Commander updates worthy of the WvW segment of one of the two week releases coming up and simple to implement.
1. New squad chat.
Currently we have map chat for WvW/PvP/PvE and also team chat (darker red) however upon joining a commander tag, there should be a special new colored chat type for these squads.
Suggestion: Brighter yellow (than guild chat) text for squad chat with commander’s own messages bold. Simple and effective.
2. Abillity for commander to spawn middle text messages.
Currently these messages appear for players in the middle of the screen for things like Scarlet invasions and other reasons, however commanders should have this ability for their squads.
/squadwarning or some other trigger easily usable by the commanders for their squad. Simple and effective.
3. Ability for commanders to expand on the symbols they place on the map.
Currently commanders can place symbols on the map, but they are not used very well.
We can expand the symbol functionality by making it so those in his squad see the symbols on the sidebar like an EVENT and thus they snap on the corners of the minimap when outside the range of them, and hovering them on the sidebar does the nice event style highlighting.
Adding to this functionality in another future release would be the ability for the commander to click on the created ‘events’ he placed (by merely adding a symbol to the map) and give it a title and/or description.
Simple and effective. v1.0 of this one expands the symbol functionality and v2.0 makes it so you can title/description them.
4. Voice chat for squads.
This is a serious update, but can be added easily a few ways.
Suggestion:
Implementation: The simplest way would be to not have ANET provided VoIP, but instead utilizing the SDK of other VoIP solutions and plugging into them. For example, in GW2 settings, there would be the server/password for a TS server using the TS SDK and anyone in your squad when you’re a commander automatically connects up to YOUR server you specified in your GW2 settings and instantly you have the best experience for communication yet.
This can be done in such a quick timeframe, I don’t know why it hasn’t already. I’ve played with it and it’s simple:
http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=teamspeak3sdk
Again SIMPLE to implement, but powerful and the most significant change to WvW, PvP, and PvE dungeons/fractals.
We’re talking about people popping their commander tag in dungeon groups and giving their party access to their TS and communicating in dungeons, fractals, general PvE like the Tower of Nightmares map..
Just an SDK implementation and simple settings panel in GW2 where you set a server/password and when you’re a commander and people join on your squad it connects you all up. Commander functionality. Literally takes most application and game developers a day to implement and test because it’s just an SDK and not ANET developing their own VoIP solution.
Solves many issues including spies from servers in WvW asking for the TS channel and cheating by listening to what’s going on.
SUMMARY:
1. New squad chat.
2. Abillity for commander to spawn middle text messages.
3. Ability for commanders to expand on the symbols they place on the map.
4. Voice chat for squads.
All of these features can be worked on and implemented quickly, nothing is new coding and is based on existing GW2 features. Source: I’m a programmer and understand reusing existing features for other uses.
Please make these things happen.