Apex Legends is loaded with communications functions. A dedicated player recently designed a concept for another social tool—with a little help from Apex’s sister franchise.
The idea is inspired by Titanfall 2’s network system, a clan-like feature that placed players together and made finding teammates almost as easy as pinging a Mozambique.
When in a network, players would be moved to the lobby, a separate, member-exclusive menu. It would feature a status tracker for each player in the network to display whether they were in a menu, in a match, or looking for a group. LFG status would also be shown on Apex’s main screen.
According to the concept, the lobby has a text chat feature to allow for easy communication between players without relying on quick messages. The mock-up doesn’t approach the idea of having a network-voice chat, which could be troublesome on crowded servers. When designing the lobby, the creator wanted to outline “a way to chat with more than just your 2 squadmates that doesn’ t involve discord.”
Visually, the lobby would be set inside Apex’s dropship, and players would be represented by their featured legend. If a character was in a match, their likeness would be grayed out on the hub.
The idea also includes a network leaderboard, which would display the banners for the three players with the most wins, as well as a guild-wide win counter. Rankings can be filtered based on date. The scoreboard was designed to only track wins in the temporary version, but admitted that Respawn could add more statistics if they wanted to.
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Creating networks like the one in the concept is familiar territory for Respawn. Titanfall 2 already featured that type of system, which the creator admitted was the main inspiration behind the design. Titanfall 2 featured a series of benefits for network members, including “happy hour” – a network-wide event that gave players additional rewards.
Published: Jan 3, 2020 09:39 am