I'm gonna reiterate what I've said before.
Possibilities for why people may not answer you when there is no visible fast chat scrolling:
Some people are so inundated with very chatty Linkshells that though you may not have seen the chat as fast-scrolling, theirs may be filled with text. They might be dealing with /tells or linkshells or fc chats. Try to contact them through a /tell because the default notification for /tells are purple text with a sound notification.
Another factor may just be tunnel visioning. Sometimes it's very easy to pay attention to the current group or persons that one is interacting with that they don't pay attention to other people emoting or directing conversation at them. They may be only checking what people they know may be saying etc. They're mostly just scanning for the text from the active known group. Again, sending a /tell just to ask "Hey I wanted to try and initiate some walk-up RP. Are you up for it? Did you miss it?" wouldn't hurt.
Alt+tabbing is very real so unless they already have an idea that you may have said something to them (tunnel visioning) they may not notice it either.
I have never had someone outright ignore a /tell unless they ended up being afk sooner or later. As someone who dual-screens and can only impart my own experience, it's very easy to miss something when they're not focused directly on the chat 100%
edit: It's really the same as for some social situations. If I'm in a crowded place like a convention floor or in a market, though it -is- public I don't actively scan the area around me for their conversations. So it's not easy to notice until they get your attention. In this game, emoting -to- someone is not as direct as getting up in someone's face and waving and saying hello versus sending them a /tell. Granted, you -could- get your character right up on someone else's and start waving and they might notice but they may see that more towards trolling until they see the accompanying text of your character's actions.
Possibilities for why people may not answer you when there is no visible fast chat scrolling:
Some people are so inundated with very chatty Linkshells that though you may not have seen the chat as fast-scrolling, theirs may be filled with text. They might be dealing with /tells or linkshells or fc chats. Try to contact them through a /tell because the default notification for /tells are purple text with a sound notification.
Another factor may just be tunnel visioning. Sometimes it's very easy to pay attention to the current group or persons that one is interacting with that they don't pay attention to other people emoting or directing conversation at them. They may be only checking what people they know may be saying etc. They're mostly just scanning for the text from the active known group. Again, sending a /tell just to ask "Hey I wanted to try and initiate some walk-up RP. Are you up for it? Did you miss it?" wouldn't hurt.
Alt+tabbing is very real so unless they already have an idea that you may have said something to them (tunnel visioning) they may not notice it either.
I have never had someone outright ignore a /tell unless they ended up being afk sooner or later. As someone who dual-screens and can only impart my own experience, it's very easy to miss something when they're not focused directly on the chat 100%
edit: It's really the same as for some social situations. If I'm in a crowded place like a convention floor or in a market, though it -is- public I don't actively scan the area around me for their conversations. So it's not easy to notice until they get your attention. In this game, emoting -to- someone is not as direct as getting up in someone's face and waving and saying hello versus sending them a /tell. Granted, you -could- get your character right up on someone else's and start waving and they might notice but they may see that more towards trolling until they see the accompanying text of your character's actions.