New Message Center Feedback

[Salsuero]

Give the devs a break. They may read the feedback threads, but they aren't going to slog through these endless back and forth dissertations.

As I said, I reply to replies. I'm not in a habit of giving anything a rest if the other side doesn't want to rest. I have a lot of stamina! That being said, the last response to me was a tl:dr wall of words. I'm not reading it, so I have nothing to reply to. Request granted.

To remain on topic, I'm happy with the way the message center has been working in my guild. Everyone has transitioned nicely and even though there are a couple who aren't happy with it, they seem to be dealing with their anger about it well enough. Great job to the devs on this long-awaited upgrade. A few minor tweaks would be nice, but I'm not complaining.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

With the old system, non-administrator participants on a thread could see who the administrators are. That information appears to be hidden with the new system. Why? Is this simply a mistake by the developers, or is there a reason for this change?

Nope. Still there.
In social threads, same as before.
In guild threads, the admins are Inno and those with moderator privilege. "Inno" automatically adds new guild members and deletes those members that leave. Moderator priviliged can delete threads, Anyone can create guild threads (for now, hoping that will change SOON).

 

[Marilyn De Beers]

Would love an option to stop INNO message notifications from the main city view. Why must I have to go into those messages individually to get rid of the exclamation mark everytime? Keep the red exclamation for those messages for people who are interested in them or at the very least, take it off the main city view.

 

[Clever Suelynn]

I like many aspects of the new message system. However there is a major flaw for Android tablet users. When replying to a message half of the reply box is covered by the keyboard. This is a problem with longer messages as I cannot see the entire message that I'm typing.

 

[Angel.]

Yes. That's how it works. But that's not my point. We all know there is now a guild thread folder. What we're wanting to do is move the old threads we all used as guild threads over to that folder without having to recreate them all. I know we can recreate them manually. That's not the point. That's the hard way. Was hoping for an easy way. There isn't one. So we're all just going to have to recreate them. I've already done so in my guild. It's a one-time pain in the butt headache. Not the end of the world, just annoying.

i hate this thing an so dose my guild now we watching threads instead of playing the game makes no since where before you could be on 1 page an tell when something new happend or someone need to ask a quick qiuestion now if they lucky they will get answered bad move O

 

[Unwillow DeXegony]

The main issue that I have with the new message format is that the "window" takes up the entire screen. I cannot tell at a glance how many Forge Points I have left to spend by merely looking at the top of the screen and reading the Forge Point counter. Now, I have to keep exiting the swap threads to see how many points are left then go back into the swap threads.

 

[Salsuero]

i hate this thing an so dose my guild now we watching threads instead of playing the game makes no since where before you could be on 1 page an tell when something new happend or someone need to ask a quick qiuestion now if they lucky they will get answered bad move O

I'm sorry it's been such a bad time for you. I love it and my guild hasn't had any issues with it at all. I say great move! But we all have different experiences, so you being unhappy about it is entirely fair.

 

[Plewzy]

Font hard to read in message bar in new message centre. font size too small also

 

[ahsay]

Why is messages such a small, tiny, minuscule, little, box? Nothing like only being able to read three sentences at a time.

 

[Nicholas002]

Two questions. Are the game devs working on allowing us to edit messages we’ve sent?

Aye, matey. They certainly are.

Spoiler

https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/message-center-changes.13403/post-110469

 

[Salsuero]

Aye, matey. They certainly are.

Spoiler

https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/message-center-changes.13403/post-110469

Yuck!

 

[Kornflake]

I will throw my 2 cents in as a long term mod / player and leader but from a different game. Most of this is probably a rehash and, believe me, I am not telling you how to run your respective Guilds.

My 2 cents....Every Guild has its challenges and runs things in different way. It depends on mainly on the founder(s) and their respective leadership style(s) plus their leadership team and their respective styles. Some leadership styles are more flexible than others when dealing with change.

This being said... most of you have either adjusted or are adjusting to this change. It does take time to adjust, overcome, and move forward. The comments here shows how you are adapting to the change (or in some cases not) and working out how to effectively manage it and sharing what you have done. Some of what you are describing as issues could simply be dealt with by adjusting your communication processes.

For example,

1. If you are a founder making the rounds, then, to me, you should should be directly communicating with whomever you entrusted to maintain your Guild in your absence. They should be keeping you in the loop on any Guild issues.

2. If you have issues with the Guild tab being cluttered up, then decide what is acceptable for your Guild tab, communicate that to you team and then enforce it.

Simple adjustments tailored to fit your needs will remedy a lot of the issues I have read. This being said... not all.


Summary so far

1. Some of you like the new message center while others … not so much. This is expected and normal

2. Some of you are having issues finding your messages. They should have been defaulted to your social tab.

3. Some of you have concerns about the readability or font size mainly due to screen size, if I understood it correctly … app players mainly

4. There are questions on deleting messages – Guild moderators are able to this.

5. There were several comments about moving messages between the tabs. - I have looked into this and it is presently not possible.

6. Requests for possible more editing/formatting options

7 Request for a locked tab for locked messages

Please let me know if I missed anything

Hi, I didn't see my comments included in your summary:
Format chat system on mobile: would let us know if we have as many as 99 unread message in a thread before opening thread
New chat system on mobile: is only able to let us know if we have up to 9 unread message in a thread before opening thread

Format chat system on mobile: would let you load messages 20 at a time so you could easily load history back to where you left off
New chat system on mobile: infinite scroll means it is more difficult to know where you left off

 

[Marilyn De Beers]

Please let the players choose which messages the ‘red exclamation mark’ is attached too. Personally I only want to be notified when I have PM sent from another player, not something about a .001% chance of winning stuff if I like the game on nonsense book, or that a new update is coming, or that something has been cancelled due to feedback etc, you know, things I ain’t interested in the least in.

Please, please, give the player the control to manage this.

 

[OldAdam12]

(didn't realize there was one thread for all Message Center stuff - so I'll put headings into my posts)

Please Don't Auto-Scroll Thread Recipient Lists When Modifying

If you maintain "social" threads, you often need to update them by adding, and removing, players from the subscription list. Recent changes stopped the auto-scrolling of the thread content (thank you!) but the subscription list, on Mobile, [still] auto-scrolls whenever you remove someone, which makes it more difficult to clean up a thread's subscription list than it should be.

On PC interface there's a scrollbar and it does NOT auto-scroll to the top when you remove a thread recipient. On Mobile there's no scrollbar (don't think it's needed) but it DOES auto-scroll to the top when you remove a thread recipient.



This is for [social] thread maintenance, so its of limited impact for most players, but for those who do thread mainteance [on mobile devices] it could have a significant, positive, impact.

 

[OldAdam12]

Sort social thread recipent list on Mobile like you do on PC

This is a follow-on of the previous post that dealt with auto-scrolling. This part has to do with the presentation of the thread recipients list. The presentation on the PC interface is, IMO, more sensible than that on the mobile interface, and lends itself to easier thread recipient list mainteance that the mobile interface.

On the PC interface, the receipients appear to be sorted as:

• Local guild members first; sorted alphabetically case-insensitively
• Non-guild members; sorted alphabetically case-insensitively

​

On the Mobile interface, the recipents appear to be sorted as:

• Alphabetically case-insensitively without regard to guild

​

This is about:

1. Consistency of interface between both PC and Mobile UI's, and
2. Choosing the interface that makes the feature as a whole, easier

It only applies to "Social" threads, and I believe that at least 90% of those threads are intended to be guild-internal; so when people leave (or get booted) from guilds it is someone's responsibility to go through all the social threads to remove those individuals from the various threads - and the current PC interface makes that simpler than the current Mobile interface.
The reason these threads are "social" instead of "guild" is to restrict them from guild-hoppers.

 

[OldAdam12]

Consistency of Message Center behavior when leaving and returning

On PC, When you leave and come back to Message Center, you come back to the tab ("Guild", "Social", "Official") where you were when you left, but with no filters applied.
On Mobile you always come back to the "Guild" tab, with whatever filter was being used last (if any) pre-selected.

Personally, I think the behavior of coming back to the same tab you were last in (PC interface) is nicer than always going back to the "guild" tab (mobile)
I'm somewhat on the fence regarding whether you should (mobile) or should not (PC) preserve filter settings when re-entering message center. I can see reasonable arguments on both sides (which would make it a reasonable "setting" option if one were so inclined)

Basically, you can go either way on both aspects of this - but I think it should be the same way on both UIs

 

[OldAdam12]

Get second confirmation before leaving ALL threads
(follow-on perhaps to ggrrjj's posting on 2020-09-02 - 2nd to last paragraph)

The other morning I found that I had somehow accidentally left a whole bunch of [social] threads in my guild. I did not recall doing so - but based on what I no longer had access to it was my "favorites", and I'm guessing that I somehow clicked on "Leave All" instead of "Mark All As Read".
I also know several other folks who have managed to do the same, none remember intentionally leaving all the threads.

I've never intentionally used "Leave All" - and don't plan to try it out now to verify - but I'm pretty sure there's at most one prompt for confirmation.
My feeling is that there should either be two prompts for confirmation - the second being something like:

"Are you SURE you want to leave ALL these threads?"​

Alternatively, it could be a single confirmation, but one that requires that the user actually type something like "yes" in a dialog box before performing the operation - a simple click on an "OK" button is way too easy.

Once you leave threads, the only way you can get back on is if someone else on that thread has administrative abilities and re-adds you. If you accidently left threads you created with no other administrators - you're SOoL because there's no way to get back to that thread.

Thus, leaving ALL threads is way too powerful an operation for a simple, single "OK" button click to confirm.

This is only intended for the "Leave All" option, this is not for leaving individual threads on a one-by-one basis.

 

[Kornflake]

Get second confirmation before leaving ALL threads
(follow-on perhaps to ggrrjj's posting on 2020-09-02 - 2nd to last paragraph)

The other morning I found that I had somehow accidentally left a whole bunch of [social] threads in my guild. I did not recall doing so - but based on what I no longer had access to it was my "favorites", and I'm guessing that I somehow clicked on "Leave All" instead of "Mark All As Read".
I also know several other folks who have managed to do the same, none remember intentionally leaving all the threads.

I've never intentionally used "Leave All" - and don't plan to try it out now to verify - but I'm pretty sure there's at most one prompt for confirmation.
My feeling is that there should either be two prompts for confirmation - the second being something like:

"Are you SURE you want to leave ALL these threads?"​

Alternatively, it could be a single confirmation, but one that requires that the user actually type something like "yes" in a dialog box before performing the operation - a simple click on an "OK" button is way too easy.

Once you leave threads, the only way you can get back on is if someone else on that thread has administrative abilities and re-adds you. If you accidently left threads you created with no other administrators - you're SOoL because there's no way to get back to that thread.

Thus, leaving ALL threads is way too powerful an operation for a simple, single "OK" button click to confirm.

This is only intended for the "Leave All" option, this is not for leaving individual threads on a one-by-one basis.

I'm too scared to try to test this myself, but at least 1 confirmation is needed for sure on the Leave All.

 

[OldAdam12]

I'm too scared to try to test this myself, but at least 1 confirmation is needed for sure on the Leave All.

Yes, one confirmation is needed - but one confirmation is needed to mark all threads read too - and if you're used to that, you tend to click twice quickly to get through it. Since the two options are adjacent to one another, and there is only one confirmation for either / both - it is relatively easy to accidentally remove yourself from all threads currently on display - in some cases it is irreversible (if you were the only administrator for one or more of those threads). As such - I believe there needed to be *two* confirmation prompts for leaving all threads as it is a very powerful action.

 

[OldAdam12]

Social Thread Management
(this is somewhat related to this other posting from me)

For people who manage multiple social threads - it would be really nice to have a multi-thread recipient-management interface.
This would be particularly handy for those guilds that keep all of their Swap and 1.x threads under "social" rather than "guild" to prevent guild-hoppers from mucking things up (I understand this as though I belong to guilds in four worlds, I guild-hop in two)

I can think of several different ways of organizing such an interface, but I'll try to describe just one here; we can always debate alternative UIs.

I think, in all cases, there needs to be a determination as to whether you are trying to add or remove recipients with respect to multiple social threads before a fuller interface is presented.

Add

1. [system] determine the list of social threads the current user has administrative access on, present as checkbox list
2. [administrator] select the lists to which they want to add one or more users (provide a "Select All" option)
3. [system/administrator] Much like today, choose the list from which you want to select users ("Friends", "Neighbors", "Guild"), scroll and/or search for users to select, add them to a list of users to be added to the (new) list of previously selected threads
4. [administrator] once the list is complete, click on an "Add Users To Threads" button
5. [system] adds the specified users to the specified threads (presumably placing the "added to list" notice within each thread)

Remove

1. [system] determine the list of social threads the current user has administrative access on, present as checkbox list
2. [administrator] select the lists from which they want to remove one or more users (provide a "Select All" option)
3. [system] construct a sorted (by name) unique (remove duplications) list of all recipients on all those threads selected above, presented as a checkbox list
4. [administrator] select (checkbox) those individuals to be removed from all the previously selected threads (provide a "Select All" option)
5. [administrator] click on "Remove Users From Threads" button
6. [system] removes the selected users from the selected lists (presumably placing the "removed from list" notice within each thread as appropriate)

NOTE: This would be an additional interface for adding / removing users from threads - the existing one-thread-at-a-time process would still be available.