New phone features

[QuirkyMayhem]

I feel like phones are overdue an upgrade.

 

Features that i'd love to see added

Group chats

I feel like a lot of people would agree with me, this kind of thing would benefit a lot of us both legal and illegal. It's very time consuming and annoying sending the same text over and over again to multiple people.

Social media apps

Instagram & twitter
This would be a great way for new players to see whats going on in the city and the kind of people they may come across but also a way for them to meet people, this would also benefit those who are holding events as we know sometimes weazel isn't around when you need them so having a social media platform would be great to help with that, i mean come on only a handful of people use lifeinvader so having a smaller social media app on your phone would be easier to access.
Also would love to see Weazels twitter about breaking news and things going on around the city as it happens.

Different coloured phones

In the real world we can change our phone cases and even purchase phones of all kinds of colours. Would be nice to see the new tech store in the mall come into some use by selling phones that are different colours and the model for the phone is that colour when you use it in our characters hand, if not just a setting on the phone itself where you can change the case as a cosmetic.

Wallpapers

Another cosmetic just to make your phone look nicer. You could use links from imgur or any link that ends with .png to change what is displayed on your phone.

[KonaKealoha]

+1 definitely nowhere near a priority, but I'd sure love to see LifeInvader be updated to be a LOT quicker. It's borderline unusable now and I know that they are working on fixing that issue. LifeInvader, if reworked, could definitely get a message/group chat feature if possible.

[Pazz]

3 hours ago, KonaKealoha said:

+1 definitely nowhere near a priority, but I'd sure love to see LifeInvader be updated to be a LOT quicker. It's borderline unusable now and I know that they are working on fixing that issue. LifeInvader, if reworked, could definitely get a message/group chat feature if possible.

The platform used for LifeInvader (Sngine) already comes with a direct messaging feature/module, but it was disabled on Eclipse's end, presumably because of concerns surrounding proper moderation of the feature (either a lack thereof through no features allowing for it, or the amount of effort it would require) as well as it allowing players to message each other while out of the game but allowing for it to be IC, and the only way to restrict the latter to reduce the attention needed for the former is a whole other conversation, which is restricting logins to LifeInvader to only be pushed through when a character is logged into the server. At this stage, though, I don't really see it happening, the focus is entirely elsewhere, and if the scope somehow comes to include LifeInvader again, the focus will likely be the lack of proper usability you mentioned because of its speed.

When it comes to the actual phone in-game, I like all proposed features, but if the attempt at social media from before is anything to go off of, adding two more platforms is probably better left alone for now, given how the implementation of LifeInvader went. At least, when it comes to forcing the player base to use a barely usable platform instead of its substitutes that worked perfectly fine. LifeInvader needs some love before any more experimentation is done with IC social media. 

A re-work of the texting system is probably also long overdue when it comes to group chats; texts don't properly sort based on when they were received or sent, names are cut short if you use too long of a name for a contact, if your messages are too far up and you scroll there, you'll automatically be moved down again, etc. 

I think the phone in its current stage, while exponentially better than the old phone script, still leaves a lot to be desired, and finer details should probably be taken care of before adding anything new to make it even more "fancy'. That said, if anything, a priority (as far as QOL priorities go and not actual "content" prioritization) should be the re-work of texting and the introduction of group chats. 

There's also an argument to be made that phones could and maybe should be inventory items that will allow players to A) have separate phones (i.e. work and personal, or burner and personal for illegal roleplayers), and B) for phones to be stolen or confiscated by other characters or law enforcement respectively, but that's an entirely different direction.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Pazz

[Johnnie_Hill]

+1 long overdue i think

[NoahG]

+1

[TheCactus]

I can live without colors and wallpapers but I believe what we need right now is a phone app for our cars. /vehiclestats and /showvehicles should be removed while the phone should have those features. Now that I think about it, it's quite unrealstic to know know what's up with your cars when your phone is dead and maybe you have no electronic devices on you.

[QuirkyMayhem]

46 minutes ago, TheCactus said:

I can live without colors and wallpapers but I believe what we need right now is a phone app for our cars. /vehiclestats and /showvehicles should be removed while the phone should have those features. Now that I think about it, it's quite unrealstic to know know what's up with your cars when your phone is dead and maybe you have no electronic devices on you.

+1 for mors app