The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
Maintenance for the week of April 15:
• [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – April 16, 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC) - 6:00PM EDT (22:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – April 16, 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC) - 6:00PM EDT (22:00 UTC)
Messages and Notes: Too Short.
I do a fair bit of roleplay in ESO, and I am becoming intensely frustrated with some limitations that would be very easy to remove. They chiefly concern the amount of information that we can put into a single message.
First, the maximum length of mail messages is far too short. You're stuck in Stros M'Kai, and your friend is posted to Coldharbor. You want to keep up whatever's going on between you. And the program gives you what? a paragraph and a half per letter. Not only that, personal messages are trashed after three days.This is silly. Plain text takes up almost no space to store and transmit, unlike graphics. The ESO world has many similarities to the eighteenth and nineteenth century environments in RW history that produced some of the world's greatest letter-writing. If a player wants to go on for a page or two, this should be possible. And if a player wants to save texts (within limits), this should be possible as well. The strange thing is that ESO has gone to the trouble of making up very interesting ongoing narratives for some of its suppliers, but then insists on forcing us to lose them, through message expiry and mailbox limitations.
A change here would also be to the benefit of our long-suffering guild officers. Guild "paperwork" can be complex, especially if the officers want to be as helpful as possible. They shouldn't have to cut up anything beyond the Grade 3 level into multiple little bits before they can send it out, and then have it all disappear almost at once.
Second, the maximum length of descriptive notes on the roster is far too short. We have a maximum of eight characters in play at any one time. For myself, four or so of these are experiments or mules, but the other four are all RP-capable. But I can hardly list their names before I run out of room on the roster note. What gives? Again, it would take up almost no computer space to quadruple or quintuple the length of plain text available, so that the explanatory note actually explained something instead of ending "...and other guys too."
Oh, and could we have a simple "reply" button added to mail messages as well? If there's one there, I've missed it. The option to "send mail" should be added to the dropdown menu available when right-clicking a name in guild chat as well, not just to the right-click menu in the guild roster.
Attention to these points would make RP noticeably smoother, and would stop the punishment of guild officers for being conscientious. Pretty please?
First, the maximum length of mail messages is far too short. You're stuck in Stros M'Kai, and your friend is posted to Coldharbor. You want to keep up whatever's going on between you. And the program gives you what? a paragraph and a half per letter. Not only that, personal messages are trashed after three days.This is silly. Plain text takes up almost no space to store and transmit, unlike graphics. The ESO world has many similarities to the eighteenth and nineteenth century environments in RW history that produced some of the world's greatest letter-writing. If a player wants to go on for a page or two, this should be possible. And if a player wants to save texts (within limits), this should be possible as well. The strange thing is that ESO has gone to the trouble of making up very interesting ongoing narratives for some of its suppliers, but then insists on forcing us to lose them, through message expiry and mailbox limitations.
A change here would also be to the benefit of our long-suffering guild officers. Guild "paperwork" can be complex, especially if the officers want to be as helpful as possible. They shouldn't have to cut up anything beyond the Grade 3 level into multiple little bits before they can send it out, and then have it all disappear almost at once.
Second, the maximum length of descriptive notes on the roster is far too short. We have a maximum of eight characters in play at any one time. For myself, four or so of these are experiments or mules, but the other four are all RP-capable. But I can hardly list their names before I run out of room on the roster note. What gives? Again, it would take up almost no computer space to quadruple or quintuple the length of plain text available, so that the explanatory note actually explained something instead of ending "...and other guys too."
Oh, and could we have a simple "reply" button added to mail messages as well? If there's one there, I've missed it. The option to "send mail" should be added to the dropdown menu available when right-clicking a name in guild chat as well, not just to the right-click menu in the guild roster.
Attention to these points would make RP noticeably smoother, and would stop the punishment of guild officers for being conscientious. Pretty please?
5
-
reagen_lionel✭✭✭✭I would defintily be in favor of this.
I can barely make an adequate letter with the limit to mail. And the guild notes doesnt allow me to put enough information as I'd like for the RP guilds that I am in and so many others.
The message limits are indeed far too short.and I defintily do not see the resson why the limit is so restrictive in mail of all things.Mail storage time is too short as well. All this makes organizing things and keeping track a pain. Should be a way you can mark mail to not expire until you manually delete it.1 -
newtinmpls✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I agree with
1-longer messages in game-mail. These are things which will be read (or ignored) privately and don't impinge on other players. I mention this because the longish replies in chat ARE annoying as heck - but that is a "public" forum (presuming zone or world chat - that wouldn't apply to group chat).
2-All messages should last 30 days. This is especially important for friends that I game with on occasion - when our mutual schedules don't converge it can be two or three day jumps at a time and this means if the message deletes, our slo-mo conversation on when to game and where to delve gets lost.
3-Roster notes - oh heck yes, make them much longer. This is another thing that isn't "public" and would be easy to ignore if you aren't interested, but it's very very helpful in connecting with other players and making the game more enjoyable.Tenesi Faryon of Telvanni - Dunmer Sorceress who deliberately sought sacrifice into Cold Harbor to rescue her beloved.
Hisa Ni Caemaire - Altmer Sorceress, member of the Order Draconis and Adept of the House of Dibella.
Broken Branch Toothmaul - goblin (for my goblin characters, I use either orsimer or bosmer templates) Templar, member of the Order Draconis and persistently unskilled pickpocket
Mol gro Durga - Orsimer Socerer/Battlemage who died the first time when the Nibenay Valley chapterhouse of the Order Draconis was destroyed, then went back to Cold Harbor to rescue his second/partner who was still captive. He overestimated his resistance to the hopelessness of Oblivion, about to give up, and looked up to see the golden glow of atherius surrounding a beautiful young woman who extended her hand to him and said "I can help you". He carried Fianna Kingsley out of Cold Harbor on his shoulder. He carried Alvard Stower under one arm. He also irritated the Prophet who had intended the portal for only Mol and Lyris.***Order Draconis - well c'mon there has to be some explanation for all those dragon tattoos.
House of Dibella - If you have ever seen or read "Memoirs of a Geisha" that's just the beginning...
Nibenay Valley Chapterhouse - Where now stands only desolate ground and a dolmen there once was a thriving community supporting one of the major chapterhouses of the Order Draconis0 -
Eiagra✭✭✭✭✭Also agreed. I understand why the limit -- to help discourage mail from being used as a storage medium (although since you can't mail yourself, you need a friend's help for that). But if a mail has no attachments and is plain text, it should be granted a longer expiry. If it does, maybe bump it up to 5-7 days? 3 days seems unusually short.
As for the text length, I've only bumped into the max limit once so far mailing some info to my sister, but a little extra wiggle room would be nice. A numerical counter of characters remaining would be useful in determining whether we need to be a little less verbose or break a message up into parts, too.██████ █████████ ███████ In verity.0 -
newtinmpls✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭A numerical counter of characters remaining would be useful in determining whether we need to be a little less verbose or break a message up into parts, too.
Ohh good suggestionTenesi Faryon of Telvanni - Dunmer Sorceress who deliberately sought sacrifice into Cold Harbor to rescue her beloved.
Hisa Ni Caemaire - Altmer Sorceress, member of the Order Draconis and Adept of the House of Dibella.
Broken Branch Toothmaul - goblin (for my goblin characters, I use either orsimer or bosmer templates) Templar, member of the Order Draconis and persistently unskilled pickpocket
Mol gro Durga - Orsimer Socerer/Battlemage who died the first time when the Nibenay Valley chapterhouse of the Order Draconis was destroyed, then went back to Cold Harbor to rescue his second/partner who was still captive. He overestimated his resistance to the hopelessness of Oblivion, about to give up, and looked up to see the golden glow of atherius surrounding a beautiful young woman who extended her hand to him and said "I can help you". He carried Fianna Kingsley out of Cold Harbor on his shoulder. He carried Alvard Stower under one arm. He also irritated the Prophet who had intended the portal for only Mol and Lyris.***Order Draconis - well c'mon there has to be some explanation for all those dragon tattoos.
House of Dibella - If you have ever seen or read "Memoirs of a Geisha" that's just the beginning...
Nibenay Valley Chapterhouse - Where now stands only desolate ground and a dolmen there once was a thriving community supporting one of the major chapterhouses of the Order Draconis1 -
nalimoleb14_ESO✭✭✭✭Agree with OP, I would like to see the limit removed or at least lessened a bit to allow for more information.0 -
AnonymouseSoul ShrivenI definitely agree. It is rough to get what needs to be written into the current text limits for all of the items @sagesourceb16_ESO discussed. A bit of a nudge toward upgrading that would be very welcome.
LOVE this game, and the way little improvements keep being inserted. Keep up the good work!0 -
Rune_Relic✭✭✭✭✭
✭Depends if messages are stored on server or client.
If server they need to be short to make sure they don't oveeload the network with 10000s flying around [client/server/client] and that they don't take up all the space with 1000,000 sitting on the server.
If client nothing matters so no one cares [client/client].Edited by Rune_Relic on April 7, 2015 10:08AMAnything that can be exploited will be exploited1 -
MornaBaine✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I absolutely agree with the OP. When I have to send out guild-wide mail (which is not even possible without an add-on) I have to butcher everything and cannot even BEGIN to fully describe an upcoming event. This needs to change.PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!1
