Licho told me of a plan to disable the chat console and replace it with new bubbles instead.
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This is despite that fact that most players currently play with bubbles disabled.
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In fact, one of the most frequent questions I hear asked from newbs is "how do I disable chat bubbles?"
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People have been trained their entire lives quickly read text in paragraph-sized blocks.
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Personally, I am a speed reader, able to quickly summarize a paragraph by glancing over it.
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I am sure many players read the same way I do.
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If you break the paragraph up into individual sentences, speed readers lose this ability.
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Also, we lose the ability to easily follow a conversation, since the record for things said previously is lost.
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What will happen after a bubble disappears?
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With a console, if players are talking too quickly, or you were too busy to read something, you can scroll up and "pause" the conversation.
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After you have caught up, you can scroll through the console back to real time.
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Will we have this ability with chat bubbles?
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Can someone explain the reasoning behind removing the console?
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It does everything bubbles does, and more, in a way that is consistent with other RTS games.
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If bubbles' goal is to make the user interface more newb-friendly, why are we reinventing the wheel with bubbles when every other RTS uses console?
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Lastly, if new bubbles are invented can we please keep console as an option?
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Many users feel much more comfortable with it, and there's no point in deleting a widget that already exists.
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I wouldn't complain except with local widgets being removed soon, there will be far less room for custom UIs.
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Anyways, these are my thoughts on bubbles.
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