If you’ve ever roleplayed in a story-driven MMORPG, you know that having a quality and immersive chat interaction system is absolutely critical — without it, you’re going to just tab through and never read a word. That’s precisely why Shroud of the Avatar is overhauling the game’s conversation window.
“In Release 38, we are updating the conversation window used for interacting with NPCs to make it both more immersive and easier to use,” says Portalarium’s latest newsletter.
“For immersion, we are hiding almost all of the other interface elements, including all other chat and the hotbar. We are also placing the chat in the very middle of the screen where you are looking at the NPC in order to keep you focused on the interaction. We have also tried to keep the interface itself to as minimal as possible with very few borders and as much transparency in the elements as we can. For ease of use, we are placing all the keywords in a toolbar at the bottom of the window. This toolbar will include every keyword you can use with the NPC including keywords relating to quests you are currently on and keywords learned from past conversations with that NPC. This saves you from having to scroll back to find keywords you might not remember. There will also be some hidden keywords to discover though, so exploration will still be rewarded. Above you can see the work in progress as of today.”
The newsletter also includes a look at the work on Brookside, an update on the key and lock system, details on the March telethon, and a look at player-run town Chateau du Lys.
