The new OOC text color

[Madhouse]

I appreciate what you are attempting to do by changing the color of text when you type   //   before it, but i am having a very hard time reading what is said. Maybe that is the point, so that it does not affect the roleplay as much, but perhaps a slightly lighter hue is in order? I'm noticing some people beginning to use   \\   instead to circumvent the color change.

[Cody]

Yes it's too hard to read. I don't think I'll use // as it is right now

[Phantasia]

The other shades we flipped through were darker than the one we implemented. This appears just fine for me at a glance on a screen that's constantly under the effects of an eyestrain reducer which makes everything more dim and yellow. Perhaps you should check out your monitor's brightness/gamma as well as your game's and reassess if it's still too dark after. We'll let this sink in a little longer to get a general consensus if people think it's too dark or are just circumventing it.

[SardineTheAncestor]

I think the end result of this is the importance of colour coding. Not sure if it's possible considering many of us are already using chat colour mods, but if OOC text could just be the same colour as tells which are always OOC per the rules, that would be great. Only issue is, the default bright green text of tells is not fitting for a chat channel that should be used sparingly and not so attention grabbing, so I guess you'd have to change both. A dim green or blue colour might be nice for that, on account of being cool, thus not so attention grabbing.

Dunno how viable it is to change all this on a server level, but along the same lines, I'd like to see colour coding for emotes being the same colour as DM channel text (orange for me, I think it's yellow by default), or the yellow text in the combat log for monster/DM emotes. Both of these being warm colours makes them more attention grabbing which is ideal since IC chat should be immediately noticeable.


tl;dr edit:

Cool colours are less attention grabbing. This suits OOC chat, like //, ((, or Tells.

Warm colours are more attention grabbing. This suits IC chat, like *, [, or DM text.

I know not all DM text is IC but when it isn't, it's announcements which typically pertain to everyone, so attention grabbing is justified.

I also gave them a small black dropshadow since the game does that too.

The background is the most common background on the server: neutral grass/dirt colours with a slightly darker tint, about the same tint as the default chatbox.



Not saying to change the colour of dialogue but this could help distinguish emotes from normal text if this is taken further. A colour coded chatbox is an easy to read chatbox and that helps when lots of people are talking.

Maybe this will help with adjustments if the system is kept.

[zDark Shadowz]

If someone is having trouble distinguishing text against a background, gamma and brightness adjust the entire screen equally so the net difference between background and text remain the same.

It may not look bad to you "at first glance" but developers should be using the default settings in a game. If every developer is working with toolset with adjusted colours then your sense of perception is quite literally skewed.

Someone may think their area needs to be dark and dreary but have their gamma turned from the 2.2 default to 1.0, so when they make something dark on their screen its almost pitch black for normal players.

... Regardless of my opinions from someone that works with literal colours in their job (I've mixed and colour matched a lot of car paint), seeing is believing.

This is a sample taken from Discord of how this appears in game to a player that was having similar issues.



Throw this at someone who may be even the slightest bit colour deficit in eyesight and this is going to cause problems as the colours blend together.

I think the OOC text colour needs to be the same as the character name colour if possible, that colour is far more readable in a variety of backdrops, and it's already acknowledged that a name label is an OOC label at that.

[Phantasia]

Fair points, but we can't be responsible for knowing everyone's color setup and gamma settings. There is a more or less acceptable "one size fits all" solution for this that most people will be happy with. We'll be working to find that and bring further clarity to the chat box if it's desired.

I do color work as well and quite frankly, if more people took the time to install color profiles and get the most out of their monitors they'd have a better experience over all that's suited to them, but that's an ideal world, and most people don't do this.

This is just a test bed, it's not like we can't and won't change it. We'll be considering all feedback and figuring it out and at worst scrapping it.

[zDark Shadowz]

Took a look in game myself and, doesn't seem as bad as the picture, but still-

I can see that the text is definitely darker than the general backgrounds. It needs to be lighter in colour than the background, similar to how text displayed on the forums and on discord are when the themes are set to classic or dark mode, and how every other text colour used in default NWN is generally brighter than the backgrounds they are depicted on.

Maybe that was the intent of the colour choice, to bury itself below that gradient, but if it's unreadable then people will make it readable. There isn't an adjustment a player could make on their side to make the OOC text brighter than the background of the areas on their own terms aside from not using OOC text colour at all, so asking other people to adjust their settings really does not work in this instance. The only option becomes not to use it. Or squint.

[Coronenko]

This is less a "knowing everyones brightness/gamma setup" and more an accessibility issue, as someone who suffer from eyes issues, it takes a bit of tweaking to have a pleasant experience when gaming.

While I understand it is not an easy job to considerate for all accessibility issues, it's a whole other can of worms to just say: "you should increase your brightness to see it better" when I literally can't use it any more bright than it is at this moment.

Honestly, I believe the best approach to this situation would be letting the player choose their colour (even if there's only gray/white available). The idea was great, but it lacked a though into accessibility.

[Iluvatar / Madness]

For those suggesting this feature to be configurable per person, according to my somewhat limited nwscript knowledge, its unfortunately not an option due to potential performance issue in certain situations.

That said, keep posting your feedback and comments about this, we'll leave it there for a few more days at least and then re-evaluate the situation based on your feedbacks and comments.

[Dhelindria]

...if more people took the time to install color profiles and get the most out of their monitors they'd have a better experience over all that's suited to them, but that's an ideal world, and most people don't do this.

It's probably because they don't know how to do it. Most people are casual users - not computer experts. I'm a casual user who knows just enough to make a twenty year old game function, and some of that knowledge comes from following step-by-step instructions. I'm not comfortable with having to make a lot of adjustments for this one new aspect when doing so could result in the rest of my game becoming neon colors.

Mark me down for "it's too dark" as well.

[dutchy]

shitty old eyes here.
mark me down for too dark as well.

unsure if the whisper been altered but that now seems bright after you tested the ooc

[bloodless]

Readable against black background, but even well lit wood floors and I'm already struggling.

[Irumi]

It is sure that if that remains I will look to try to figure to change it myself, even if I am terrible with the computers, I do not have color to propose but it is certain that I find that also too dark.

[Favee]

I have many eye problems, and already have a difficult enough time with whispers, much less this new very dark OOC text.  Granted I can't read black text on a white background either. 

I am also very familiar with color profiles, gamma and brightness adjustments from my work.  I have a few settings I flip through to help deal with reading the text on PoTM.  Even with all of that, I have a very difficult time with the new OOC chat color. 

I think it's a change in the right direction, just too dark for me personally. 

[SwordChucks]

It's to dark, myself, numerous others have noticed this.

[Cody]

No gamma setting gives this dark text color a saving grace for me. There are too many varied backgrounds by the game and server's color palette that makes reading through the semi-transparent chat window harder than it should be in many different environments.

If the chat box was perfectly black, then maybe this dark grey could work.

Other than that I'm not a fan of the idea that OOC text would be made darker as to insinuate that it is not important to read or to be skipped over. That's the intention I've picked up from this. While there should be a contrast between IC and OOC messages, I vote that it should remain fainter light tones that don't vary much from the white.

[EO]

Other than that I'm not a fan of the idea that OOC text would be made darker as to insinuate that it is not important to read or to be skipped over. That's the intention I've picked up from this. While there should be a contrast between IC and OOC messages, I vote that it should remain fainter light tones that don't vary much from the white.

As per our server rules, OOC chat should be avoided as much as humanly possible. As such, making it blend in with the background (perhaps with a different tone) is in line with our rules:

- Please remain in-character when around others and try to keep "Out of Character" (OOC) comments to a minimum, preferably in tells.

[Iolantir]

Adding my 2 cents in that OOC chat, in my experience, has been used to clarify IC things or requests, including during some DM events. Making this text near unreadable is going to put needless strain on players.

[FinalHeaven]

For those still having issues you can actually change the colors on your own in the nwnini file.  I know some people knew this but I'm late to the show, so it's probably worth mentioning.

It doesn't let you distinguish between IC an ooc but it might help people having general issues.

[SwordChucks]

Other than that I'm not a fan of the idea that OOC text would be made darker as to insinuate that it is not important to read or to be skipped over. That's the intention I've picked up from this. While there should be a contrast between IC and OOC messages, I vote that it should remain fainter light tones that don't vary much from the white.

As per our server rules, OOC chat should be avoided as much as humanly possible. As such, making it blend in with the background (perhaps with a different tone) is in line with our rules:

- Please remain in-character when around others and try to keep "Out of Character" (OOC) comments to a minimum, preferably in tells.

It’s to dark.

[Coronenko]

If the server rules lines allow for bad accessibility for people with visual problems and this is fine, I suppose the server is no longer a good fit for myself or anyone else who does have these problems.
Accessibility is not one of those things one can just opt-out, specially when dealing with a extent userbase, Iluvatar pointed out earlier on this thread that some resources won't work as well given the amount of resources used to apply it in a extensive player base. Creating more accessibility problem will lead to more frustration within the player base than lag would.

[Day Old Bread]

Other than that I'm not a fan of the idea that OOC text would be made darker as to insinuate that it is not important to read or to be skipped over. That's the intention I've picked up from this. While there should be a contrast between IC and OOC messages, I vote that it should remain fainter light tones that don't vary much from the white.

As per our server rules, OOC chat should be avoided as much as humanly possible. As such, making it blend in with the background (perhaps with a different tone) is in line with our rules:

- Please remain in-character when around others and try to keep "Out of Character" (OOC) comments to a minimum, preferably in tells.

I appreciate the efforts being made to keep OOC text to a minimum.  There have been times in game where I've felt that I had to be the "Bad Guy" and tell others to stay IC.  It's not enjoyable for me to do this but it's bothersome when I see a wall of OOC text in game as people break character and joke around for 20 minutes.

Is there a way to lighten it up slightly or is the color palette pretty limited in that regard? Is there a convenient option for players who have trouble seeing the OOC text to modify it without causing issues for other players.  Are the channels in game limited to Talk, Whisper, DM, Yell, etc? Can channels be added or is it limited by the game engine? If so, it might be worth trying to implement an OOC channel that people can more easily change the color of.  I am woefully unequipped to tackle this issue just seeing that it is a problem for some people, I wonder what the capabilities of the game are and if there's an alternate solution.

I like it, but I don't want anyone to have to modify their game or systems or graphics to be able to see text that the players they are with will be trying to send.  Sometimes these communications are important and need to be sent out to the group rather than individuals.

[SwordChucks]

If the server rules lines allow for bad accessibility for people with visual problems and this is fine, I suppose the server is no longer a good fit for myself or anyone else who does have these problems.
Accessibility is not one of those things one can just opt-out, specially when dealing with a extent userbase, Iluvatar pointed out earlier on this thread that some resources won't work as well given the amount of resources used to apply it in a extensive player base. Creating more accessibility problem will lead to more frustration within the player base than lag would.

 

[Phantasia]

ZSRunner is correct.

Sometimes you need to send a message to a group of roleplayers, but DMs have a yellow text command for that. Players also have the option to think it through and send a tell to the DM or player that needs to read it the most, perhaps disrupting one person's experience over everyone else's in the vicinity. As EO also said, we have a rule to keep // chat to a minimum and this is a good time for anyone reading this thread to have multiple reminders of that.

As we said we're willing to find a visual compromise. You're welcome to give alternatives that are less color-neutral.

[dutchy]

Other than that I'm not a fan of the idea that OOC text would be made darker as to insinuate that it is not important to read or to be skipped over. That's the intention I've picked up from this. While there should be a contrast between IC and OOC messages, I vote that it should remain fainter light tones that don't vary much from the white.

As per our server rules, OOC chat should be avoided as much as humanly possible. As such, making it blend in with the background (perhaps with a different tone) is in line with our rules:

- Please remain in-character when around others and try to keep "Out of Character" (OOC) comments to a minimum, preferably in tells.

all nice an dandy but when nature calls and i'm with 6 others, then NATURE CALLS it's not like sure click all 6 to sent them a tell.
// sorry brb nature calls

is quicker.

i do like the idea of giving it a different color, not opposed to that at all, but given it's a multiplayer game, ooc messages should come trough clear, as it could mean a lot in rp or battle situations if a vital member suddenly has to bail for a few mins.