Impossible to tell who is who in a crowd

I didn't see a thread devoted to this issue - so I thought I'd start one. Apologies if its already been brought up.

The "floating names" (not to be confused with chat bubbles) are an absolute nightmare if you're in a small area with more than 10+ people.

For my gameshow last night, I had 30 people seated. Attempting to decipher which name belonged to which AV was nearly impossible.


I understand that these client interface changes were made in the hopes of making SL more friendly for those coming from other worlds. However - these changes would be much less painful for the existing SL community if you gave us an option to turn this feature on/off.

Names in a fixed position over the AV are much better in a crowded environment - I should have a checkbox for that.

Thanks!

I second this suggestion. The issue is compounded when people are dancing, because the name stays in the same place, divorcing it entirely of its intent as an ID for the person moshing next to you

I couldn't agree more. My name appear like 1000 miles over my head... and so does everyone else's. It's not sane!

It's kind of funny to watch all the nametags jostle around each other for a position on the screen. If you zoom your camera around JUST RIGHT, you can get your name tag to switch places with your friend's ;) By the way, nametags are now considered a part of the avatar, which can really get in the way when there are a lot on your screen.

I've been an advocate of a "classic" interface option from the first time I tried 1.6 in Preview. I support this.

I hate the nametags, too.

But only b/c they get in the way of my Tringo clicks!

I agree. Please give us an option to do it the old way.

My solution to this that I came up with even BEFORE 1.6 is just not to hang out with people.

seriously though, they are broken and annoying, why we cant have a simple "classic mode" is beyone me. If I wanted to play There, I'd go play There.

What, there's other people in Secondlife? More to do than just sit at my parcel and become one with my inner creative hermit-dom? (Hermit-Dom = State of being a hermit, get yer mind outta the gutter) ^_^

Seriously, BUMP, I second that, If I thought seeing everyone's name overlapping before was bad, I guess they wanted to show us all how much worst it could be... Please give us the option to revert to the old way of displaying names.

And, for the record, do we really need "..." displayed under the person's name when they're typing?

I really like the bubbles, but in a crowd it's completely broken.

Try switching chat bubbles off. That should help. I was just in the WA and I could tell who everyone was no problem.

Chat bubbles really makes it bounce around in a crowded area.

I haven't turned on chat bubbles at all - and last night, that was one of the first things I asked people when they started complaining.

Not saying you're incorrect - I can see where the chat bubbles would just make this problem even worse. But even without them - if you pack a bunch of AV's into a small area, and have them either dance - or sit in a close-together seating area, its impossible to tell who's who - even when you zoom in on the individual.

If this thread is still alive later, maybe I'll grab a screenshot later tonight to show what I'm talking about (Oh, and if I can figure out how the hell to attach an image to a forum post too )

Don't worry, I believe you. I'm just saying it would help

I find the lack of rollover (moving the mouse over an av) identification really odd though. Did they do that so you'd have to move up to someone to figure out who they were?

If so, I guess they could have done a distance check at least. Cause I can't find out who is a few feet away from me anymore without flipping my camera around or right-click profile.

Maybe they want us to start recognizing avatars by their appearance

A bit of a problem when people keep switching their avatar appearance,though.

I turned down the opacity on tame tags to that, with a single avatar, the tag looks the same as it did pre-1.6.

1. In a crowd, especially if you zoom out a bit, the names have little attachment to the players.
   
2. The name tags move and slide around when the objects to which they are supposed to be attached do not, but the camera is.
   
3. The names absorb clicks, which is bad for several reasons:
   1. The size of the name (in relation to the avatar or nearby objects) increases as the camera moves out, blocking more visual space and covering objects that should be clickable.
      
   2. Attachments with clickable components above the avatars head can no longer be clicked. This breaks a number of existing products (mainly on your own avatar).
      
   3. Even if the clickable nature of the name tags was desired, the constant motion of them makes for a difficult target.
      
   4. There's no need... The avatar is a perfectly large enough target.
      
   
   
4. With the opacity on, half the screen can be covered with black oblongs with orange text inside them. Let's just go back to IRC why don't we?
   

This was a feature even before 1.6, I called it "alphabet soup". It's one of the reasons I stopped going to laggy clubs. I couldn't even move in order to click on the people posrating me to return the favour, and couldn't even find them in that alphabet soup.

In TSO, it's better, I'm sorry.

You can go up to the top of the screen and see a list of the people on that lot, and maybe pull up one of them to talk to.

bumpety-bump & a hotline post

I agree that it shouldn't have changed. I did make mine fully opaque, so it looks similar to how it used to be, but I had to turn my own name off with the new version, because when you're playing a game and you're trying to click the spot that appears behind your name, you accidentally click your name and your camera angle suddenly changes so that the focus is no longer on the game board, but on yourself.

I've also witnessed the dancing phenomenon where people dance a nice distance from their name.

I'll just say I agree with everything said here.

I endorse Tiger Crossing's views completely.

The old style of nametags weren't perfect but I could tolerate to leave them on almost all the time. When it got too crowded I would just move my camera postion up in the air and look down, then the names would be separate. The only time I found it necessary to turn them off completely was in situations where a crowd was focused on one speaker.

Please make the old style nametags an option.

Tiger, you must be a really smart guy. You writing is clear, concise and correct.

A Linden programmmer reports not reading this forum, and indicates that the only items he is paying any attention to are bugs reported through the inworld bug reporting system. He specifically indicated a complete lack of awareness of any reports of any dissatisfaction with the name tag system introduced in the 1.6 preview.

So it might be that a bug report filed every time a name tag moves in a stupid distracting confusing way might get the attention these complaints deserve.

What?! I've reported several bugs on this issue through the bug-reporting system, starting a few days after 1.6 went live! How can they not have seen those?

The linden staffer told me that he was too busy to read the feeback forum , was only getting 4 hours a niight sleep, and was acting like a martyr for for working so hard when a more realistic assesment would probably be that his chronic lack of sleep was greatly impairing his job performance as well as his intepersonal skills.

Is a return to old style name behavior in list of proposal to vote on?

At first I liked the idea that the names would not overlap, but they do not associate well to what they point to.

YES Suze I know you warned me! But it was due out in like a week what could we do by then! I owe you and will **edit*be your slave for 2 weeks.*edit**

edit:
I owe you and will vote on your proposal

-Blueman

I don't like how the floating names was implemented either, and I really don't like the chat bubbles (unless I'm doing a graphic novel, LOL!)

I do like how they put the title on one line, and the first and last names on the (same) second line. I think this should be kept

Thing that bugs me most about the chat bubbles is that lines don't appear in realtime, and when someone's typing you only get a "..." For the few days I played There, I'd have to say I enjoyed how they did their live chat bubbles, how the text appears one letter at a time.

Would be delighted to see something like that in SL.

Still true. The nametags floating far above and dancing around still sucks.

i think the thought about this was said that its better to have fixed to them then floating. I rather have floating.