A special key (tab?) would trigger the completion of names of people present in the current scene, given the first few letters of the word being typed in the chat box.

This would allow to type faster without the need to rely on extensive abbreviations, as is heavily used in MD. This would make the chat more "new-user friendly":
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[*] some abbreviations can be very misleading, and the average recent user (which I still am) may spend time figuring out who, or what, "ss" and "mom" refer to (in this case, Shadowseeker, Master Of Magic), to cite only a few.
[*] neither my character, nor myself, would take the liberty to use diminutives when referring to people I don't know yet. "Hello, King Firs', nice to meet you!", sounds … impudent. Yet some names are rather long to type, and shorten them is really tempting.
[*] it would simply prevent some typos from happening, e.g. mixing "Sharazhad" with "Shemhazaj", as I recently did. Do you remember the first time you met Xcercses?
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In case of multiple possible completions, hitting the special key several times would replace the current proposition by the next one, e.g. in alphanumerical order, until the user hit the spacebar or any other key (except the carriage return). The word being completed could be highlighted in the chat box.

This could be extended to the completion of scene names as well, either in alphanumerical order, or according to "geographical" distance (closer scenes pop up first in case of multiple possible completions). I had no clue what "GoE", nor "MDP", referred to when I first encountered these abbreviations, although I had been there numerous times. Now I find myself repeating their meaning to newer users. I'll gladly continue doing so, but the friendliest option would be to write the name in full in the first place.


Alternative: a glossary?

In my opinion, it seems like a lot of work, to implment functionality which frankly would be pretty pointless.

As in many other games, some people have short names that you will soon quickly learn, if you dont want to use them then you dont have to. Something merely to help you type things a little faster makes it become a little more "chat" like, instead of more slower paced roleplay.

Not to mention the numerous other fixes and features that are important

When most of what we are is what we type, I, for one, want to type it myself.

I see your point. I told Shadowseeker about it in game and he didn't like it either …
I guess I'm a bit too formatted by a couple more "mechanical" softwares I heavily use. That will probably pass after I spend more time in the game.

Edited July 30, 201114 yr by Guillak