We should add in tags and notes to the Contacts UI!

[Maarthorn Eranir.9601]

As the title says.

If you are a social butterfly who wants to get involved in all play from the fairly casual to the intensely hardcore in PvX, and you play with a mix of IRL friends, Discord/TS friends, and people you've liked and added, but have sparsely spoken to, it gets VERY difficult to keep track of who everybody you've added is.

In my case, I have all of my guild slots filled up right now, and it's easy enough to keep up with what my guilds are doing as an overarching entity. After spending some time in any guild's community, I learn who I can go to for what type of content, and that's great! However, for friends that fit into groups small enough not to warrant a guild, it's difficult to keep in contact with everyone, and keep track of who they are. That stinks!

To remedy that social issue in this very social MMO, I propose that a system that would add tags and notes to the friends list UI.

Notes would function the same as nicknames, but allow a box to type in, like the one used in LFG, and would allow you to type in punctuation.

Tags would function on an account-wide basis only. You would be able create tags (maybe something as simple as integrating it into the status drop-down, or a copy of it), and attach them to anyone in your friends list for only you to see, so that you could sort people by them and be able to contact them with ease.

Some examples of how I would use such a system:

"tags" - notes on idea/use

• "old guildies' dead accounts" - here I would hold all my precious memories of them, and name their account names by the names we used in TS
• "guild X players that I've friended" - so that I may more quickly reference them for groups when working with that guild on something, and see them by name from discord
• "people that teach X content/class" - here add a note for whatever their expertise in specific is
• "people that want me to teach them X content/class" - could add note for their desired knowledge
• "commanders for X content" - here able to jot down notes on the person in the list, what they command, their attitude, etc
• "people from LA or PvP lobby that aren't toxic" - these don't exist (jk haha) B)
• "people that still run dungeons" - because I like doing that sometimes (and sometimes you run into funny people that do them naked or with glitches, y'know?)
• "people I can run t4's/cm's with" - and then I could jot down notes on what classes/specs they play
• "people I might want to start a guild with" - so that I can keep track of who's gonna be on a roster on startup when there's a bunch of other things going on in game and IRL
• "WvW roaming group" - (some day)
• "achievement hunters" - because sadly nobody uses the lfg for it, at least not in NA
• "casual raiders" & "hardcore raiders" groups
• "friends' alts" - and what their main is

With a system like this in place, this already amazing social MMO would be even easier to be social in, and I wouldn't spend half my time trying to remember who it was I had a really great conversation with the other day, or who that awesome chrono I wanted to invite to my raid or fractal CM's was.

Please bump if you agree, Players and Devs alike, let me know what you think of the idea, it's feasibility, alternatives, etc!

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Why not using the nickname feature? No punctuation, yes. I solved that problem on my way:

Notes: FRIEND are people I currently play with a lot. CONTACT is for people I used to play with weeks or months ago, but communication went suddenly very silent. GUILD MEMBER is for members of my guild ^^. The CAPITAL LETTERS are used for the nicknames.

 

when onlineFRIEND Hano the White EyedFRIEND Bilbo WhatsupppFRIEND Blue Smurf x

when offlineFRIENDFRIENDFRIEND

when onlineCONTACT BILL Kudu Van TossCONTACT ALEX Miki the EngineerCONTACT JOHN Damon of Arad

when offlineCONTACT BILLCONTACT ALEXCONTACT JOHN

when onlineGUILD MEMBER Pipin The Eagle EyedGUILD MEMBER RazzzzzzzzzzzzzzorGUILD MEMBER Cratos The Reallll

when offlineGUILD MEMBERGUILD MEMBERGUILD MEMBER

 

Advantages of this method:

• you get an ingame notification whenever someone of your friendlist logs. It displays the nickname + the character name.
• you can keep your contacts organized without filling any additional guilds or joining more than neccessary
• no player has ever reached the maximum amount of friends yet
• if you are looking for people of a certain group, the search feature in the friendlist will do that perfectly.

Dissadvantages of this method:

• you get a lot of notifications when anyone of your friendlist logs. No matter if that is a friend, a contact, a guildmember or a member of any other group. If you have your system-messages in your main chat-tab, you may have to separate it.
• if you nickname a person, the account-name is invisible until the nick is removed. If you want to hold on that, you have to extend the nickname by a reference. Example:Instead of CONTACT Misty of the Seeeeeea (when online) it is CONTACT ALEX Misty of the Seeeea. However the length of nicknames is limited. In most cases you can only have a group and maybe a small hint, before the limit is reached.

Your idea is good. The chat could use an overhaul anyway. My method is a makeshift solution at best. In GW2 you have to work with the things you have ^^.