Such visuals that are already in the game include the green dot for being active, and the orange dot for being inactive/AFK, and a gray for being offline. These visuals are very handy when it comes to normal conversation, but it isn't always helpful when you are talking to someone about trades or other business where both people would have to be in torn or out of the hospital/jail. The simple green/orange dot could be misleading and you could just start chatting up about pricing/amount for items, or what will need to happen for other such business to be carried out just for them to tell you that they are traveling or in the hospital or jail for the next few hours.
Some of you will just say to check their profile page and see it there, but that could be said for checking if they're active/inactive as well, but that was added to chat boxes to make it easier to know.
My proposal for this would include having icons such as a miniature plane for traveling, a miniature cross symbolizing being hospitalized, or jail cell bars for being in prison, all of which could be either green, orange, or gray just as the original indicators for activity.
I would love to hear your opinions on these symbol ideas, and feel free to critique them down below. I'm always open to hearing what y'all have to say. :)
It doesn't really sound all that helpful or necessary when you can see all their icons from the profile page. Just check their profile. I know you said that if icons were added to chat boxes would make it even easier to know, but one click to their profile isn't hard enough to actually warrant a change, or making chat boxes look ugly and cluttered with unnecessary icons. Being able to manually set your status would be more useful. I'd like to be able to set myself away, or busy, or maybe set a little message that is displayed when someone opens a chat with me.
the idea doesnt sound that bad, but it definately would look ugly as could be
it would also take alot more effort than its worth tbh
I don't believe it would be "cluttered" as the travel, hospital, and jail icons would replace the simple dot. Now I could see it being considered cluttered if you were hospitalized in another country, but that could be fixed by having an icon where the medical cross has wings to symbolize flying (other/better designs will probably surface, this is just an example). And just as they did with profile/forum signatures I'm sure they would include a setting that allows you to choose whether or not to display/view these icons on your chat bar. Along with specified viewing settings allowing only friends/faction members to see these icons, or just allowing everyone to see them.
Agreeable idea. Would be more helpful, but not a lot. Would be better if it was optional to apply.