How to Disable Player Chat?

[Darkness-4ever]

Basically I need to disable player chat while my cinematic is running, no idea how to though, as setting cinematic mode on doesn't appear to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Doing so would be pointless, just let it be and advise people to be quiet (afterall if they do then disabling it would be a waste of time).

If people have seen the cinimatic already they may want to talk rather than being forced to see it.

You could try disabling all elements of the UI to see if that helps but I seriouslly would just let it be.

 

[mrzwach]

People might want to whisper or something.

Unfortunately, you can't change this, and I agree it can be annoying.

I guess you could constantly clear the screen of messages like every 0.05 seconds (if possible, only chat messages) and then re-display any messages from the cinematic.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Or you could just tell people to be quiet. If someone is spamming, you can mute him.

 

[kevv2]

Or you could just tell people to be quiet. If someone is spamming, you can mute him.

or u can try helping out toward what he really wants instead of what you think is best

 

[Rispetto]

Event - Any Player enters a chat message
Condition -
Action - Clear Text

 

[mrzwach]

That clears transmission messages too, which I assume he doesn't want.

 

[Darkness-4ever]

Indeed, though I can do it that way I would really really prefer people not to be able to chat/text during the cinematics, and from what I was told, they find that it would just ruin the mood of the game if the chat is left unsubdued.

 

[kevv2]

doesnt the "cinematic mode" stop chat input? if there is one

 

[Dr Super Good]

The whole point of multiplayer is to have a social time, killing chat would ruin it for people who do not want to use voice chat...

 

[kevv2]

errr... he doesnt want to kill chat for the whole map, only for a fraction of the map, the cinematics that probably explain how th story came to be or how to play, if somebody spams during that time it would flood the text away, ruining the whole point of the cinematic

 

[Dr Super Good]

But can you just not ignore spammers (like you can mute people)?

 

[Mooglefrooglian]

And for the 30 seconds it takes you to mute someone, you suddenly miss the cinematic. Muting someone at all detracts from the experience. Easiest to just find a way for them to not be able to talk... which isn't happening. I've whined about getting a way to do this on SC2 forums for months now and it's just not happening.

 

[Dr Super Good]

After seeing the cinimatic once, people will get pissed if you do not let them talk, so in the long term you may find this better.

Ofcourse there will always be "asses" who spam. Play on Europe if you have constant problems with them as 80% of players do not talk at all during games and I have only had 1 spamming incident ever ingame.

 

[Darkness-4ever]

DSG, if you actually don't have an answer to the thread topic, then do me the courtesy of shutting the hell up. If you honestly can't resist talking for half a minute, then clearly this is not the game for you.

 

[cookies4you]

@OP, Sadly, there is no way to disable chat without causing problems.

 

[M0RT]

Well you could change the layout file and move it outside screen, but that would disable it entirely (At least I think you could, layout changes shoulb be possible since last patch)

(Actually it may work, assuming there is a Dialog item template for chat panel, that way you could recreate the chat panel as soon as cinematic is over)

 

[Darkness-4ever]

May have to wait until the patch 1.2 is released, as I have tried all the methods mentioned, but none so far have given the desired result, which is a WC3 styled cinematic sysmte where it hides the UI, Cursor, and disables all forms of chatting and disables the chat bar, but afterwards any chat that you may have missed (friend message for example) will be displayed right when you come out of cinematic mode, so you don't miss anything you probably would have needed to hear.

 

[Dr Super Good]

It is impossible to disable wispers, they are hard coded above the game interface, same with the friends button.

I have however come up with a way to prevent spammers ingame from drowing out the cinimatic for everyone. If people start sending chat messages (you can detect this via event), you can then move all the cinimatic text to another area of the screen so that no one misses any of it. It may not be a WC3 styled cinimatic system but I am sure it will get rid of the problem of spammers or previous players ruining the cinimatics for other people. It also keeps the option to talk open in the case that no one wants to sit and read what is happening (covers both sides of the argument). Friend messages may not trigger it but gernerally they do not try to spam out cinimatic dialogue (what they say is often more imortant to you than the map you are playing).

The idea is to detect if any player ingame sends a chat message. If they do and it is during a cinimatic, you shift all text to an area that is outside the one used by the chat. Thus the text will still be readable even if someone is spamming crappy unicode rude pictures.

You can even kick (defeat) ones who talk during the cinimatic but doing this will probably not make your map very popular.

 

[AionCannonzSC2]

Can you save player-sent chat to a variable? If so you could try something like this:

Event - player sends a chat message

Local Var - "string" = sent chat message

Actions - clear chat message "string" (or clear last sent chat message)

don't know if this exists in the map editor, but it's how I would try it



Could even go 1 step further with an array of sent chat messages, and play that array in order after the cinematic
But you still could not get system messages like friend requests



Seriously though why did this turn into a debate on the merits of turning off chat? Do you think the makeup artists on the set of The Dark Knight tried to weigh in on Chris Nolan's new look for the joker?

 

[Darkness-4ever]

@DSG, The problem with that is that for some reason a lot of those other areas overlap, and some have a very short limit to the amount of text you can put in. The debug area was an option but it was tossed out because of its awkwardness and look and the tendency for most people to just completely miss altogether what was there. The next best choice was the Center Top area but that spot has a very short limit on the text you can put there, as well as tending to Center it all so the text doesn't go from left to right either. What I had hoped for was more places to insert text that wasn't limited to extreme locations or have set limits on how much text can be placed, but the only thing there that is usable is the Chat area, which is why this thread ended up needing an answer. What I would have preferred is a more customizable text system where you didn't have to choose from vague locations for your text to appear, only to realize that they all have their downsides and were just different named copies of other locations.

@Aion That was the best solution I've heard so far, I'm going to try to implement that and see how it works.

 

[AionCannonzSC2]

sorry but it looks like you cant have a chat message event, unless you are matching it to something, so you would have to have an event for every character as "partial match" to cover all chat

but they should add a generic chat message event

 

[Dr Super Good]

Did you try passing it "" (empty string). In WC3 that converted the event into an every message event, so I imagine it does so in SC2.

 

[M0RT]

The problem with whispers still remains, they can't be detected, as they come from outside the game, but yet they display in chat frame. So if you disable or move the frame somewhere, you won't be able to recreate whispers.

 

[Dr Super Good]

People however can always read whisper history thanks to Battlenet 2.0. If you click the firends button (usually in the right) above the command card, it will allow you to see active friend chats and inside those a history of all communication with the person.

Thus if you get rid of all chat messages, do not feel to bad as people will still be able to read them (although a bit more effort).

 

[speige]

Sorry to necro, but I found a way to do this & thought it might be useful for future users.

--Get notified when user pressed "enter" key
BlzTriggerRegisterPlayerKeyEvent(myTrigger, GetLocalPlayer(), OSKEY_RETURN, 0, true)

--Trigger Action: Close chat window by forcing a click on Menu button and instantly canceling out of that menu
BlzFrameClick(BlzGetFrameByName("UpperButtonBarMenuButton", 0))
ForceUICancel()

It's hacky, but seems to work. The chat window will still appear for a split second and immediately disappear.
This would prevent whispers/etc as well.

 

[speige]

Just disable the trigger if you want chat to work again.