OOC Differentiation for in-game messages

[lackofimagination]

Ideally, we'd have a chat system allowing us to define our own personal custom colors for normal IC chat, OOC chat, Quest chat, DM shouts and emotes.
Those who are more comfortable recognising the // or ( ) or whatever shapes would be able to keep everything the same color, those who differenciate better through colors would be able to have their chat looks like a psychedelic rainbow mess, and everyone else could pick what they want to use, however they want to use it.

I just wonder if this wouldn't be more efficient as some "outside mod", rather than risk it being something script dependent that *might* eat up some amount (big or small) of server resources (CPU, brandwidth, whatever)?

I think the idea is great, I would use it and love it, but I also agree with Platinum that it shouldn't be imposed on those who don't want it, so it would need to have a toggle.
As far as which color, I'd say "make it selectable by players", each might have their preference on what text should be neon bright, what color is less intrusive, easier to read. It depends on everyone's eyesight?

but it might then all just make it too complex a thing to be made.

Also, the whole conversation about "is there too much OOC on the server lately" is an entirely different conversation but one that might be interesting to think about.

[Terallis]

I still do think this is a great idea, whether it even can be toggled or not. Especially in a case for what some servers do with colour-coding emotes. I know servers like Amia, for instance, that would let you set your method of emoting. Be it asterisks or reversal with quotes. Then through that, it would give a light blue colour to the emote portions while leaving the spoken text normal. Always loved that system. But the same had a different colour (I think it was like... orange?) for when it detected (( or //. Tried and true method to better be able to differentiate things at a glance. It's true that certain colours draw attention to themselves, but that's also kind of the point of it.

[unknown]

This is a change I would very much support.

When implemented correctly, it's not at all immersion breaking. Honestly I've had the complete opposite experience. Seeing a message pop up in chat in a different color that is distinctly for OOC makes finding what I actually need to read significantly easier. It's especially a God-sent in public settings with groups having multiple conversations of their own. "Oh, grey message from John Doe? I can ignore that." And then I do. It's that easy.

I think something like this is nice. It's dull enough that it doesn't really draw attention, but it's distinct enough against white to not be mistaken for a normal message.

[aliceofthevoid]

I just wonder if this wouldn't be more efficient as some "outside mod", rather than risk it being something script dependent that *might* eat up some amount (big or small) of server resources (CPU, brandwidth, whatever)?

Regarding this, I could be wrong but I don't know of anyway to add an override to change text colors specifically like that. As a script server side, I wouldn't think it would take up any more than the Language system already does.

That said, I do like the idea you and others mentioned to make it a toggle that can be picked player side.

[SpacePope]

Absent any last-minute error, emotes and OOC text will now be colourized when the next update hits.

There will be a toggle in /settings to disable seeing it, and a choice between two options:

• *emotes like this* Speaks like this
• Emotes like this "speaks like this"

OOC will be ((any text in between double parentheses)) or text following a double slash //
Simple parentheses won't be formatted as there's too much variety in how they're used.