Right now, the PM system (/tell <user>) only works for users presently online, on the same server, and actively in front of the computer. At any given moment, 99.9% of EMC is offline, 90% (on average with 10 servers) will be on another server, and somewhere around 20-30% may be AFK. The forum private message system only works for those users who have it and regularly check. A vast majority of players do not check the forums daily, and many do not have a forum account. The /mail system only works in town, doesn't notify when a player returns from being AFK, requires book and quills, and is highly inefficient compared with /tell. It can take upwards of 30 minutes to find enough book and quills and compose a short message to several players. My idea is an improvement to /tell which gives each player a small mailbox (~9 messages). This mailbox stores messages received from any server by any player, until that player sends back a response, and allows all /tell messages to be answered at the leisure of the recipient, regardless of which server or being online. Case 1: Player is online (normal case). Case 2: Player B disconnects. Case 3: Player A goes AFK. And so on... Hope you get the idea! Please vote for how often you would use this system and if you have any questions or feedback on the idea!
Sorry, but that is incorrect. I've sent plenty of stuff to my friends who weren't online or on another server and so far I've had no issues what so ever with this. Whether I was only sending a book & quill, items or both; it worked. Just to be sure I just tried this again (something could always change in the mean time) so I sent Shiyvah, a good friend of mine, a small gift (mail and some goodies): I know it doesn't fully show that I sent it to her, you'll just have to take my word on that. You're right about one thing though: when players are afk then they might not spot the alert. But that alert will be repeated the very moment they hop onto another server. Yess, that's the one thing I do agree with. Right now the usage of the mail system outside of town seems to be supporter only. Right now my support voucher has ran off, I just tried going into the wasteland but noticed that the /mail command did work. So right now I assume that /mail works, but retrieving the mail doesn't. Technically it still allows you to send a quick one-liner, but I fully agree that its hardly usable. Not to sure here, IMO having 2 mail systems would heavily overcomplicate things. And I'd sure wouldn't like to see our current system get tampered with because the option to actually send goodies to someone is IMO an invaluable one. Instead it would be awesome if they could somehow make a difference in the way they treat messages which have goodies attached (so items for which people got charged) or if it only 'contains' a message through means of a book & quill. The latter would be retrievable outside of town whereas the first wouldn't. Know what; I'm going to test this right away. I need to /vote and my support voucher has ran out. On smp4 I'm supporting an outpost in the Frontier so... perfect scenario. Back in a bit Edit: Ayups, it no workie: Now, I haven't used the mail system in the wild while I was a gold supporter, so I can't comment if the error is accurate or not.
I have clarified my opening paragraph for what I mean by PM (the /tell system). If you happen to have a book and quill while in the middle of your mining expedition. Otherwise, (1) get to the surface, (2) fine a squid, (3) get the ink sac, (4) find a chicken, (5) get the feather, (6) find 9 sugar cane, (7) make a crafting table, (8) craft 3 paper, (9) find a cow, (10) get leather, (11) craft a book, (12) craft a book and quill, (13) type your message in the book, (14) use the /mail send command, (15) put the book in the slot, (16) click send, (17) realize you made a small typo and have to do that all over again. There are presently not just 2 but 3 systems! (I edited my post to clearly identify them.) My suggestion leaves /mail intact and changes /tell, the most commonly used system. It's great if you have a book and quill to solve most of the issues. If there were free book and quills, then it would only be mildly slower than using /tell. And not solve the issue of /tell messages disappearing. And not reach users who come back from being AFK. And kill the book and quill economy resulting in the potential draining of rupees from every shop which presently buys book and quills.
Yeah, re-reading this after your changes I understand your point and it sounds good to me. I think there is already some development going on with regards to multi-server chatting / messaging (or so I heard) which would probably allow us to use /tell or /whisper to contact a player even though he's on another server. Still; being able to contact players (non-supporters) while they're not in town would definitely be a nice one. Especially because they can't access town chat from there.
It's been planned according to this: http://track.emc.gs/issue/EMC-528 But no recent progress on it as far as I can tell
That is a goal, not a plan. (No implementation details.) The goal mentioned is only one of the goals which would be solved with my plan. (It doesn't solve offline communication or /tell messages scrolling off the chat, for example.)
I agree; the mail system is inefficient. People who send me mail in-game won't get a reply in a few days to a few weeks at most. I also expect my mail to be full of voting rewards.
