I posted this on the ESO Sub-Reddit earlier today, seems to be pretty popular so thought I'd share it here;

I remember playing Star Wars Galaxies and it was a far more social experience seeing the player that was typing so you could interact with them on a more personal level, and made the world feel more alive and less like a bunch of randomers running around with no identity!

This would obviously be for players only, not NPCs, and OPTIONAL of course!

What do you guys think?

I made a mock-up picture, which is the top thread on the Sub-Reddit, I can't post links here for some reason!

Thanks!

Could it be an addon?

I have yet to see it in effect before I say yes to wanting it, might look silly

Look at GW2. Speech bubbles for /say is natural, very effective and required for PUG teamwork in WvW. Chatting would be incredibly boring without speech bubbles and large group PUG combat (as in 40+) would be difficult. You need to see who is saying what.

To have a hypothetical scenario:

You got 40 peeps mindlessly smashing down a door. Someone is running in from the left. He's yelling "Inc on me, 60+!!!". Everyone in the zerg can see his bubble on screen (if they are observant), they see where he's coming from and they can react. They "heard" him yelling, sort of speak.

Now the same scenario with just the chat, nobody will notice it. Who said that? The guy behind me? The guy in front of me? Did anyone even notice the chat menu? Was anyone looking at the chat menu??? Most people are probably looking at the screen, not the chat menu.

TLDR: Its a matter of immersive realism. A chat menu is not it. A speech bubble is the best thing we have to approximate "voice".

you mean like a comic book? Where i say something and a little bubble appears above my head? lol, that's ridiculous! That would be so lame. In a superhero game sure!

Yes, I would want that for sure.

Yeah, because starting at a tiny chat window to and trying to match name's to people within a 500m radius isn't lame at all

I just shopped the ones from SWG on top, obviously they don't have to look like that, and also read: ->OPTIONAL<-

Oh, well if it's completely optional and I can just disable them, sure! doesn't affect me.

I think it would be very pleasant to have chat bubbles.

They could make them a little medieval like in style.

Put a checkbox in the options if you want to see the bubbles and everyone is happy.

i enjoy seeing speech bubbles

but its ok if they dont have it

We need this. I was in SWTOR a few weeks ago in a very crowded cantina with some friends and it was impossible to follow the conversation due to the high speed chat window scrolling from all the pvssyr. It should be optional, of course.

The video demonstrating the upcoming game Shroud of the Avatar, on the game's website, includes an NPC speaking with a speech bubble. I think the design shown there is very nice.

Make them optional, and I don't see how anyone can really complain. Even allow for modding of the graphic design of the bubble and text style.

Many people would like this. I'm sure there'll be an add-on that lets you have speech bubbles. Of course then certain people will avoid grouping with because you're an elitist cheater. (think of this is as a positive!)

No chat bubbles are horrible, reason I honestly didn't even enjoy RP on Swtor.

idk why wer are passing on something that is so simple...