Free Flow Chat, what is it _really_ about? [Blog Post]

[Scotland]

Habbo is a social platform. At the very core of our world are Rooms and Chat. We have recently decided to take a look at these features with the goal of unlocking new possibilities for Habbos to interact and have fun. We feel our first step into this challenging area of development went well. We were able to bring new room layouts, stacking tools, and more intuitive navigation. Many more possibilities will follow.

Working on such core features is never easy and we understand that it can be a bit scary when things change. For that reason, we’d like to explain exactly what we’re doing now with the chat and why.

First, let’s define the problem. The chat system currently works by placing one speech bubble on each line and varying length of the bubble based on the amount of text. This works well in situations where the entire room is having a single conversation. However, in many rooms the layout provides various seating areas and hangouts. Habbos often gather in these hangouts to form groups and chat, but their speech winds up as part of the whole room conversation rather than allowing supporting this natural tendency toward small to medium sized groups.

Enter the Free Flow Chat: Non-overlapping bubbles can now pass each other and avatars talking in one position for a longer time get their chat pulled together into a single column. Your group of friends get your own column, while the group next door gets theirs, and the room owner gets to decide how wide these columns are and how fast they scroll up, and design their room accordingly!

http://habboblogging.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/chat_screenshots.gif?w=487&h=253

Example: If you go to a dedicated area of a large room like a diner with your friends and sit down at a table, you can’t really casually talk without interruption if the room is busy with lots of chat already. We believe room building skills and your avatar’s position should affect the range of possible socializing actions in more intricate ways than just the crude hearing-range implementation Habbo has now. We want to offer the room builders more than just furni to control the atmosphere of their rooms, hence the possibility to also control the way the chat flows.

And now for the apology: The old chat was great in many occasions and should still be available (in pixel perfect form)! We believed the choice of chat style should be made by the owner of the room since it requires users to navigate a bit differently to fully appreciate the benefits. However, chat is such a personal experience that the choice should rest with individuals as well. For this reason, we will be adding individual option to choose your chat style as well as the alternative to take the room’s default setting.

If you’d like to follow along with the progress, the Free Flow Beta group will be open for everyone to opt-in. A lot of people enjoyed the new model, and we will offer them the possibility to take it to use everywhere in the hotel while we work to emulate the old chat perfectly while still giving you the improvements of the new: Chat history view spanning multiple rooms with time-stamps, instant response to room panning, pointers moving while you walk, fabulous-looking chat styles, and more still to come!


http://blog.habbo.com/2013/06/12/free-flow-chat-what-is-it-_really_-about/

[Michael]

Oh dammit, you beat me to it :( I get email notifications on that blog!

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I like how they have decided to allow us to have a individual option on the chat style/layout. It does make more sense now i've had a read of this of why they have chosen to change the chat.

[Scotland]

Oh dammit, you beat me to it :( I get email notifications on that blog!

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I like how they have decided to allow us to have a individual option on the chat style/layout. It does make more sense now i've had a read of this of why they have chosen to change the chat.

Haha, my twitter auto posts it. - so i saw it
Yeah, i prefer new chat anyway. To me much neater, but when people abuse it its... anoying.

[e5]

So they're giving us the choice of free-flow and normal? :) I think we should get a personal choice aswell as to what we wish to see!

[Red]

However, chat is such a personal experience that the choice should rest with individuals as well. For this reason, we will be adding individual option to choose your chat style as well as the alternative to take the room’s default setting.


Never going to like the new chat system, and those small bubbles are impractical cause it will only go up the room quicker. :S I am glad they recognise that it should be the individuals choice though. For me it should deffo be the individual and not the room owner of how they want their chat to be displayed. Now I need an option to disable hideous coloured chat bubbles. Not really looking forward to any updates regarding this!

[MKR&*42]

For this reason, we will be adding individual option to choose your chat style as well

Thank god.

[Yawn]

i guess wat they r trying 2 do makes sense but it rly isnt a big deal?? the chat has never been a problem we read around wat other ppl r saying and its not an issue having to do that. however this new chat was impossible to use and was a problem.

just leave it as it is and save all the messing about :S if they make the style of chat an option then w/e i dont care as long as it isnt forced on us but it clearly didnt work. all the new fonts were confusing, the bubbles didnt run smoothly and whole bits of chat disappeared up the screen b4 u could even read it..

[Red]

'emulate the old chat perfectly' ugh what are they going to do to it???????? leave it alone :@@@

[Daltron]

yeah it doesn't make sense of all things they could have attempted to fix up on Habbo they do this...

---------- Post added 12-06-2013 at 11:20 PM ----------

tbh sulake don't fix what aint broken -.-

[Star-Fighter]

So they're giving us the option to choose the chat BOTH in our avatar settings as well as room settings, or did I misunderstand something? Could this be more of a hassle really?

If they really want these "small groups of people who gather in different parts of a room" to have a more fluent chat, they could just simply reduce the range/area of the other chat bubbles, as in, from what distance they can be seen. Shout is whole room and whisper to one person only, but the normal "say" area could be reduced so it wouldn't interrupt ongoing discussions. However, I have never had any problems with the chat.

Change is good and I think something could be done with chat, just not this free flow thing.

[LiquidLuck.]

I don't get how bubbles can pass each other. Like how does it decide which bubble will go up quicker?

[e5]

If you go to this room: http://www.habbo.com/room/63028607

and join the group, you get access to the free flow beta chat automatically :)

[zombies]

did you see us on the screenie in the article? e5

[MKR&*42]

If you go to this room: http://www.habbo.com/room/63028607

and join the group, you get access to the free flow beta chat automatically :)

thankss, I've re-enabled mine only because the chat history is actually much better and goes back further. I'm still hating the speed of the bubbles though and the width :/

[Aaron]

Suppose it's good to have the choice to use it or not in your room, just need to see what I think of it first. :P

[e5]

Nope? Are we haha
did you see us on the screenie in the article? e5

---------- Post added 12-06-2013 at 03:46 PM ----------

It is good, except when people spam, that's my only annoyance. I like how it separates the chat though when in different places in the room :)

[zombies]

Nope? Are we haha

http://i.imgur.com/CToRr65.png

yea:)

[dbgtz]

I don't get why they talk about there being multiple conversations and the new chat making it easier to follow, but then have a piss poor chat log system which you can't see where the people were when they said it and cuts off the last bloody letter.

[e5]

Oh yeah I saw that and never noticed us LOL my chat is blurred out! lolz

I hate this new chat log thing cos u cant see the logs properly. i preferred the old one in bubbles

http://i.imgur.com/CToRr65.png

yea:)

[Sandoo]

I opted in to the beta to see what the chat was like. I feel like its main problem is that the bubbles take up too much of the room space now, and that they move way too fast.

EDIT: The wired and whisper bubbles need to be changed back to grey font.

[zombies]

heres one flaw of the flow chat

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8750/lgt9cafx.png

[Michael]

I have to agree with the chat taking up a lot of space..

http://oi39.tinypic.com/308y4q1.jpg

[Mr-Trainor]

A personal option is what they should have done in the first place, glad they'll be adding it :D.

[Red]

If I enable it, can I disable it again?

and whats it like for if you are in game rooms which is like first to answer. Is it easy to tell who got in first? I'd imagine it would be hard for owners to see if they move up at diff speeds?

[Mr-Trainor]

If I enable it, can I disable it again?

and whats it like for if you are in game rooms which is like first to answer. Is it easy to tell who got in first? I'd imagine it would be hard for owners to see if they move up at diff speeds?
That's a good point, with people at different areas of the room it wouldn't really be easy to tell if everyones quite fast - however, I believe the chat history is ordered so they could use that.

[Michael]

That's a good point, with people at different areas of the room it wouldn't really be easy to tell if everyones quite fast - however, I believe the chat history is ordered so they could use that.


If I enable it, can I disable it again?

and whats it like for if you are in game rooms which is like first to answer. Is it easy to tell who got in first? I'd imagine it would be hard for owners to see if they move up at diff speeds?

Chat history would show who came first.

[e5]

You can enable and disable it by joining and leaving the group, at the moment.

If I enable it, can I disable it again?

and whats it like for if you are in game rooms which is like first to answer. Is it easy to tell who got in first? I'd imagine it would be hard for owners to see if they move up at diff speeds?

---------- Post added 12-06-2013 at 05:42 PM ----------

Yep, defo a bit of a problem

http://i.imgur.com/RmDUWVK.png


heres one flaw of the flow chat

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8750/lgt9cafx.png

[Bradley.]

lol soo stupid its unbelievable
its just ugly and you cant keep up, did they make it so chat would be easier?? what was the whole idea on integrating it?
why do they keep making minimal changes which people dont even like, theyre annoying its unreal

and theres so many complaints about it and they say "well you can change it in account settings" w.e like fgs we dont like it why even create it

[Scotland]

lol soo stupid its unbelievable
its just ugly and you cant keep up, did they make it so chat would be easier?? what was the whole idea on integrating it?
why do they keep making minimal changes which people dont even like, theyre annoying its unreal

and theres so many complaints about it and they say "well you can change it in account settings" w.e like fgs we dont like it why even create it

the bit in bold.
if they didn't create it how were they meant to know if you would like it?
Also allot of users like it.

[Sandoo]

Don't fix what isn't broken.

[Chrisbud1]

the bit in bold.
if they didn't create it how were they meant to know if you would like it?
Also allot of users like it.

Lol, you're right. Alot of users like it, but overall most of the community hates it. I personally, don't mind it anymore as we have the option through account settings.

[Bradley.]

the bit in bold.
if they didn't create it how were they meant to know if you would like it?
Also allot of users like it.
well isnt that what beta was for, why roll it out when there are so many complaints
test it, people dont like it, ok then lets not roll it out.....

them
just roll it out but let people have the option to change

lol whats the point just dont have it altogether

[Scotland]

yeah, good to have choice.

Lol, you're right. Alot of users like it, but overall most of the community hates it. I personally, don't mind it anymore as we have the option through account settings.

Most (i think) beta testers liked it, but when it was released people just abused it and people hated it for that.

well isnt that what beta was for, why roll it out when there are so many complaints
test it, people dont like it, ok then lets not roll it out.....

them
just roll it out but let people have the option to change

lol whats the point just dont have it altogether

[Yawn]

WELL OBV THE BETA TESTERS LIKED IT. HABBO SAID THE TESTERS LIKED IT WHICH IS WHY THEY IMPLEMENTED IT

EVIDENTLY ITS CRAP THOUGH AND THE BETA TESTERS R MORONS

[Scotland]

WELL OBV THE BETA TESTERS LIKED IT. HABBO SAID THE TESTERS LIKED IT WHICH IS WHY THEY IMPLEMENTED IT

EVIDENTLY ITS CRAP THOUGH AND THE BETA TESTERS R MORONS

If you say so.
everything has its advantages + disadvantages.

[Bradley.]

WELL OBV THE BETA TESTERS LIKED IT. HABBO SAID THE TESTERS LIKED IT WHICH IS WHY THEY IMPLEMENTED IT

EVIDENTLY ITS CRAP THOUGH AND THE BETA TESTERS R MORONS
yer i couldn't agree more!

[Red]

WELL OBV THE BETA TESTERS LIKED IT. HABBO SAID THE TESTERS LIKED IT WHICH IS WHY THEY IMPLEMENTED IT

EVIDENTLY ITS CRAP THOUGH AND THE BETA TESTERS R MORONS

indeed! and surely they would have tested it for spamming. It shouldn't have even been released knowing that it could be abused. If it can be abused it obviously will be.

[e5]

Of course they were going to roll it out - it would have been a waste of time otherwise.
Where can you change these settings? :S
well isnt that what beta was for, why roll it out when there are so many complaints
test it, people dont like it, ok then lets not roll it out.....

them
just roll it out but let people have the option to change

lol whats the point just dont have it altogether

[Bradley.]

Of course they were going to roll it out - it would have been a waste of time otherwise.
Where can you change these settings? :Swell seeing as this was like last week and free flow doesnt exist now there are no settings lol

[e5]

Oh, i thought we were saying that they enrolled a setting thing to turn it on and off :/

well seeing as this was like last week and free flow doesnt exist now there are no settings lol

[Bradley.]

Oh, i thought we were saying that they enrolled a setting thing to turn it on and off :/not as i am aware, the only way to get it now is to join the free flow group