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Rill View Drop Down
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Joined: 17 Jun 2011
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Points: 6903 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 18:18
I have a hard time distinguishing between the new emoticons.  (I can't tell whether someone is smiling or frowning without mousing over them, which sort of defeats the purpose.)

But I have a different reaction that may be unique to me or may be shared by others.

I do not like that the emoticons identify me by avatar gender.  (I'm not particularly excited about the race thing either, but I can live with it.)

I am female and my avatar is female, but I have no desire to constantly emphasize that fact.  Sometimes I act "girly," and that's fun.  But I also rejoice when a new player refers to me as "he" or "him."  My gender is far from the most important aspect of who I am, and I prefer to be who I am first and identified by gender second if at all.

I'm not going to whinge about the difficulties of being a female player in the gaming world.  Suffice it to say that many of us have ample reason to be hesitant to even identify ourselves as female, never mind shoving it in people's faces constantly.  And no, I don't think the right solution is just choosing a male avatar so I can be "normal."  What I'm saying is, gender is not that important to me, and I don't feel a need to continually emphasize it.

A smile is a smile.  A frown is a frown.  I want to be myself without bringing gender into it.

Thanks for giving consideration to these thoughts.
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HonoredMule View Drop Down
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Points: 1650 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 18:20
Whelp, Butler still supports the same 94 emoticons that it has for ages.  I may change them some day to be more thematically appropriate and not animated, but they'll always be distinct and expressive, as is the whole point of an emoticon.

So if you're not happy with the new ones, maybe it's time to check it out:
http://arcanum-illyria.com/wiki/Tool:Butler
"Apparently, quoting me is a 'thing' now."
- HonoredMule
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Rohk View Drop Down
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Points: 218 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 18:24
Well said Rill, I too cannot tell the difference between the smile and frown without getting out a magnifying glass.

I agree with your concerns about gender too because people can choose to play a different gender than they are in RL for various reasons (such as the LGBT community) and may want to play ambiguously on purpose. I have seen female gamers discriminated against before in other games and I can understand not wanting to advertise it. Your comment reminded me of this:  http://xkcd.com/322/


Edited by Rohk - 22 Apr 2012 at 18:30
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Marquesta View Drop Down
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Points: 180 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 18:30
Originally posted by invictusa invictusa wrote:

I like the idea behind these emoticons and I think it works.  I like these emoticons better.  Many of the people who want the yahoo emotes are the ones that overuse them and make GC look more and more like a teenage chat room of an eyesore.  As an artist myself I have to recognize the creativity that Cerberus put into these.  


I disagree Invictus, I have seldom seen anyone spam GC with emotes, and never in AC. And I myself have never and will never spam with emotes, the idea is ridiculous.

I agree that communications are suffering from the lack of clear emotes, but its not something that we can't get around. Mostly what I see here is pouting and selfishness, but I do agree with those who have put forth valid arguments.
~~Marquesta
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them...
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Sister Nikki View Drop Down
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Points: 76 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 19:20

Tried to resist but sorry I did not succeed. :(
.
The Marketing
A company in attempts to gain access, stabilize and grow in a market, always is trying to get her own style. The special features that will make it recognizable in the future. So games like Illyriad are trying to have their own special characteristics as the donkey for transports or pigeons in diplomatic units. This is a trademark that identifies and gives recognition in a game. An element by itself which brings great inexpensive advertising. Unfortunately, the developers of the game either ignored or chosed to replace, their problem anyway.
.
Emoticons
In any project if something is going well and satisfy your customers you leave it as it is, even if it bothers you as developer. Replies like “this is it, if you like it or not I don’t care” (at least the meaning)  certainly do not fit in the spirit of good customer relationship. It is bad public relations to ignore the desires of your customers or not to pay attention on their desires.
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The new emoticons personally I find it ugly and certainly not justify the deletion of the previous which was making the chat more beautiful and much happier as was including smiling faces, happy colors and emphasized emotions which we felt, in the sad real life periods which we are passing. Unfortunately I predict once again that you will ignore the comments of the players, as you have done previously.

I do agree with Rill and also i do feel that a small piece of freedom suffers, sorry my opinion.
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Gossip Boy View Drop Down
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Points: 259 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 20:06
This is a great idea but poor execution (sorry to whoever created the designs, all of us can see the effort you had put into this)

I think the use of the new emotes should be optional and  if some small alterations to current designs are made which will make them look distinct.players will start using them on their own.

Edited by Gossip Boy - 22 Apr 2012 at 20:06
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Cerex Flikex View Drop Down
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Points: 211 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 21:00
Originally posted by GM Luna GM Luna wrote:

Hello all,

Thanks for your feedback on the new emotes. While I think they are immensely clever and add so much more flavor to chat, I can understand if you don't agree. That said...

First, the old generic yahoo emoticons are not going to return. I'm sorry. 

In the meantime (as what I hope will be a workable compromise) we are looking to add the option to the new upcoming chat system overhaul to uncheck a "use racial emotes" option. So that if you do not like them, you can turn them off and only see the traditional text emotes like :) for example.

I hope this helps, but again, this is something that will come with the new chat system and is understandably lower priority than some other things going into that chat upgrade. 

Until that time, I'm sorry if you don't like the new emotes. This is certainly a touchy subject and is a matter of personal opinion and taste that it would be impossible for us all to agree upon.

Thanks for your patience.

Luna


I think this is a great compromise, and thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread. I'm sure there will be some who won't like that option either though. Can't please everyone. 
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norsegodofmischief View Drop Down
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Points: 9 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 21:45
Just my 2 cents - I don't like the new emotes either.  The option to deselect them would be a good solution.  On my other game, a new "improved" chatpane was set up in response to some members who wanted changes.  Note the word "some".  Problem was some things just don't work anymore in the new chatpane, like typing /who to see which of your clanmates is currently online and in clan chat or typing /pm and a player's name to be able to send him/her a private message while in chat.  Solution was to make the new "improved" chatpane features optional.  I gave the new chatpane a 3 week struggle and went back to the old one yesterday.  Some things just don't need improving - like the old Illyriad emotes here.  JMHO.
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JimJams View Drop Down
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Points: 496 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 22:37
As a developer I think the new emoticons was introduced preparing for the new chat system (simplify things before going ahead). But the new icons are undetectable, and not funny. So an option to completely remove it will be nice.

By the way, Illy devs, you really really really need a test server. I know, you test it, but you need a live test server where deploy the changes before going live. Where the community can test and give feedback. 

Trust me, I have over 30 years experience developing, managing projects, consulting... Applying patches on the live server is bad, first or later it will cost you more than 100 test server.
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Berde View Drop Down
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Points: 380 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Apr 2012 at 22:39
Originally posted by GM Luna GM Luna wrote:

Hello all,

Thanks for your feedback on the new emotes. While I think they are immensely clever and add so much more flavor to chat, I can understand if you don't agree. That said...

First, the old generic yahoo emoticons are not going to return. I'm sorry. 

In the meantime (as what I hope will be a workable compromise) we are looking to add the option to the new upcoming chat system overhaul to uncheck a "use racial emotes" option. So that if you do not like them, you can turn them off and only see the traditional text emotes like :) for example.

I hope this helps, but again, this is something that will come with the new chat system and is understandably lower priority than some other things going into that chat upgrade. 

Until that time, I'm sorry if you don't like the new emotes. This is certainly a touchy subject and is a matter of personal opinion and taste that it would be impossible for us all to agree upon.

Thanks for your patience.

Luna

Not only do I not like the emoticons - I think I've pretty much decided I don't like -THE GAME- as a whole.

It seems every time I turn around, the Devs are fixing something that isn't broken (meaning the function, and no one's complaining about it. I go away for a couple of days and come back to find, basically, an entirely different game. One that doesn't WORK, either. Just changing pages from one screen of the research tree to the next is resulting in a 10-second loading delay. Chat lags. I can't get the world map to move from one city to the other. It's now hard for me, with my visual impairment, to tell an animal NPC from parked neutral army. And on and on and on. And there's little doubt that all these "little" changes, these "new bells and whistles" that aren't -necessary- for the game to work are to blame.

Oh, and for whatever reason? Half the forum posts that are new don't have new post stars.
I regret having EVER paid ANY money to play this game right now.
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