Upcoming Feature Preview: Friends List
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Friends until the very end
Edit: Images of the app in here may be out of date.
For the majority of the people who work at Discord, our best relationships and friendships have been the result of playing games together. What better way to bond with someone than murdering zombies together?
This is one of the core philosophies driving Discord (no, not murdering zombies although we’re definitely proponents of a zombie-free world).
It’s a desire to create that hype feeling of playing Super Smash Bros in the same room, yelling and laughing with friends or battling through a long enduring session of hardcore Diablo trying your best to stay alive together.
Even our CEO/Founder and myself are brothers who grew up gaming side by side.
Pretty sure my controller is unplugged #YoungerBrotherProblems. He’s just salty because I wreck him at Smash now.
If you look at our feedback page, you’ll see that a friends list is one of our most highly requested features. Look at all these upboats:
Well, we’ve heard you fam. The first part of our friends list feature will be added within the upcoming weeks and the other two pieces in due time.
What’re these pieces? Check it:
Let’s dig into each of these and what they entail.
1. Friends List
Have I told you how cool lists are? Because lists are so in right now. They’re so cool, that our friends list means you no longer have to share a server with someone to interact with them or to see their online status.
Here’s an overview screenshot of the friends list:
The friends list screen is found by clicking the Friends button at the top of your direct messages.
There are four tabs in the friends list screen. Notice that “blocked” tab? Yeah, you can block those annoying people now. #blessed
Moreover, you can choose who is allowed to send you direct messages:
- Friends only.
- Friends and people you share a server with.
For those of you wondering, the server-based interactions that you’ve come to know and love on Discord remain the same. The friends list is neatly tucked away if you choose not to use it.
Adding Friends and Discord Tags
So how do you actually add someone to your list of friendship?
You’ll need to know their username and Discord tag. For example, it’ll look something like “MobBarley#1592.”
You can find your tag by looking in the bottom left under your avatar and username.
It’s also in your user profile to the right of your username as seen below. You can even send a friend request by clicking on the big ol’ green send request button in another persons profile.
(Psssst, in case you didn’t know, you can access profiles by clicking someone’s username or avatar in a server and then choosing the profile option).
You can also type this into the top-left part of the friends tab to send a request.
2. Group Chat and Calls
The next friends list update will bring with it group chat and calls.
The point of group chat is to create temporary, spontaneous, and free-form communication spaces in situations where making an entire server would seem heavy-handed.
Wanna grind some dailies with that healer and tank you just met in a popular server? Start up a group chat and get questing. If you then run into a charming DPSer you want to include, they can hop right into the group with you two.
Furthermore, you can now technically do one on one calls for that salty “1v1 mid bro” you just got yourself into.
Here’s what an incoming group call looks like:
3. Video and Screen Sharing
The ultimate in “I can finally delete Skype off of my computer features,” our third friends list update will include the much sought after and asked for video chat and screen sharing.
This is literally our top most requested feature at the time of writing:
Here are some preliminary mocks of what this feature will look like:
Our video chat design is still in early development so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements on this in the future. The one thing I can tell you is that video chat will only be useable with people you have on your friends list.
Mobile:
And yes, friends list is on mobile. Mobile will roll out alongside the desktop release of our friends list, so go download Discord on your phone (aka your mobile-reddit-viewing-device that also takes phone calls).
We actually just released Discord on iPad about a week ago so if you’re a tablet star you should definitely hook yourself up. You gotta treat yourself sometimes you know?
Wrap Up
Friends list is a feature we’ve been talking about releasing for far too long so I’m sooooooooooo excited we’re finally here to drop it like Skrillex or any other overused EDM joke.
Friends list will bring server-independent interactions as well as added privacy and safety settings.
Group chat and calls will allow for flexible communication.
Video and Screen Sharing will let you delete Skype.
And remember, friends list is tucked away so if you’re a server fiend your experience remains unchanged.
I look forward to more laughing, saltiness, and triumphs that come from playing with friends and family.
