IDEAS FOR RYZOM

This is interface related, but not a bug, so I'm putting it in a fresh topic.

The "Friends" list isn't just friends. It's also enemies, newbies, crafters and others. Now, we do have the option to put notes on people, but this doesn't really help if what you're doing is trying to remember who it is who is the master jeweler, axe-crafter, or member of Bozos of Atys, the newest fringe guild who are having a bit of trouble adjusting.

First suggestion: Add the Guild name to the person's name on the list. The data base info is present, so it's just a matter of looking it up and attaching it to the download of the "Friends" list. This, in and of itself would be a good thing, imho. It would require both server and client programming changes.

Second, independent, suggestion. Allow grouping of the "Friends" list into subgroups with user-defined titles. Limit the number of subgroups to start with to, oh, 8 or 16. You could use drag-and-drop or right-click sub menus to add people to the groups. If I understand how the "Friends" list works, this could be done client side as post processing to the download of the "Friends" List.

I definatly aggree to the second suggestion.
The first suggestion seems a bit unnescessary, but still a good idea!

+1

+1

Great idea - the Friends List is often a catalogue of half-remembered names. Just the Guild name or icon would be an improvement, but some area (clickable pop-up?) for a few words would help too. Also a 'Last Seen Date' like on the API graphics would help people weed out those players not active anymore.

+1 for groups and mouseover-infos.

I don't know if it's really a good idea to display latest logoff date, some people might not like it for privacy reasons.

In addition: Please evaluate why sometimes friends get removed from friendslist when adding new (unrelated) ones.

+1 for both ideas :D

What Bittty said

The Guild is great idea but could be more simply implemented. Put it on the "i" window and autofill. This would also reduced loading time as the list doesn't have to load the guild names at log-in.

The notes, same thing. Have the player's own filled out section followed by a Notes window where others could add a few notes like. "Usualy on 7pm - 11 pm EST"

The Info button already allows you to add notes. The problem is that those end up in your "Notebook", bloating it entirely.

I wouldn't add the guild name directly but rather a symbol showing if that person is in a guild (maybe even the real guild symbol) as that would be a lot smaller (same size as the status thing) and only if you hover across that symbol you'll see the guild name. I think having the complete guild name directly displayed would make the width of the window too big. And the symbol could be re-sized for future UI design changes depending on the other parts easily without taking unnecessarily much place.

If there's a restriction on the amount of groups I'd suggest 10 (including the default group of "all others") as this is a number that would make sense in a mySQL database context. The next one would be 100 and after that 256, 1000, 10000, 65536, ...
INT(1) = 10 (0 - 9)
INT(2) = 100 (0 - 99) <-- old stack size
BINARY(1) = 256 UNHEX(00 - FF)
INT(3) = 1000 (0 - 999) <-- current stack size
BINARY(2) = 65536 UNHEX(0000 - FFFF)
...

Actually [UNSIGNED] TINYINT(1) and TINYINT(2) take the same amount of storage, same for INT(1) up to INT(10). They can even store the same range of numbers, the digit count is rather meant for display purposes. This makes UNSIGNED TINYINT(#) (0...255) the smallest mysql datatype in storage. If the database engine used supports single-byte columns anyway.

Actually i think we should leave implementation details to the developers. They know about the software they use and know which restrictions might make sense.

I personally like both ideas but I know the guild being shown would just cause people to get all upset. If you remember upset people got by just being able to add people to your friends list without them being online. The grouping idea would be fantastic then I could easily tell why they might be on my friends list.

Entendu? Why would the guild being shown get people's backs up? The information is there floating over their heads if you see them in person. Guild affiliation is a matter of public record. I think it's entirely different from the offline friends addition.

I do like the idea of making it a guild symbol with a mouseover or right-click to get the name.

Bittty I don't know if you seen the thread about them allowing you to add someone who is offline but people were pissed about that because of the "privacy" issues. (This is not my opinion just the opinion expressed by some) So if you can add someone who is offline, and you could see what guild their in those same people would think that is an even bigged breach of their privacy.

Which is wise since the only thing that the MySQL database is used for is user authentication and shard administration. When the 'database' is referred to in Ryzom Core terms it is usually referring to the PDB (Persistent Database) which is a tree of PDRs (Persistent Data Records.) The EGS keeps this synced up with the CDB (Client Database) in a magical fashion.

The reality is if it is already in the CDB then it's "trivial" to modify the UI XMLs. There are developers whom are better than I am at this who could correct me though.

Karnig
/s