So, this is just an idea/thought I had. How do people feel about zone-wide chat, such as /shout and /ooc, having a range on them in certain situations and areas?
What made me think of this is the "campfire skill" thread. I imagined, in my head, running through Lower Guk as a solo Paladin, making my way deeper and deeper and having a hard time of it. The repops are faster, I can barely keep up and move forward, and I could really use a break. I turn a corner and see the glow of a campfire, with 5 or 6 others sitting around the camp, chatting away. I feel relieved, and shocked as I "Hail!" these strangers, thankful for a respite.
This scenario is, to me, a pretty awesome one. And it could happen anywhere and in any zone.
Except it couldn't, because of zone-wide chat. All it takes it a "Campfire check!" to find out where a camp might be, only to have flooded by everybody. What I would like to see instead, is more of a word-of-mouth situation. You pass someone on the road and he yells out "campfire on the right fork, right ahead!", or you hear about one a zone over in your group. This is something I'd love to see happen.
But it won't, because of zonewide chat. But how about if we put a range on that? Maybe the only zone wide chat you can use in dungeons is the /LFG chat, and that only has very specific functionality. Drop down menus with Class, Level, and an LFG toggle. Maybe, if you're on the far east side of a zone, and I'm on the far west side, I don't see your /ooc comments or your /shouts?
Good idea? Bad idea? Something to think about?
Somebody mentioned how campfires seem too "easy". As if it were a dumbing down of the game. That may be true, UNLESS you move some things around. Make it useful, but harder to find and harder to apply. This is one way to do that.
That campfire example sounds like possibly a bad recipe to me as I could see it leading to more unintentional trains (and intentional trains with an easier excuse/cover-up) to groups camping with a campfire.
As for limited range zone chat, that would be problematic for groups too. If you can't /ooc or camp check then you'll have groups blindly clearing through areas only to stumble upon other groups and have to keep running in circles instead of being able to quickly assess where the group should go in the zone or if they should find another zone entirely. And if you have a zonewide chat of any kind (be it lfg chat or otherwise) then it will be used outside its intended purpose due to being a superior means to communicate broadly.
I think this is an all or nothing situation where anything in the middleground isn't great. If information can be communicated across the entire world (via tells), then why shouldn't you be able to communicate with large groups of people across the world?
If the game allows the formation and joining of chat channels (not guild/group), then this will be used to bypass zone chat. People will begrudgingly join the "Halnir's Cave" chat channel and then just use that as the zone channel.
If the most powerful form of chat is your proposed limited range chat, then camp checks will turn into a game of broken telephone. The nice people in the middle of the zone will be repeatedly relaying messages from one side to the other.
I think camp checks (assuming they're a thing in Pantheon), players seeking for help/information in underpopulated areas (where's the butcher, class trainer, etc.), and the offering/requesting of player services (ports, buffs, etc.) would all be made difficult without large scale communication. If you can figure out how to accomodate those things, then I think you'd be onto something.
I always think it's worthwhile discussing concepts like this, because even if it turns out to be unworkable, figuring out *why* it's unworkable is a great puzzle to solve that will enlighten you every time.
I agree that the middle ground is not great. I can see not having any chat at all beyond the range of your voice. Realistic. Of course the sound of your voice may well scare away beings that you are looking for and attract beings that you are ...not. As discussed in the campfire thread.
But on balance crippling the ability of people to communicate isn't necessarily the best idea in an emphatically social game.
To paraphrase William Jennings Bryant. Let us not crucify the need for sociability and grouping on a cross of realism."
Sorry William.
I think that group and /say is akin to a very basic area based chat example. /ooc should be the “zonewide” general chat channel like in basic EQ1. And /shout should be a highly subjective channel for emercency information only. If you misuse shout you should be reported. And im still on the fence about auction. It depends on how auction houses or yardsale boards are handled. If we force /auction i am ok with that. I dislike serverwide chat, and i think it actually promotes corresponding when its a zone wide broadcast over a server wide version
I think we should have custom chat channels that can help fascilitate trade, OOC, or maybe even LFG chat, much like EverQuest had. As for zone related stuff. Don't really care about a zone chat or not as there are pros and cons to having and not having, but a Shout is a must. We'll need that to scream bloody murder warnings at folks as we train to zone.
I am of the opinion that ALL chat should be proximity based except LFG, which should be done through tools and not allow someone to manually enter text. To that I mean there is no typeing into LFG, instead you use the tool to set your lvl and lvl ranges you wish to engage, where you'd like to adventure, what quests you are interested in, etc. Then the tool would advertise you in an LFG spam channel. This way LFG doesn't become server wide /ooc.
I dislike all server wide chat. I dislike zone wide chat as well. I believe that we should only have /shout and /say as public channels and they should be very limited in range. /say maybe 10 yards and shout maybe three times that. Just some random numbers on ranges. But it gives an idea on what I would love to see.
I want to see people enter a dungeon and start crawling. Finding camps organically not shouting from zone in asking if a specific place or boss is camped. Just begin adventuring and move through. If you enter a group's camp, say hello. Let them know you're just passing through to find a spot. Maybe ask if they will be moving on soon and you might take their spot.
Then this camp fire thing sounds fun to me. But I agree if there is zone wide / server wide chat.... it ruins all of this. Poeple will gripe because they want to talk across the entire game or sell things across the entire game. Personally I want to see that kind of interaction be more personal. As in if you want to sit and socialize you'd go to a tavern and chat with people, or at the market to trade.
I don't really care whether you can or cannot talk to other people to see what camps are taken, who may be looking for more players to do something, etc.
I do care whether in a very social game I can talk to other people while I am exploring or crafting or the like.
If I can only talk to people in my guild, or any group I am in at the time, or people within 10 yards, I am very definitely not a happy player.
I am not concerned with the ability to get or give specific information of the type Kellindil mentions. He may be right - he may not be. Not an issue for me either way.
But I do want the ability to socialize with people that I may not know yet that aren't already in my guild or group or standing next to me.
Good idea and it has been done in other games - hopefully no guild is needed and we can just create and publicize the channel.
Better yet let's hope that some of the more extreme ideas for limiting chat do not find support in the hallowed halls of VR and there are channels we can use to talk to eachother without needing to create them.
I can't imagine there is much risk of it happening. It would be odd for a game to stress being social and interacting with the community to then have one of the (if not the) most restrictive chat/social systems in a MMO.