Greetings, fellow Istarians...

Like everyone here, I tend to pop in, all over the place on the internet, and of course almost every place I tend to hang out has some sort of chat system involved in it....after all how else do we socialize in a non-physical venue, neh?

All of these chat systems tend to be very similar in the mechanics of how to use them and get around, in them. As such, one tends to develop certain habits, when availing themselves of such features, and as we all know...once you develop a habit it is often hard to break that habit...

Unfortunately, the in-game chat system we have in HZ deviates from the 'norm' in a very significant way...and that leads me to my request to the devs.....

In the 'chat settings' window, could you PLEASE...FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY... add a simple check box labeled, "keep focus in chatbox after sent message" (or something similar)....it's purpose should be self-evident.

I am a very fast typist. I have learned to be, mainly from being online and enduring years of chat experience - many conversation in which go blisteringly fast. I had to learn to be fast, to survive. Yet for all my speed i typing, I never formally learned to type...hence, 'touch typing' remains a mystery to me...I am a hunt-and-peck typist, meaning, I am looking at my keyboard, as I type.

Now couple to that, the fact that I have learned the habit of assuming that while in a chat box the focus will always remain in the chat box, until I move it myself. (as happens in every other chat system I have seen, online), and might begin to see my problem....

You all know that a LOT of windows/functions/features in the game's UI are hot keyed to single alphabetic characters.....so imagine my frustration - after typing a huge, multi-line post to whomever I am chatting with, only to look up and see that I forgot to set the focus BACK into the chatbox, and have now flooded my UI with just about everything you can open up, and in some cases, multiple instances of the same window. My computer is a dinosaur, I am embarrassed to admit...it can *barely* manage to run the game, at a reasonable rate of speed.....once I inadvertently spam myself to death with everything I possibly can, it becomes a race, to see if I can get it all closed out, before I just freeze up my entire system.

So this is a plea....to add what I am fairly sure would be a very simple thing to implement. Those that are used to the way the chat system works wouldn't even need to be inconvenienced, as the check box makes it an *option* for us more simple-minded folks - not to mention saving us a great deal of finger leather...

Anyway...that's it...I hope you will give this some serious consideration...thank you.

The precious little sanity I have left is in your hands.......