1) Fix the chat so it wraps around and doesn't end after one sentence.
2) When your in the room, and a person leaves, fix the ghosting problems where players will see multiple players.
3) When you first join Vnet. We know that we have servers that players need to join and play games. If its possible to make Vnet more accessable and friendly, if one of those servers can be turned into a host server and set up as a gateway to the others. What I mean, is that this server will be the chat room server. Where people can come in and chat. We all know that in internet play, for many people, the reason they play is to socialize with players. To keep the internet community active, not just on the boards, but online as well. This would be a great feature for players just to hang out and go afk and come back when they see any of their friends pop on and chat with them.
The second reason for setting up a gateway server, is that players can be funneled into one server, meet eachother and match up together. With this feature, players who have EU or HOI then can meet and then head to the server that will host their games. It would be a great way to meet new faces and get the community playing together.
4) The gaming servers. You can either do one of 2 ways. Either have dedicated gaming servers that will host games for every game. Or split servers off for each game and dedicate them to that one game. I don't see any problems with players joining together to play different games. Its already possible right now for games of EU to be played on the HOI channel and the reverse happenning.
5) But we can expand the options a gamer has when entering the gaming server. Right now when you enter the server, you don't see what games are in progress, and its quit difficult for new players to join games when they would like to know if they can be invited.
To alleviate this, especially for new online players. Have each room set up that you can see what games are in progress. Each game can have a lock beside it. Red meaning, its a closed game and green for an open game. Under each game, have a highlight of the game's description, whether or not its for HOI or EU. And under that, have a blurb that players can type down. Newbie's welcome!, Or ladder match and so forth. Every game that is in progress or in the game room should be highlighted. Games that have been launched should be easily reconizable from the games that are currently open.
Also, have each game with the players names in it as well. Its a cosmetic change, but players like to know they are present and if they see players they reconize, its a good motivator to stay around and ask how their games went and maybe set up games for later.
6) Change the whole chat window appearance so it you can expand more options for players. Create options that moderators can use to keep a room under control. Give them more abilities other then ban, muting a player and so forth. Give all players the abilty to send private tells to others. An easy way to do this is.
/tell Duma There is a game being set up in game room 1, lets go over there and join in.
Have tells be reachable to all the servers in the cluster. So if a player is checking a server out to see any open games, he can send a tell to his friend in the chat server that there is a room open for them.
This and probably other suggestions can deffinetely help improve internet play and if Paradox wants to encourage the continual play of their games. Its a must for them to design their servers that will help bring players together, instead of relying on ICQ contacts and knowing players who play online. To broaden their game online to go past the hardcore group of players, a well thought out and built internet service for their players needs to be realized.
Duma
