Community - Message Boards

I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping you all informed about upcoming changes, and new features we're working on. With that said...

A feature that I'm very excited about is an in-game chat system that allows you to see and interact with other players who are in the same location as you while you're playing the game.

So, if you walk into the Tricky Mister, you could see that there are five other detectives already in there and be alerted when people enter or leave the room, or when they start talking with the bartender or beat cop. You'll be able to say things out loud to everyone in the bar, and look at an abbreviated detective view without leaving the Case screen.

The immediate goals here are to:

a) Foster more communication between a wider range of players, including folks who aren't interested in the Message Boards or starting up conversations via Sleuth Mail.

b) Give the game a greater sense of place and space.

In the future, I see this giving more punch to upcoming features such as Visitable Agency Headquarters and Player Owned Houses, and some even cooler uses that I'll let you guess at.

I realize that live chat isn't everybody's cup of tea, and that no amount of moderation can keep jerks from being jerky. So, with that in mind, I am planning on taking the following precautions:

* We'll have an easy ignore button similar to Sleuth Mail that allows you to permanently block all messages from anybody who is bugging you.

* Moderators will have the discretion to ban users from chat on-site. We'll probably have the first ban be for 1 day, the second for a week and the 3rd will just be permanent. An alternative to doing this through moderators may be to have some kind of auto-ban if you get ignored by a certain number of users in a certain period of time.

* There will be a swear filter, for what it's worth.

* The whole chat mechanism is going to be tucked down at the bottom and easy to ignore. You'll be able to maximize it while chatting, but in the default view, it's just going to be a small area where

Nice ^_^

Thank you Ben.

Very interesting...and the upcoming features you hinted to sound even more interesting! I'm excited.

Wow! I really love these addition features! Btw, does this apply to non-subscribed users as well?

Will we be able to customize what's in agency headquarters or player owned houses?

Really, REALLY excited about this! Could be just the thing to infuse those who reach a million and have kinda run out of goals!

Say I talked to a Red Dragon friend, and then talked to a Lone-Wolf friend. Will I lose two hours from my Game Timer by doing that?

And some people will know what I'm referring to: am I allowed to talk to myself?

Thanks, Ben!

Regards from Rosie

Respect Ben :) Very Web 2.0 .!

luv it and will look forward to your progress.
please inform us when its 'live' :)

Rosie,

No, chatting won't effect your game timer if you do it from one location. It's moving from one place to another that advances the case timer.

Heh, Isaac. I'm still deciding between an XMPP server or expanding the existing xmlsocket server we've got running in the Multisleuth lobby. We're skipping right over 2.0 here. Can you say 3?

Definately 3.0!!!!! IF you pull this stunt of!
Your right!
2.0 is yesterday ;D
Keep up the awesome work, Respect!