move MOTD behind Overview!

[Homer-Jay]

Heiho!

Please, move those extrem long MOTD from PA-Team behind Overview! Or keep them shorter and link to the texts. This is annoying sometimes.

[A2]

Experience unfortunatley suggests that links in the MOTD are read by much less people than the MOTD itself, if only because you don't have to look elsewhere for the information. The constantly changing bright colours are also necessary to draw people's attention to the fact that its changed.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by A2

Experience unfortunatley suggests that links in the MOTD are read by much less people than the MOTD itself, if only because you don't have to look elsewhere for the information. The constantly changing bright colours are also necessary to draw people's attention to the fact that its changed.

Perhaps if the MoTD were reserved for only the most important information you wouldn't have to resort to gimmicks to draw people's attention to it?

Just a thought.

Not trying to be flip, btw, but many studies have shown that people quickly tune out stuff that's always there. If the MoTD were a rare event then I think people would be much more likely to notice it.

[Entium]

You should definitely stop using red colours in MoTD, however.

[Leshy]

You could do much cooler stuff with the MotD if you weren't restricted to such a rigid layout

[A2]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Perhaps if the MoTD were reserved for only the most important information you wouldn't have to resort to gimmicks to draw people's attention to it?

Just a thought.

Not trying to be flip, btw, but many studies have shown that people quickly tune out stuff that's always there. If the MoTD were a rare event then I think people would be much more likely to notice it.

Agreed. Our problem of course is that different players have different patterns of activity, therefore meaning that information has to be there for quite some time before we can realistically say that everyone that it applies to will have read it.

I'm not sure how feasible it would be, or whether it would be any use, but we could look at having an MOTD that shows itself the first time you login after it has been changed, and then on subsequent logins it is hidden with a "view current MOTD" link. This would mean that only when something was changed would the message be there. It could even be an option in preferences to either: a) always show motd, b) auto hide motd after first view.
(not particularly clear, but I hope it's got across what I mean)

[A2]

Originally Posted by Leshy

You could do much cooler stuff with the MotD if you weren't restricted to such a rigid layout

Hey - we banned Spinner from using the <marquee> and <blink> tags didn't we

[wakey]

I'm not sure if allowing it to be hid after the first view is a good idea. After all sometimes when you first login you dont pay alot of attention to the MOTD and if it was hid you may never get round to reading it.

The problem is over the rounds too many bad precedent's have been set and the motd has gone from being a place to announce important game related info to announcing pretty much anything, Take the recent marriage/births announcements. One was posted on there which set the precedent and when others were raised you couldnt do anything but add them and then we got countless llnes in the motd which while undoubtedly good news wasnt really game related which in turn reduces the importance s of the motd. The MOTD needs to go back to being a place for vital info, if theres something in it its something the community needs to know. The other stuff can be dealt with on the forums or portal

[Kal]

Originally Posted by wakey

I'm not sure if allowing it to be hid after the first view is a good idea. After all sometimes when you first login you dont pay alot of attention to the MOTD and if it was hid you may never get round to reading it.

The problem is over the rounds too many bad precedent's have been set and the motd has gone from being a place to announce important game related info to announcing pretty much anything, Take the recent marriage/births announcements. One was posted on there which set the precedent and when others were raised you couldnt do anything but add them and then we got countless llnes in the motd which while undoubtedly good news wasnt really game related which in turn reduces the importance s of the motd. The MOTD needs to go back to being a place for vital info, if theres something in it its something the community needs to know. The other stuff can be dealt with on the forums or portal

I agree completely - the motd serves no purpose if people don't read it.

[Sinn]

slightly off-topic, but i want the bloody galaxy news back :/

[Jester]

Originally Posted by wakey

I'm not sure if allowing it to be hid after the first view is a good idea. After all sometimes when you first login you dont pay alot of attention to the MOTD and if it was hid you may never get round to reading it.

What about if you had to actively push the 'mark current motd as read' button? Obviously a new motd would not be read, and would show itself. Perfectly feasible, easy to do and calls attention to new motds by changing the layout of the overview.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Jester

What about if you had to actively push the 'mark current motd as read' button? Obviously a new motd would not be read, and would show itself. Perfectly feasible, easy to do and calls attention to new motds by changing the layout of the overview.

That way does seem alot more viable

[Jester]

Originally Posted by wakey

That way does seem alot more viable

I don't see problems, only solutions.