Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi there,

oh, I am REALLY happy to hear that you want to improve this thing as it's a pain in the a**, currently :).


1) What settings would you like to have stored?

Basically just everything, every possible setting. But I don't need to be able to save/export and restore/import every single setting individually, groups of settings would be enough. Some groups could be (the list is not complete):

• Every tab in the ESC menu should be an own group (Display & Graphics, Audio & Chat, General Settings, Shortcuts, ...).
• Window positions and window sizes (including column widths of tables in overview, market, scanner, ...) and Neocom position, size and icons on it.
• Overview settings (including ALL overview settings: Appearance tab, Columns tab, ...).
• Fittings
• Filter presets (scanning, inventory, ...)
• Drone groups (
• Entered chat rooms
• Notepad content
• Browser settings, bookmarks

It should be still possible to export single overview presets, fittings and filter presets. But not necessarily in a general export function. These single export functions already exist in game.

2) How would you expect the synchronization (import/export) to function? What would the interaction be?

Exporting the settings to a specific file that name I can choose would be great. It would be great if I can choose between "store all in one single file" and "create for every group one single file". Importing could work just like other import features already work: Selecting the file, pressing something like "ok", getting a list of possible setting groups, selecting all/none/some of the settings and import them.

But here is another really fancy solution: I'd would be really great, if I can set one character as "master". This should be local to my computer since I think saving this on your servers isn't the best idea. (Some player may want to be able to set more than 1 character as "master").

Then I want to be able to set a different character (even on a different account - this is important!) as "derived character" or "clone". I want to be able to select all or just some of the groups I mentioned above (remember, the groups in the list above aren't complete). Afterwards, my derived or cloned characters automatically import every time I log in the up-to-date settings of my master character.

(If it's just local to my computer, it shouldn't be a problem the share settings between different accounts.)

When I'm logged in with my master character and a clone character at the same time and I change settings on my master character, it would be cool if the update on the clone character is immediately without relogging. But the need of relogging would be still fine, though.

There are maybe some things that you have to think about that they aren't updated every time (like "which window was opened the last time on the master character" and so on), but this feature would be really great.

One thing to mention: screen resolution. Window sizes and positions (including column width of tables) should be saved for each screen resolution individually. That makes it easier for different resolutions. It would be nice if the position and size is stored for e.g. 1280x1600, 1920x1200, 800x600 (including rounding up and down if the solution is e.g. 750x 555 if a player is using window mode).


3) How would you go about sharing settings with other players? (directly or in-directly)

Besides the master-clone feature I talked above, importing and exporting to a file or files would be enough. Then I can send the files to friends via email.


Regards

Rhyarkh


Edit: Hmm ... if everything is stored on the CCP servers, my master-clone idea might be a bit harder to implement ... but maybe not. You could restrict it to real persons which could mean that the billing addresses of accounts must be the same to be able to be a clone of a master. Another idea is that the master has to unlock his settings for every clone explicitly.

And if I think about the "graphics issue on different screens", I feel more and more comfortable with the idea to save window positions and sizes for each screen resolution independently.

New chat channels and new private conversations should remember your damn chat settings. (Compact member list, text only, highlight my chat, timestamp)

Please just......please do this. please.

Otherwise full overview settings
chat channels
all settings that are none hardware specific basically (So not the graphics options obviously)



As for exporting. I'd do this in a similar manner to how you make an API key, where you click "export" and you get a list of areas you can add to the exported file. You click them up. click "export" and it will make a file with those settings. When importing you do the reverse obviously.

IMO every option should be saved, mainly overview, backgrounds, tabs in overview and brackets because these things are the most important. Then you should also add video & sound options, drones groups, window placement etc. Import/export should be via file like now and you should be asked what options you want to take.

I don't really care so much about sharing all UI settings as presets through a website (presumably varieties of screen resolutions etc would limit the usefulness of presets that contained things like UI size and window positions). What I would like is a way to normalize settings across all my accounts quickly. Basically I'd like to be able to:

- Install a new client

- Log in to one account, and one character on that account

- Configure character 1's UI, channel settings, overview, keybinds, graphics settings, etc-- basically every configurable option in the game. The more the better.

- Log in to all my remaining accounts and characters using this initial client install

- Copy / install additional clients

- Run a script that applies character 1's settings to all characters on all accounts for all the discreet client installations

So, essentially, say I have four accounts (which I do): I install one client and configure all my settings once. Then I log in to all my accounts / characters to create the various config files for each (I guess you guys at CCP could probably code a way around this step, but this is what I have to do currently when I do this all by hand). Then the script replaces each character and account's config files with the ones from the first account / first character (again, this is how I do it by hand currently, by duplicating the template configs and re-naming them so they affect the appropriate chars/accounts). Then the utility takes this full collection of settings and applies them to all my EVE installs (currently IIRC I just do all the aforementioned to one install, then dupiicate it as necessary).

I'm sure you guys will try and do something more complicated and user-friendly than this, but really it would save me a ton of time just to have a basic GUI-based utility that automated these pretty basic steps. Currently it's just really time-consuming and annoying to have to do things like go look up your character ID numbers to determine which files need to be duplicated or renamed to what. I probably spend at least an hour or two doing all this stuff when necessary. Basically the only part of the game that works right now is the overview export function. Hell, even if you could just make the other settings work like the overview settings (export, import on the other characters / accounts as desired) that would still save a lot of time over doing everything by hand.

I really look forward to this added functionality. Currently it's at the point where, when considering the :effort: required to do a reformat on my PC, "having to re-do my EVE installations" is basically the most significant and off-putting item on the list. It shouldn't be this way.

- Overview / Tabs / Etc
- Open Windows & their positions
- All 'esc' options - exception, graphical options (e.g. screen resolution, texturing, etc.)


- esc / export settings
- esc / import settings
-- similar to how the overview filters work now


- several good solutions have been proposed already.

I think that while some settings lend themselves to be stored on the server, most, if not all, of these settings should be kept locally.

People that play on mutiple computers need to keep those settings (window layouts, screen resolutions, for instance) seperate for a given character - and if those are stored server-side, then playing on a large dual-monitor desktop will break when you go to play on a much smaller laptop.

If settings could be saved in some kind of folder in the game (much like bookmarks are, but better) and given names, with the ability to drag and drop into chat/mail/notes/profiles, etc., it would be nice. There could then be an option (right click or "radial menu") to download the settings (albeit not as important as CCP would have them saved for us).

Which settings? In the immortal words of Stansfield, "EVERYONE!!!"

I would like most of my settings to be stored server side if at all possible, so I can play comfortably on a different computer if necessary or if I get a new one. Wrangling all my windows and hotkeys is a long drawn out progress and a complete pain in the ass.

Graphical and sound settings should be stored on the PC they are associated with, but everything else should be able to be serve side.

I would like the following saved:
hotkeys
drone settings
window position and status (including having it remember what pinning should do)
chat channels in use
autopilot settings
neocom setup
overview


when it comes to the general settings, a file saved on your computer is good, then you can share it between different accounts of yours or back it up. The overview, however might benefit from a method to share it in game with other people like fittings since it's complicated, but there are some efficient setups around that people spend time trying to recreate from scratch.

The answer is really quite simple... when I export my settings and import them onto another computer, everything should be exactly like it was on the first computer, hardware permitting. Since EVE is obviously able to store the settings persistently on the first computer (well, most of the time at least), surely it shouldn't be too hard to export everything?

And please hurry, I'm planning to buy a new computer this month

I would like to save everything with the only exception for graphics and for it to be stored on server (probably dublicated with an option to restore from server and with a few backups there. 2-3 I don't know. They're not too heavy anyway...

Import-export - both locally to a file and through a server, without a need to alttab or anything (and make it linkable, like "send my settings to" or something similar). Last thing is to share them, not only carry through all clients.

Tread carefully please, i for example have multiple symlinks set up to have different cache/settings for different purposes when playing eve.

I guess being able to save/load presets would solve this.