Chat Channels

One of the big issues in the Vanguard beta is about chat channels.

Should it be server wide? Trade channel? Local OOC?

Just wondering what people's opinions are on this subject.

Personally, I had little problem with the way WoW did it. That is to say, with the proper macros, I could communicate on any channel, regardless of where I was. So I could advertise my warez on the trade channel in Iron Forge while I was questing in Eastern Plaguelands. Then, as a mage, if someone wanted to buy my items, I would just teleport there and meet them.
 
A Trade channel would be great... IF people would use that and not shout... I HATE people who use shout to hawk their wares instead of using an available trade channel.

What I would really like to see is user-created channels. In every game I have played I have either had a huge usage from them, or missed them badly when not present.


Xhar
 
I don't much care for server-wide chat channels if I"m trying to suspend disbelief and RP.

So...I say keep 'em off the RP servers, and let the rest of the servers have them if they wish.
 
So I'm hearing trade channels and customizable channels are good, and on RP servers, no server-wide chat channels.

For the RP servers, you just want local communication? What about OOC communication?
 
Originally posted by Presto@May 23 2006, 06:59 PM
So I'm hearing trade channels and customizable channels are good, and on RP servers, no server-wide chat channels.

For the RP servers, you just want local communication? What about OOC communication?
Hm. Our game GemStone is still, to me, the greatest roleplaying experience I've ever had -- including tabletop gaming. And it has very wide area chat, almost global, in the form of crystal amulets that you can use to project your thoughts and hear others'. DragonRealms has a similar system (which I wrote).

It's actually a great vehicle for roleplaying. It brings people together regardless of their physical location in the world. You could be stalking monsters all alone in some remote area, and still banter with people regardless of their level. If you want to, you can take the item off and silence the voices in your head. :smiley:

The secret in those games is simply that we encourage roleplaying, and the community supports it. People who are blatantly OOC are admonished by players, and if necessary, by the staff. People who consistently make an effort to roleplay -- including on the "amunet" as it's informally called in GS -- are rewarded with experience gain boosts.

You don't *ever* hear someone three zones away saying something like "WTS [Iron Wand]x10 PST" or "LF3M BSC need DPS" :smiley:
 
HJ-Riot If there is something like you are describing available in HJ, it could be OK. What I hate, if I am doing any RP is someone interupting the RP to hawk his "Shiney
5x Hummerwacker Blade of Rainbows' which he is willing to give up at the low low price of 1 million gold. If I want to see that I will tune into the Independent Network TV on Saturday morning and watch infomercials. :smiley:
 
I think with the customization options of today's MMOs, as far as chat channels go, it really shouldn't bother anyone having serverwide ooc channles...even in RP servers. If there is any channel you don't like you can always turn it off or put it in another window/tab. When I play I keep my main window with 100% in-character channels so I am not inturrupted by ooc blabber. I have all my OOC chats in another tab so I can view it on MY terms.

So, to be honest, it doesn't matter to me what channels they have as long as I have the options to turn them off/customize them.

Even though I am fairly hardcore RP I think a serverwide ooc channel of some sort is needed. I usually play in off-peak hours and without channels like that the world would seem quite dead. So, it nothing else, they are needed to let you know yer not alone.
 
Yah, a server wide OOC would be nice, a long with channels the users can make.

Options is key, options to have the channels, and to turn them off. Than everyone is happy.
 
I know HJ staffers & GM's are trying to appease both RP'ers and non-RP'ers... and they want some of the players from the other games. It's my opinion that in order to do so, they will need global chat's of some sort, even if it's regional like WoW, as well as OOC chat channels. IF they don't they will get far less players, not necessarily due to chat restrictions, but in the long run, the hardcore will stay.

There are other games that focus on RP, and those who note my references, note I usually speak most of DAoC and Anarchy Online (AO). DAoC has /broadcast, or "vicinity shout"... players make of it what they want, and 99.999% of the time, it's OOC. There's also /guild (/gu), /asend (alliance chat), /group, /officer (guild officers, /o), /bc (raid chat), /say (local chat), and many more. No channels in DAoC are watched for GM's or deemed RP-only or OOC-only... it's what the players make them.

Now, in Anarchy Online, it's slightly different. There's /vicinity, which is local to your zone, and I believe is actually a specific radius around your character. 95% of the time, it's OOC because of the l33t or newbie characters. Then there are channels set by the game itself: "Japan OOC", for the japanese players, and an OOC channel for the three factions: Omni-Tek, Clan, Neutral, with Neutral characters having access to the other two factions, and not vice versa. These are specifically OOC channels, then many organizations, mine included have guild chat that is set by the leaders to be In characer (IC). Of course, there is /say, and there are /trade channels, and the trade channels are also OOC.

It's my belief that RP'ers are not a majority... Hear me out before flaming me though!! Please :smiley: I say this, in light of my experience with games that have RP-centric servers and such. So little is given to the RP'er for tools in order to encourage RP. HOWEVER, I _know_ Simu is not of this camp, and will require RP and/or encourage is based on the server types they have up and running. On the non-RP enforced servers, I can see OOC being a necessity. I can also see a way to ditch "global" chat channels, which I'm all for, in favor of "vicinity" or local chat channels for those non-rp servers.

In the end, it will be the community that decides as to if the OOC channels are truly OOC or just the RP channels where OOC is acceptable. I want a place to OOC, and I would much prefer the ability to HAVE them and turn them off so it doesn't ruin other players immersions, than NOT have them and turn off those that want them. Options... it's all about providing options for players... give us OOC, but allow those who don't want it to turn it off.

~ Jaraeth
 
well spoken!

I also think that custom chat channels are a MUST HAVE. In every server on every MMO I've played we've had a community, server wide, RP channel. This was HUGE for bringing RPers together who might normally never even cross paths. This channel allowed for RP with people of all levels. No longer were the people you knew and RPd with limited to the zones you frequented. With this server-wide RP channel level one chars were able to get to know level 70 players. It was wonderful for building our community.

There are also other server-wide channels many people create that are very usefull, such as the Crafting Channel, Quest Help, Raid Seekers, World Defense, etc. Also, the UAG channel was often populated and the source of many many entries.

With that said there are a few things that I'd like to see HJ implement if they have custom channels.

1: Provide moderation commands!!!
For fish's sake, please provide player created channels with mod access. This is especially important for the in-char channels. Don't do like EQ2 did and deny us this. Nothing is worse than a verbal griefer coming into a chatroom just to ruin things and the creator of the channel not being able to do anything about it!

2: Provide password protect options
Hey, some channels are private!

3: Provide channel commands
Things such as /whochannel and such so players can view others that are in the channel. Nothing is worse than having a channel with 7 people in it and nobody talking because nobody knows anyone else is there.

4: Channel notification
Please, I beg you, have an option to turn on channel notifications when somebody joins or leaves a channel. How can we greet new people if we don't know they've entered?


That said, I believe WoW provided all of the above, so...I'm sure you won't let Blizz outdo you. Right, Simu? ;)
 
Just copy EQ's system.

All channels can be turned off, logged out of, etc. If you don't like chats, don't join them but don't penalize the game's community because you don't want chats. Without community, a game dies.

Sever wide channel.

Cross server-wide channels.

Player made chat channels. You can be in up to ten chats at a time, this doesn't include /ooc regional, nor /guild. These are moderated and owned by the person making them. If the channel becomes dead (all logged out) then the channel closes down. Making them private and invite only is easy. Making them public is easy. Can be voiced, non voiced, etc.

Battle channels. A chat that allows for the moderator to set leaders, designated by name color change in the text so all know who is leading and who to listen to.

I'd also love to see Clan channels. And Great House channels. Three guild chat only channels would be nice... IC and OOC, plus an officers channel.


I play for challenge, for roleplay, but community makes or breaks a game for me. I'll uninstall a game if there is no sense of community, no IC or ooc chatter going on. Seeing how this house pays 50 to 200 a month in gaming fees depending on our schedule, yeah, I expect to see community chatter going on in game.
 
I am against chat channels.

Why travel places if you can chat across the world?

How do you claim to be a roleplaying game with a game-wide chat channel dedicated to the WNBA and stuff?

Lack of chat channels promotes unity. It encourages people to take up residence in a particular area and make it their own, because that is where they live with their friends. It also provides a niche for messenger abilities. Having mages with familiars who can deliver notes over long distances, ranger runners capable of crossing great distances in minimal time, necromancers summoning spirits to deliver omens of DOOM! Limit messenger abilities to a few classes, and you encourage more interaction between characters.

And that's really the main snag of chat channels: they are in-game systems for interacting with other *players*.

So long as people like Frosty give us wonderful sites to use as meeting points, the community will flourish, but in-game interaction should be in-character, and to me chat goes completely contrary to that.
 
Just for clarities sake, I'll point out that it is cross-zone chat that I dislike. Local-area ooc and what have you never struck me as out of place.

Originally posted by crisisfox@May 24 2006, 02:15 PM
It also provides a niche for messenger abilities.  Having mages with familiars who can deliver notes over long distances, ranger runners capable of crossing great distances in minimal time, necromancers summoning spirits to deliver omens of DOOM! Limit messenger abilities to a few classes, and you encourage more interaction between characters.

Don't forget the bards! :smiley: Their profession is described as having sprung up from a need for neutral couriers.


Rics said:
In every server on every MMO I've played we've had a community, server wide, RP channel. This was HUGE for bringing RPers together who might normally never even cross paths. This channel allowed for RP with people of all levels. No longer were the people you knew and RPd with limited to the zones you frequented. With this server-wide RP channel level one chars were able to get to know level 70 players. It was wonderful for building our community.

People are effectively playing a text-based RPG inside a graphical-based MMO. That's an interesting aspect I didn't realize before. It makes me think that it's a sign that something really needs "fixing" in graphical MMORPGs.

(Personally, if I want to meet people of diverse levels that I wouldn't otherwise, I'll go to the world-renowned bazaar in the city of Grlfxlzps (or whatever it is called). )

Seeria said:
If you don't like chats, don't join them but don't penalize the game's community because you don't want chats.

For the sake of argument, I'll point out that I played EQ for quite some time before global chat channels were created. And there was plenty of community then. Yes, people had to travel to those locations (East Commons tunnel, or the favorite levelling spots are examples), but it was alive and thriving. Cross-server/cross-zone global chat channels are not required for community.
 
Originally posted by crisisfox@May 24 2006, 02:15 PM
I am against chat channels.

Why travel places if you can chat across the world?

How do you claim to be a roleplaying game with a game-wide chat channel dedicated to the WNBA and stuff?

Lack of chat channels promotes unity. It encourages people to take up residence in a particular area and make it their own, because that is where they live with their friends. It also provides a niche for messenger abilities. Having mages with familiars who can deliver notes over long distances, ranger runners capable of crossing great distances in minimal time, necromancers summoning spirits to deliver omens of DOOM! Limit messenger abilities to a few classes, and you encourage more interaction between characters.

And that's really the main snag of chat channels: they are in-game systems for interacting with other *players*.

So long as people like Frosty give us wonderful sites to use as meeting points, the community will flourish, but in-game interaction should be in-character, and to me chat goes completely contrary to that.
I have to disagree with you and I'll use my weekly Pen & Paper group as an example of why.

We're currently playing a D&D campaign and none of us are great actors but we try to stay in character when dealing with the DM. We will discuss stuff out of character, say trying to solve a puzzle or decide on a strategy, we'll say things that our characters wouldn't. This is, to me, part of role play.

We'll also spend time chatting while the DM looks something up or as he's drawing out the room - we use mini's for movement and combat - or while someone else is RPing something with the DM that we're not part of. We'll talk about a wide vareity of subjects from how our warrior's doing in med school to what's happening in WoW or CoH, or what's going on in the Civ4 game that 3 of the memebers are playing in. For me it's these social aspects that make the game fun.

I played EQ for 6 years and I'd say that for the last 2 of those years I was really burned out on the game. The only reason I stayed was I had a guild of friends, as well as an extended group of people in other guilds, I could log in and chat and joke with. Very little of this was RP, in fact almost none of it was, it was my version of going down to the local bar and chatting with my friends. Some nights I'd log on and no one in my guild would be on but I could usually find someone on my friends list and chat with them while I was running around finishing off quests or tradeskilling or whatever. As more and more of my friends stopped playing, or were playing less frequently, I started logging in less and less and finally quit.

If I'd had to run to where my friends were to chat with them I'd have left much earlier. This is especially true in a game like EQ where some of my friends were on Time raids, I couldn't have gotten to them if I'd wanted to.

So yeah, lack of channels would encourage people, or groups of people to sit in one area so they could chat. But then what's the point of heading off into that dungeon or going out and exploring the world. I'm going to be stuck either off by myself or with a small subset of my friends while I'm completely out of touch with the rest.

That kind of system would, for me, kill the community and basically make the game 2 games, a graphical chat room and a single player/small group exploring/adventuring game. Heck that's what Guild Wars basically does and people complain about it all the time, and I've never seen a ton of RP happening there either.

As for people like Frosty, I think this site is great and I think it serves a useful purpose. However, if he were to get a large influx of players, say the number needed to actually support a graphical MMO, he'd have to either find a way to monetize the site or close it down, bandwidth ain't cheap. Then you can look at Allakhazam's for where that can lead.

There's also the issue that if the only place I can just chat with my friends about whatever, in-character or OOC, is on a message board somewhere then, since I'm playing this game for the community, why should I even bother with the game. I could go to the site and use the message board or IRC for nothing.

I think that forcing my idea of RP or your idea of RP or anyones idea of RP on a community is a much surer way to kill it than any chat system. The way to encourage community is to give that community options.
 
Originally posted by crisisfox@May 24 2006, 02:15 PM

... but in-game interaction should be in-character, and to me chat goes completely contrary to that.
Hmmmm, not a good way to get people playing the game. "RP Nazis" are as bad as "Powergamers" in driving people away from a server/game and in no way shape or form contribute to a community. My typing is neither quick or super accurate, and in most cases for me to try to type something "in character" requires a bit of thought as well. So I'd be stuck with basically never saying anything if I "had" to RP at all times with the "RP Police" breathing down my neck. Sorry, but not a good way to bring people together. :(

Actually I probably just bust out in 1337, just to make the RP Police mad. :lol:
 
For the sake of argument, I'll point out that I played EQ for quite some time before global chat channels were created. And there was plenty of community then. Yes, people had to travel to those locations (East Commons tunnel, or the favorite levelling spots are examples), but it was alive and thriving. Cross-server/cross-zone chat channels are not required for community.

Umm...no you didn't. There was always /guild chat so you could talk with your guild anywhere in the world, also /group was worldwide.

I'll admit that things like /shout and /ooc were, and still are, local to a zone. They're that way in pretty much every game that I've played.

So what channels in EQ are global now? Besides the guild, group and raid channels the only ones I can think of are the player created channels. Those are not automatic, you have to specifically join them and for some of them you need to have a password. You'd also have to know they existed.

Now in EQ2 they have the Qeynos/Freeport level specific channels and the class channels and the game does tend to automatically subscribe you to those but all of them were implemented at players request to make it easier to find people to group with or to ask specific questions of. I honestly don't see how that hurts community.

Are you saying that as a level 5 bard/rogue if I have a question about one of my abilites I need to run around and try and find another bard/rogue that's willing to give me information? Do you really want to re-create the Greater Fay-mart or EC tunnel auction spam nightmare of EQ before the bazaar? Do you want to see things like "BC group LFM"

Ppeople are effectively playing a text-based RPG inside a graphical-based MMO. That's an interesting aspect I didn't realize before. It makes me think that it's a sign that something really needs "fixing" in graphical MMORPGs.

Actually, people are using a text based chat system to facilitate playing a graphical RPG. It may seem like semantics but it's an important difference. The Game, the fighting and moving around the world among other things, is graphical. Unfortunately, since we're dealing with multiple players, they need some way to communicate and the best was thus far is text - DDO tried adding a voice chat system but the RP community hates it because it destroy's immersion.

So you have to keep in mind that the chat system isn't just for player interaction within the context of the game it's also to facilitate the players ability to actually play the game. You need to be able to communicate to form groups but you also need that system to allow people to just chat and get to know each other outside of the context of the game which is what builds communites.
 
I guess we have different visions of the game, Sisca, and I still love you.

I just wanted to get my idea out there because in the whole thread no-one seems to question that chat rooms are necessary.

For me I log into the game to play my character, and to weave stories with other people's characters. I already have dozens of friends on AIM/MSN who I chat with. Inevitably some of the people from the game will end up on those lists, but that degree of separation is important to me.

In the pen and paper games we also shoot the breeze about all kinds of things in the downtime, and some of the guys I play with are unable to make the transition to the character from the player: we spend so much time talking as players that I cannot have an in-character conversation with that person, because he'd look at me all weird, prodding me as to why my character is going to try to do it even though I (as a player) just agreed with him that it cannot be done, or what not.

Now chat will most likely be in the game, and I would go so far as to say I will likely use it, because I am not going to cripple my character by hanging around deserted markets while everyone else moves to an effective e-bay.

I just think that it will be an unfortunate feature, but life is about compromise, no?

*shrug*
 
Morneblade, that's why they created RP servers. :smiley: No one should be forcing anyone to RP on a normal server, just like no one should be forced to PvP on a normal server if it isn't a PvP-centric game.

However, anyone who enters an RP server *should* be expected to do their hardest to stay in character. After all, one wouldn't expect to go onto a PvP server and then complain because people tried to attack you. That would be silly.

So for those who really don't like the extra hassle of staying in character, don't play on RP servers.

Though I suppose if you can't type fast, you could always RP a guy who doesn't talk very much. :P

Originally posted by HJ-Sisca@May 24 2006, 03:17 PM
For the sake of argument, I'll point out that I played EQ for quite some time before global chat channels were created. And there was plenty of community then.  Yes, people had to travel to those locations (East Commons tunnel, or the favorite levelling spots are examples), but it was alive and thriving.  Cross-server/cross-zone global chat channels are not required for community.

Umm...no you didn't. There was always /guild chat so you could talk with your guild anywhere in the world, also /group was worldwide.
*cough* Global = everyone can play

A guild or group channel is not the entire server.

So, yes, I did have a gaming experience without anyone having global chat channels. Nyah. So there. ;)
 
*cough* Global = everyone can play

A guild or group channel is not the entire server.

So, yes, I did have a gaming experience without anyone having global chat channels. Nyah. So there.

I guess my point is that you still can have that experience. In fact, other than the aforementioned custom chat channels in EQ2, I can't think of a single game that has global chat channels, that aren't player created ones that you have to expressly join. Even in EQ2 I usually turn of those default channels and I don't feel my character is gimped in any way.

In every game I can think of channels like OOC and Shout are zone specific, yes even in WoW where you don't get a loading screen there are zones. I usually turn those off as well when I'm out hunting or questing since I don't want to get distracted by in interesting comment scrolling by in the middle of a fight :smiley:.

If there was a global auction channel I could see how not using it might make you feel like you were gimping your character but I don't know about you but I know I'd only have something like that on if I were looking to buy or sell at that time. Personally I'd rather have a global auction house type of mechanic but that's a different discussion.

As for the rest of your comment I would tend to agree that if you're on a PvP server you should expect PvP and if you're on a RP server you should expect more RP. However, here's the problem from a CS point of view...Define In Character.

And I still contend that you need a certain amount of out of context chat, the weather, making fun of the Wii etc., to help build community. But I'm willing to concede that that is my opinion and it doesn't hold for everyone :smiley:
 
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