Devs' Response to no Text Chat on Console Version

Dorjee

Let me start with the usual disclaimer spiel. I am not a minion sent by Sheogorath to troll. I love this game and appreciate all the work the devs have done. I have played a number of MMOs, and ESO is my favorite (and by far the best in my opinion). This is just my response to the devs’ response re having no text chat on the console version of the game.

On REDDIT's XB1 ESO Q&A thingy, ZOS_Sage (Creative Director) said, amongst other things:

”Text chat wasn’t added to the consoles because of a number of factors. First, many of our early tests demonstrated what we already knew: it can be cumbersome to type in a text chat with a controller, especially when time counts.”

RESPONE: Whilst I accept the ‘it can be cumbersome’ point, however, this point is only valid subject to what an individual player is doing at the time of typing. Further, I do not recall FFXIV: ARR players ever complaining about this issue (nor complaints from Neverwinter players on XB1 or DCOU on PS4). It would seem that the results of your ‘early tests’ are somewhat subjective.

“This is why we decided to make sure VOIP was integrated into the game from the beginning and why we added our quick chat feature.”

RESPONSE: First, the voice chat feature is very temperamental, and when it is down, one has to resort to using XB1’s/PS4’s internal party-chat function – this process in itself is ‘cumbersome.’ Secondly, the quick chat feature is extremely limited, and, in my view, even adding more popular MMO phrases won’t help, the quick chat feature is redundant and artificial (trust me, I’ve seen it in action). Thirdly, and most importantly, you could simply have both systems (text chat and voice chat) run alongside each other – with an option to toggle them on or off.

”…displaying text for an environment such as couch and TV requires larger fonts. Having small, almost unreadable text is very problematic. A chat window, typical on a PC, just doesn’t translate as well to a living room environment. Having a chat window that was useful, as in legible, meant it was so big it was covering up lots of other elements. These and a few other factors meant we concentrated more on VOIP and Quick Chat. They were the most reliable and best means of communication in the living room environment.”

RESPONSE: Again, referring to my first response, no complaints from FFXIV: ARR players (or players from other MMOs on console). Whilst in my opinion, ESO is a FAR MORE SUPERIOR game than FFXIV: ARR, the reason I mention it is because it is still a somewhat successful MMO on the console, and therefore, Zeni should look to them as an example re certain MMO gaming elements: borrow the good things and perfect them (just like the Ancient Greeks did!) Further, FFXIV: ARR is not that far removed from ESO’s own MMO history. Original FFXIV and ESO had shaky starts, then - BOOM! - like magic, we have the new, improved and polished FXIV: ARR and TESO: TU (and just to add, during the whole of FFXIV: ARR’s rise to success, no one has ever said, (including players from other console MMOs): 'I am going to stop playing this game because I cannot see the chat window from my living-room couch').

”Is it possible we could have a text chat? Yes. Will we? I don’t think we can safely say one way or another. It probably is safe to say if we add a more text centric way to chat it won’t be a straight chat window.”

RESPONSE: This is the most cryptic, evasive, Member of Parliament answer I have ever read!

”Also, please make sure you mute your Kinect when you don't want to be heard by everyone.”

RESPONSE: I play on the PS4, but I agree.

Look, to start with I just simply could not understand why the devs of this game refuse to give what the majority of players (PC transferees and fresh console players alike) have been requesting – I even started to think that the devs weren’t able to implement text chat to the console version for coding reasons etc.

However, after reflecting on the devs' above response, and that terrible ‘ESO Tony commercial,’ I now see that the devs envisioned everyone on console, relaxing on a couch, happily running around communicating (maturely) via voice chat. Sadly, that dream has not come to fruition.

Just give the players what they have been overwhelmingly requesting. But if you (the devs) are really adamant on having voice chat in game, and only adding text chat in a limited way, then, 1) at least please make sure the voice chat system that you so desperately want to work, operates flawlessly; and 2) perhaps, meet players halfway and restrict text chat to major cities?

If the main reason a fully functioning text chat will not be introduced to work alongside voice chat is because of the living-room couch point, then in my view, that argument is untenable, in light of my above points.

Lastly, while I am posting this, please let us see character names and not Gamertags.

Many thanks.

Ojustaboo

Agree 100 %

DC Universe on my PS4, text is easy to use with controller and easily viable from my sofa.

Personally my only big issue is faction wide communication in Cyrodiil, the group leaders at least, need a way of talking to each other without leaving their individual group voice chat.

Dorjee

Ojustaboo wrote: »

Agree 100 %

DC Universe on my PS4, text is easy to use with controller and easily viable from my sofa.

Personally my only big issue is faction wide communication in Cyrodiil, the group leaders at least, need a way of talking to each other without leaving their individual group voice chat.

I completely forgot about DCOU. I've now mentioned it in my original post.

I absolutely agree with you re communication in Cyrodiil.

Kaide

FFXIV and Neverwinter prove it should be done. I personally think it just came down to them preferring to spend the time/energy/resources into something else. Saying players can't read the text chat window is ridiculous considering that almost every TV screen is significantly larger than a monitor. They had another reason for not adding it in...and I doubt they'll ever tell us.

For just $20...you can plug a keyboard into your PS4 or XBOX controller. This isn't as difficult as these companies lead us to believe.

SURxR3AL

i played DCUO for about 2-3 years and i had not one problem with the text chat in that game. i found it easy and helpful..and to go back to the "cumbersome" question...im not going to be texting in the middle of battle..im going to do it in town when im looking for someone to group with for a dungeon or lets say im at the dungeon and no one is there so i send out a text on the "world" tab and so everyone in that region can see it or send it in my "guild" tab or there could even be the old "say" tabs and "shout" tabs. text chat is so simple to use and very gamer friendly...if you dont want a text chat window, put in the options menu for a toggle on and toggle off. problem solved..CHECK AND MATE

MornaBaine

ZoS, since this game started, has shown a marked resistance to implementing player requests. A few things get in now and again but the list of long running and popular player wants has, for the most part, been largely ignored. We PC players have crankily blamed much of this on you Console folk, who seem to have been their sole focus for over half the life of this game so far. So it's "interesting" to see your wants get ignored, too. I guess we can say that at least ZoS is consistent. LOL

Yasha

Good response from the devs, makes a lot of sense.

Kaide

Yasha wrote: »

Good response from the devs, makes a lot of sense.

Was this sarcasm? Because text chat already works in other console games...so no it does not make sense at all from any angle. Also, they left us with they might or might not do it....meaning they finished with a political presidential answer by not answering anything. This is why so many Americans think politicians are so good at answering questions...people like this guy sit in amazement as they dance their way out of answering questions but making everything appear like it was "done for the benefit of the masses"....in reality they just didn't want to do it for their own reasons.

"We didn't add in text chat because we thought about the players first! By not giving the players extra content and decreasing the amount of time we worked on the game...we were actually doing them all a favor! Furthermore...we have no idea if we will or will not add it in the future...this way we don't get cornered into answering questions!" -ESO Dev

"OMG...THE DEVS ANSWERED AMAZINGLY!!!! " -Average Player

bertenburnyb16_ESO

while I was sitting on my striped senche in the starter city day of release, I got multiple PS4 messages of where I got it from,
while I was on the area VIOP, not a single person contacted me via that, only thing I heard there was nonsense and backgroundnoises of people's rooms.

fact that they let it out and only included voip since some testers didnt like it is very dumb, they should have atleast leave people the choise to use textchat

StaticWax

Yasha wrote: »

Good response from the devs, makes a lot of sense.

QFT.

Keep fighting the good fight, Zeni.

Azrael008uk

To Zenimax Online Studio's credit the U.I. is so fast it makes your head spin.

Also... you can chat with other players... and you could do this on Day 1 and considering how much the servers were being hammered by high volumes that's a HUGE achievement on the part of the developers.

I know you want in game Text Chant on console but that's probably because it's what you're used to.

Perhaps it would have been more useful to have some sort of "Communications Tutorial" with the console version of the game.

Besides letting people know stuff like "The Kinect is broadcasting your entire living room conversation to the Game World" it ensure everyone knew the best ways to communicate with their fellow gamers.

I can live without Text Chat myself because it's such a massive distraction to playing the game... I might as well just broadcast on Twitch.

I understand that you're used to Text Chat and want it. Don't let that overshadow the tools they have put in place for you though.

Korah_Eaglecry

Dorjee wrote: »

Let me start with the usual disclaimer spiel. I am not a minion sent by Sheogorath to troll. I love this game and appreciate all the work the devs have done. I have played a number of MMOs, and ESO is my favorite (and by far the best in my opinion). This is just my response to the devs’ response re having no text chat on the console version of the game.

On REDDIT's XB1 ESO Q&A thingy, ZOS_Sage (Creative Director) said, amongst other things:

”Text chat wasn’t added to the consoles because of a number of factors. First, many of our early tests demonstrated what we already knew: it can be cumbersome to type in a text chat with a controller, especially when time counts.”

RESPONE: Whilst I accept the ‘it can be cumbersome’ point, however, this point is only valid subject to what an individual player is doing at the time of typing. Further, I do not recall FFXIV: ARR players ever complaining about this issue (nor complaints from Neverwinter players on XB1 or DCOU on PS4). It would seem that the results of your ‘early tests’ are somewhat subjective.

“This is why we decided to make sure VOIP was integrated into the game from the beginning and why we added our quick chat feature.”

RESPONSE: First, the voice chat feature is very temperamental, and when it is down, one has to resort to using XB1’s/PS4’s internal party-chat function – this process in itself is ‘cumbersome.’ Secondly, the quick chat feature is extremely limited, and, in my view, even adding more popular MMO phrases won’t help, the quick chat feature is redundant and artificial (trust me, I’ve seen it in action). Thirdly, and most importantly, you could simply have both systems (text chat and voice chat) run alongside each other – with an option to toggle them on or off.

”…displaying text for an environment such as couch and TV requires larger fonts. Having small, almost unreadable text is very problematic. A chat window, typical on a PC, just doesn’t translate as well to a living room environment. Having a chat window that was useful, as in legible, meant it was so big it was covering up lots of other elements. These and a few other factors meant we concentrated more on VOIP and Quick Chat. They were the most reliable and best means of communication in the living room environment.”

RESPONSE: Again, referring to my first response, no complaints from FFXIV: ARR players (or players from other MMOs on console). Whilst in my opinion, ESO is a FAR MORE SUPERIOR game than FFXIV: ARR, the reason I mention it is because it is still a somewhat successful MMO on the console, and therefore, Zeni should look to them as an example re certain MMO gaming elements: borrow the good things and perfect them (just like the Ancient Greeks did!) Further, FFXIV: ARR is not that far removed from ESO’s own MMO history. Original FFXIV and ESO had shaky starts, then - BOOM! - like magic, we have the new, improved and polished FXIV: ARR and TESO: TU (and just to add, during the whole of FFXIV: ARR’s rise to success, no one has ever said, (including players from other console MMOs): 'I am going to stop playing this game because I cannot see the chat window from my living-room couch').

”Is it possible we could have a text chat? Yes. Will we? I don’t think we can safely say one way or another. It probably is safe to say if we add a more text centric way to chat it won’t be a straight chat window.”

RESPONSE: This is the most cryptic, evasive, Member of Parliament answer I have ever read!

”Also, please make sure you mute your Kinect when you don't want to be heard by everyone.”

RESPONSE: I play on the PS4, but I agree.

Look, to start with I just simply could not understand why the devs of this game refuse to give what the majority of players (PC transferees and fresh console players alike) have been requesting – I even started to think that the devs weren’t able to implement text chat to the console version for coding reasons etc.

However, after reflecting on the devs' above response, and that terrible ‘ESO Tony commercial,’ I now see that the devs envisioned everyone on console, relaxing on a couch, happily running around communicating (maturely) via voice chat. Sadly, that dream has not come to fruition.

Just give the players what they have been overwhelmingly requesting. But if you (the devs) are really adamant on having voice chat in game, and only adding text chat in a limited way, then, 1) at least please make sure the voice chat system that you so desperately want to work, operates flawlessly; and 2) perhaps, meet players halfway and restrict text chat to major cities?

If the main reason a fully functioning text chat will not be introduced to work alongside voice chat is because of the living-room couch point, then in my view, that argument is untenable, in light of my above points.

Lastly, while I am posting this, please let us see character names and not Gamertags.

Many thanks.

I hope you get many upvotes of Awesome with this post. Couldnt of said it better myself. Ill regularly come back and bump this thread because if anything will drive it home for the Devs. Its consistent reminders of what they failed to provide.

TequilaFire

LOL, I have a Razer Blackwidow and a small wireless keyboard I use with my PS4.

Kaide

Azrael008uk wrote: »

I can live without Text Chat myself because it's such a massive distraction to playing the game... I might as well just broadcast on Twitch.

I understand that you're used to Text Chat and want it. Don't let that overshadow the tools they have put in place for you though.

Text chat is a distraction to this guy....not the preteen boy screaming at his mom for more cookies in zone chat....or the 2 kids fighting over whose horse looks cooler....those are less of a distraction to this guy than typed words

BuggeX

MornaBaine wrote: »

ZoS, since this game started, has shown a marked resistance to implementing player requests. A few things get in now and again but the list of long running and popular player wants has, for the most part, been largely ignored. We PC players have crankily blamed much of this on you Console folk, who seem to have been their sole focus for over half the life of this game so far. So it's "interesting" to see your wants get ignored, too. I guess we can say that at least ZoS is consistent. LOL

zos should stop doing stuff wath the flamer wants, allready ruined the difficult of the game

Korah_Eaglecry

BuggeX wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

ZoS, since this game started, has shown a marked resistance to implementing player requests. A few things get in now and again but the list of long running and popular player wants has, for the most part, been largely ignored. We PC players have crankily blamed much of this on you Console folk, who seem to have been their sole focus for over half the life of this game so far. So it's "interesting" to see your wants get ignored, too. I guess we can say that at least ZoS is consistent. LOL

zos should stop doing stuff wath the flamer wants, allready ruined the difficult of the game

Are you even speaking english?

Amiculi

You mean they have communication on consoles?

I went at great length on my Beta survey how important it was to have text chat in every field that let me include text. The need for somewhere people can ask questions, so that server messages don't disappear before you can read them or you aren't taken unaware when the servers go down because you weren't looking when the restart warning popped, to find groups, to find trade guilds, to buy and sell outside trade guilds and on and on. No text chat on any MMO is just baffling. But they point to Destiny, the game that requires you contact people on third party sites to organize groups, as opposed to just letting players communicate in the game.

Again, they have communications? I mute Area Chat the moment I log in and that's that. Exactly as I stated I would in the survey. And I'm sure a lot of us do the same. Like any other large scale game with open voice chat, the few times I forget to mute it I"m just greeted with tuberculotic choking, incessant crying, echoing game sounds and an unending stream of profanity, so I turn it back off.

Of those the only thing that doesn't bother me is the profanity but I don't need it being belted out of my TV loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Voice chat is fine for groups, but text chat is important for every other aspect where immediate communication isn't as important. I'm sure it won't harm the game much but huge swaths of the playerbase will be very annoyed with it. And ZoS will remain completely silent on the issue, or dodge the question, or state that "surveys said that this is great, players love it!" Where are these players and why do they matter above everyone else? We're not arguing that you turn voice chat off exclusively for text chat, people want options and denying that option is just being obtuse, especially when the systems clearly already existed.

And let's not forget the other night when the voice servers were offline for like four hours. Yeah, that was the future, that was fine, that covered all the communications needs. /s

Azrael008uk

Kaide wrote: »

Text chat is a distraction to this guy....not the preteen boy screaming at his mom for more cookies in zone chat....or the 2 kids fighting over whose horse looks cooler....those are less of a distraction to this guy than typed words

They're both equally distracting.

So if you're used to using text chat but find squealing kids annoying you now have an idea how annoying your favourite form of in game communication can be to those who don't wish to be burdened with it.

That being said you can mute the kids. If text chat was there for those that want it I'll admit I'd even end up using it sometimes.

BuggeX

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

BuggeX wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

ZoS, since this game started, has shown a marked resistance to implementing player requests. A few things get in now and again but the list of long running and popular player wants has, for the most part, been largely ignored. We PC players have crankily blamed much of this on you Console folk, who seem to have been their sole focus for over half the life of this game so far. So it's "interesting" to see your wants get ignored, too. I guess we can say that at least ZoS is consistent. LOL

zos should stop doing stuff wath the flamer wants, allready ruined the difficult of the game

Are you even speaking english?

yes, acutally being able to communicate in 4 language

Thumbdunked

Azrael008uk wrote: »

To Zenimax Online Studio's credit the U.I. is so fast it makes your head spin.

Also... you can chat with other players... and you could do this on Day 1 and considering how much the servers were being hammered by high volumes that's a HUGE achievement on the part of the developers.

I know you want in game Text Chant on console but that's probably because it's what you're used to.

Perhaps it would have been more useful to have some sort of "Communications Tutorial" with the console version of the game.

Besides letting people know stuff like "The Kinect is broadcasting your entire living room conversation to the Game World" it ensure everyone knew the best ways to communicate with their fellow gamers.

I can live without Text Chat myself because it's such a massive distraction to playing the game... I might as well just broadcast on Twitch.

I understand that you're used to Text Chat and want it. Don't let that overshadow the tools they have put in place for you though.

I dont think we want it just because we are use to it, if im looking to buy stacks of ore for crafting idont want to have to run around like a mad man trying to yell over the mouth breathers to find a seller when a simple text message sent in trade chat would be so much easier and faster.

Korah_Eaglecry

Azrael008uk wrote: »

Kaide wrote: »

Text chat is a distraction to this guy....not the preteen boy screaming at his mom for more cookies in zone chat....or the 2 kids fighting over whose horse looks cooler....those are less of a distraction to this guy than typed words

They're both equally distracting.

So if you're used to using text chat but find squealing kids annoying you now have an idea how annoying your favourite form of in game communication can be to those who don't wish to be burdened with it.

That being said you can mute the kids. If text chat was there for those that want it I'll admit I'd even end up using it sometimes.

Isnt the Window for Text Chat adjustable? So this is a nonissue that youre trying to reason because of your annoyance with text chat...That those who want it should somehow ponder what you went through?

Heres a shocker special snowflake. The world doesnt revolve around you. And no one cares that youre annoyed with text.

BuggeX

Thumbdunked wrote: »

Azrael008uk wrote: »

To Zenimax Online Studio's credit the U.I. is so fast it makes your head spin.

Also... you can chat with other players... and you could do this on Day 1 and considering how much the servers were being hammered by high volumes that's a HUGE achievement on the part of the developers.

I know you want in game Text Chant on console but that's probably because it's what you're used to.

Perhaps it would have been more useful to have some sort of "Communications Tutorial" with the console version of the game.

Besides letting people know stuff like "The Kinect is broadcasting your entire living room conversation to the Game World" it ensure everyone knew the best ways to communicate with their fellow gamers.

I can live without Text Chat myself because it's such a massive distraction to playing the game... I might as well just broadcast on Twitch.

I understand that you're used to Text Chat and want it. Don't let that overshadow the tools they have put in place for you though.

I dont think we want it just because we are use to it, if im looking to buy stacks of ore for crafting idont want to have to run around like a mad man trying to yell over the mouth breathers to find a seller when a simple text message sent in trade chat would be so much easier and faster.

you could just go to the guildmarkets insteed of yelling around, would help the trading guilds with some taxes and would allow that the big one get some

edit: Korah_Eaglecry And no one cares that youre annoyed without text.

Thumbdunked

I dont use the guild stores because they are over priced a majority of the time and might not even be selling what i am looking for.

Xendyn

This is what we call Zospeak. Let me offer a translation...

We couldn't do it/ran out of time to do it/didn't want to do it and don't have addon authors to do it for us, so we'll throw an answer out there that says nothing and hope it goes away.

I'm behind you guys on this because I know this game and I know how awkward it will make some aspects of it being restricted to voice only. Mainly tho, because in my time of gaming (I'm 54) I have known several awesome players that were deaf/hearing impaired. Restricting this game on console to voice only will pretty much make this a single player game for them, severely limiting their ability to do dungeons (particularly Vet ones), Cyrodiil, Trials and DSA all of which need Some form of ability to communicate and coordinate.

Nobody is asking to Replace voice here, just add another communication option.
Options and choices are a Good thing.

Amiculi

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Azrael008uk wrote: »

Kaide wrote: »

Text chat is a distraction to this guy....not the preteen boy screaming at his mom for more cookies in zone chat....or the 2 kids fighting over whose horse looks cooler....those are less of a distraction to this guy than typed words

They're both equally distracting.

So if you're used to using text chat but find squealing kids annoying you now have an idea how annoying your favourite form of in game communication can be to those who don't wish to be burdened with it.

That being said you can mute the kids. If text chat was there for those that want it I'll admit I'd even end up using it sometimes.

Isnt the Window for Text Chat adjustable? So this is a nonissue that youre trying to reason because of your annoyance with text chat...That those who want it should somehow ponder what you went through?

Heres a shocker special snowflake. The world doesnt revolve around you. And no one cares that youre annoyed with text.

Yeah, on PC you could resize the windows, create new tabs, change the filters of content between tabs. My solution was to have the default tab and a second tab that simply removed the Zone chat. Kept all the personal chat there and I added NPC dialog to it so I could tell what they were actually saying when they run off during a quest.

So long as there's filters there's no issue there either, if it's an option the voice chatters can filter out all text chat, the text chatters can mute voice chat. Perfect world of people avoiding the other people they don't want to deal with.

Too perfect for a Bethesda branded game obviously.

BigM

LOL so a person can use a small cell phone and text and read fine all day long. Yet on a screen 50 times bigger can't be read from a few feet away from a chair. Sorry his answers make no sense at all.

Pallmor

Dorjee wrote: »

”Text chat wasn’t added to the consoles because of a number of factors. First, many of our early tests demonstrated what we already knew: it can be cumbersome to type in a text chat with a controller, especially when time counts.”

“This is why we decided to make sure VOIP was integrated into the game from the beginning and why we added our quick chat feature.”

”…displaying text for an environment such as couch and TV requires larger fonts. Having small, almost unreadable text is very problematic. A chat window, typical on a PC, just doesn’t translate as well to a living room environment. Having a chat window that was useful, as in legible, meant it was so big it was covering up lots of other elements. These and a few other factors meant we concentrated more on VOIP and Quick Chat. They were the most reliable and best means of communication in the living room environment.”

”Is it possible we could have a text chat? Yes. Will we? I don’t think we can safely say one way or another. It probably is safe to say if we add a more text centric way to chat it won’t be a straight chat window.”

”Also, please make sure you mute your Kinect when you don't want to be heard by everyone.”

The proper PR response should have been a lot shorter: "We realize that a lot of fans are asking for text chat and push-to-talk features. We've heard you, and we're looking into adding those features in with future updates." Two short sentences that could have dealt with the issue directly and conclusively.

Thumbdunked

BigM wrote: »

LOL so a person can use a small cell phone and text and read fine all day long. Yet on a screen 50 times bigger can't be read from a few feet away from a chair. Sorry his answers make no sense at all.

Agreed im currently posting from my ps4's webbrowser sitting about 4 meters back and can see the text fine.

AdamBourke

So... we can't read a text log becuase it is too small...

But we ARE supposed to be able to read quick chat text bubbles, which may be moving on screen, or not be on screen at all because our camera is pointed in a different direction? Not to mention they give very little in the way of conversational possibilities...

Amiculi

AdamBourke wrote: »

So... we can't read a text log becuase it is too small...

But we ARE supposed to be able to read quick chat text bubbles, which may be moving on screen, or not be on screen at all because our camera is pointed in a different direction? Not to mention they give very little in the way of conversational possibilities...

Take care of the adds!

jgfuntime

Really put off by the dev response. What do they think UI scale and sliders are for? TO adjust for those this don't fit in this space issues. I am using a kb on ffxiv for past 2 years and before that on ffxi for over 7 all on pc or ps4 and never having issues reading text. I set my chat window font to 12 for pc monitor and if on tv I set it to 14 or 16. That's plenty at 1080p to read text. And, the larger the tv at 1080p the larger the text window gets automatically. IT scales with the larger screen. No reason to not give us a chat window. I had a run last night , banishing cells, kept on dieing and the big problem I had was , being the only one on a chat headset and everyone else running around like a deaf mute. If I had a chat box then there be no excuse for them not saying a word. WTF zoz. Plz give us a chat box and make sure it uses a kb interface not just heads up controller.