Suggestion for Steam messaging

Offline messages. Simple as it sounds, you can leave messages when your friends are offline. This might've been suggested before but I've put some thought into this.

First of all, there will be a limit to how many messages you can leave. A limit of 10 should be (more than) enough for anyone. There will also be a limit of how many characters per message so that when your friend comes back online, they aren't spammed halfway to hell.

Second of all, offline messages can be made spam-proof. We all know about the scammers who go around bugging you to give them your logins, and there are probably others trying to sell (scam) you some games. This can be easily evaded by the following:

1. A spam report system. 10 reports revokes the user's ability to leave offline messages for the day. 20 reports is 3 days. 35 is a week revoke, and so on. When 25 reports is reached, a log is sent to some Steam tech guy to check it out. If any reports were not really reports but just someone being an ♥♥♥, that user will be warned and will not be counted. After this log, on an interval of 25 reports, the logs will be sent again. Any reports of scammers will be given less chances and ultimately a permanent ban faster.

2. Make offline messaging exclusive to your friends only, meaning if they're on your list, they're the only ones who can leave the message.

3. An option to disable it completely.

I believe offline messaging would look nice in Steam because most major IM clients (Msn, AIM) have this feature. You can keep friends updated with small messages and then you won't have to worry about forgetting what you were going to tell them before they went offline.

Why such a harsh system for spam abuse? Because offline messaging, like Steam, would be a PRIVILEGE, not a right.

Now, I'm not saying my report system is the best, but I'm sure something like it could be made to cut down on annoyance and make offline messaging worth adding in. Hope you guys like the idea.

[SilverMink]

Why must if be offline messaging, why can't we just make incorporate these features in busy mode ?.

Originally Posted by SilverMink

Why must if be offline messaging, why can't we just make incorporate these features in busy mode ?.

I'm not sure I get what you mean.

The point of offline messages is to leave a message for someone offline, obviously, and when they come back online they will see your message. If you use Msn or AIM then you probably know how it works.

[SilverMink]

I just thought valve could make it so where your in busy state only friends can message you ?.

Offline messaging just sounds kinda of dumb sorry.

[Dr. Ha]

Originally Posted by SilverMink

I just thought valve could make it so where your in busy state only friends can message you ?.

Offline messaging just sounds kinda of dumb sorry.

...
I use busy usually when I want to talk to just one person and not get spammed by my 150 friends every second.

Offline messaging would work... and it would seem like a normal feature to incorporate.

[Seth.Sekhmet]

I don't want such a feature. I don't want Steam_Friends to become another 'cute IM client'... keep it basic and simple for gamers !
I don't want spam messages on Steam etc

If you really want to 'keep in touch with everyone', write your email on your profile page. Easy.

[ReBoot]

You can already get spam, with no offline messages. Also, have you heard of options? Read the OP just once and you'll see that he suggests an option to turn that off.
And yes, I support offline messages.

[st_nick5]

Originally Posted by EatYouAlive

1. A spam report system. 10 reports revokes the user's ability to leave offline messages for the day. 20 reports is 3 days. 35 is a week revoke, and so on. When 25 reports is reached, a log is sent to some Steam tech guy to check it out. If any reports were not really reports but just someone being an ♥♥♥, that user will be warned and will not be counted. After this log, on an interval of 25 reports, the logs will be sent again. Any reports of scammers will be given less chances and ultimately a permanent ban faster.

What's to stop people from abusing this?

Originally Posted by st_nick5

What's to stop people from abusing this?

a log is sent to some Steam tech guy to check it out. If any reports were not really reports but just someone being an ♥♥♥, that user will be warned and will not be counted.

Of course, I highly doubt they will waste time reading logs so there's probably some other way to prevent abuse. Thank you for pointing this out, I think.

[compywiz]

I agree... but only with the offline messages part.

[*VeLeRoN*]

Originally Posted by st_nick5

What's to stop people from abusing this?

Let's say only your friends can send you a message while you are offline. If your friends abuse this feature - then you just delete them...

I use steam almost as a chat platform, its hard sometimes though to keep track of everyone I talk to with ten or so different people with their own separate windows and doing that while playing games only makes things harder.
A few things I want to see implemented:

Tabbed Messaging:

This would allow users to save some desktop real estate. My 1440x900 monitor bit the dust recently so I'm stuck with using this old 1024x768 crt. As you can imagine any extra space I can grab, the better. Plus it helps keep track of everything.

Ability to keep a message box forward during gameplay:

I find it highly irritating that whenever I get a a PM in game there's a small box that pops in and out from the bottom right corner. I would rather have it so you could have the chat window in its entirety on the screen, with the ability to reduce or increase its opacity. Add to that tabbed message windows with the ability to move about the different tabs in game without having to press shift-tab first and it reduces the interruption to gameplay you would normally have.

I'll think of some more ways to make steam chat better, but the tabbed chat boxes are an absolute must at this point. If they could just implement that, it would a fine day indeed.