Hey.  like this game, im a big fan of the sandbox mmo's, but i feel it lacks in social interaction, i find that only being able to speak with people in chat-rooms privat and public is a huge restriction, since i cannot say hello to a person i meet in the actual gameworld, which seem to make it harder for me to meet the people who are closest to where i am.   I know i could just PM them, but i feel that being able to write something out without asking for a privat audience is often a better way to meet new people in MMO's.

I am aware that this is Sci-fi and cartoon bubbles might not be appropiate if a game is striving to be realistic, but i think this is a mistake, because chat-rooms is not a direct part of the visual part of the game, and people like me who like to be social in the game invoirnment find that meeting new people is made harder, and a bubble design that where sci'fi'ish could prolly be drawn up.

This ofcourse also depends on the habits one has build up, if you come from a game like eve, you will feel right at home.  But comming from a game like UO where meeting people were almost exclusivly done in the visual part of the game, its a different story.

I think what am gettin at, is that opening up both options would make this game more attractive to different kinds of players. It dosent have to be bubbles at all, could be letters that looked like energy being transfered out from som kind of device. just some way for me to greet a fellow player i pass by on my way.