positions. Not only would it build a sense of community, but actually being able to talk to your teamates (don't say anything about VOIP) during combat would strategically add a whole new element instead of just hearing "Need medic!" over and over and over.

[WarGimp]

(don't say anything about VOIP)
Why?

Seems to me that if you aren't using the tools available, you really don't have anything to complain about.

[themafia897]

First they need to seperate text chat from the radio spam box. Anything typed is almost always shoved off the "page" by radio commands.

End game comments should come back for sure.

I agree with the End game comments, but how would it be possible to seperate chat from radio spam box? I view the radio spam box as important, but it does take away from the community sense of the game. However in CS i don't recall seeing 32v32 maps and in bf2142 especially like camp gibraltar, standing open for 10 seconds to type something is a high chance of being killed quick, then you respawn in the same surrounding of chaos, it's almost impossible to take a breather in that game like you can in CS (when you're dead or when it's 1v1 on like de_aztec)
I think the only way for the "community" sense to come back is through people using teamspeak in squads more often which would be cutting out the swearing/reactionary talk and focus more on the pragmatics on what is best for your squad/team. Other than that, that's what forums and clans are for right? Coming back and talking about the blast you had the other night.

[Vreki]

There's always making the wait time 90 seconds so that everyone can talk.


Yes, and then we can watch some ads while we wait :rolleyes:

If I wanted to chat, I would join a chatroom. (or a forum ;) )
As others have said the amount of action prevents you from typing much, and that is the way I like it.
Compulsive chatters can always refuse to spawn, but it don't think many will be interested in a conversation anyway.

If they make a pre/post game lobby that is fine, but do not add extra downtime just so we can sit in a circle holding hands.

[Badboris_uk]

I have played on the server with the really long pre-game time, and I loved it. Gave me time to have a bong before the game began.

good idea :D