Today I tired to play Wizard101 by turning off my text chat to see what it was like and I have a few questions about a problem I think you should address.
Problem: Why do no text chat users have to see the bulloons of the ones who do have text chat? I know all they can see are "..." but this kind of makes it a little bit miserable for those people. It makes them wonder if they aren't talking about him or herself, or for those who can't get text chat because they are to young or their parents have denied them text chat it makes them feel a little left out. See that other people are talking but you can't see what they are saying adds to the loneliness that no text chat people already are feeling. If there is a reason for why they can see this, can you please explain it to me? I feel kind of like there is somewhat of an unfairness to it.
Problem: Why do no text chat users have to see the bulloons of the ones who do have text chat? I know all they can see are "..." but this kind of makes it a little bit miserable for those people.
I never thought about this until you posted something on Central about it. But you are right--at least as far as I can see. I think menu chat should just show nothing, rather than this (...) when someone is using text/open chat in the vicinity. The way it is, menu chat people can get spammed with comments--many of them mean--which they can't read. Why not just have nothing at all, unless people are using menu chat to speak to them? This would simplify things a lot, and not make menu chatters feel quite so left out. It's a good idea.
The dot - dot - dot is to let the menu chat person know the text chat is speaking so they can inform them that they do not have Text Chat - other wise there would be no way for them to inform some players that do not notice the bubble with line though it. Several times in the game I have come across other wizards with Text Chat that did not know they were speaking with a Menu Chat wizard.
