Suggestion: Evolution of Communication

[cloudy97]

Custom chat channels has been suggested before. With the upcoming fame change I would like to bump the idea once again. The fame issue will split longtime guilds whose members have different beliefs and nationality. Personally I like the changes and believe they will add diversity and RP to the game, but it will also alienate old friends from eachother

From my point of view:
I play a Karavan/Matis woman in one of the oldest guilds on Arispotle, let's call it Exxxxxion . The guild consisting of mainly Trykers, many of them with a neutral opinion to the religious war. Exxxxxion would probably be (I'm guessing here) Neutral/Stateless or Neutral/Tryker which will either way force some members to make drastic changes to their personae or leave the guild.

If we continue to see it from my POV I wouldn't mind if Exxxxxion was turned into a custom chat channel, since that is the most central aspect of guilds today. We can still plan events, keep contact with eachother, the only thing missing really would be the treasure chest (not the most important thing IMO). See the custom chats as diplomatic or social networks...

Provided that the custom chats can be added technically, what do you think? Any dangers with these chats, will /around be even more quiet, any negative aspects for FVF/GVG?

[sprite]

100% agree that this would be great

If they just did it as an "Alliance" feature so that you could pick any number of custom "alliance" chat channels that could only be joined by guilds (ie you specify that guilds x, y, z are in this channel) then imo it would be the best way (provided you can have multiple alliance chat channels).

This could be used in a number of ways -

1) A proper "Alliance" chat channel used by the full Alliances that are ingame

2) Any guilds that decide to "split" due to the new fame issues could have an extended guild chat

3) If the link to the chats could be made/broken at any time, the guilds that wanted to co-operate for a small amount of time (eg events etc) could use it as a planning/co-ordination channel for the duration

I don't think that any of these would reduce Around chat much; most of what would be put in these channels instead of Around would probably be more suited to a "private" setting anyway

As for FvF/GvG I think it would allow more tactics/planning/etc to take place without relying on the implemented faction channels... guilds that aren't in the same faction could then co-operate, or it would allow events such as the "peace dig" to be more co-ordinated


On the down side, I doubt that the chats could be made as temporary as my option 3 would require - they have shown that in the fact that the Faction channels do not disappear when you leave the area, but only when you log out. Even without this ability, I still think that options 1 and 2 are more than reason enough to make these channels, but if they do get implemented please allow us to have more than one "Alliance" channel:One channel has guilds A and X in it, and another has guilds A, X, Y and Z in it - the chat with guilds A and X in it would be an example of option 2 (extended guild chat), while the chat with A, X, Y, Z would be an example of option 1 (proper Alliance chat)

[ajsuk]

The whole chat system needs redesigning imo. It's really starting to do my nut recently.

I dunno about anyone else but I have trouble seeing where the hell I'm going with more than 5 tells going. I don't wanna have to raise my res, theres plenty enough room, just needs sorting.
Also with all these extra chat channels being added I'm running outta room for the tabs..

I'm not exactly sure how i'd improve on it, but a couple of ideas:

-Drop down/up select for chat channels (like you use to choose the channel your speaking in with 'user').

-New 'add player' button for team & tells. Allows you to add players by name rather than targeting.

-If we have to keep loads of tell boxes, make the player name strip smaller.

I'll think some more on it.

[philu]

Some nice ideas there guys. A redesign of the chat system would be very welcome by many I think.

Some way to 'stack' tell windows would be useful as Jayce said. I think Jayce's drop up/down idea would be the best - show all tells in one window like with the user channel and change who the tell is to via a 'drop' list in the same way.

The new EP2 channels are a real pain with the tab system. I know they were rushed in because Nevrax forgot about how people would communicate during the event, but it could have been done better IMHO. Integrating them with the user channel would have been nice. I view all chat in that window and have to have the faction channel open in a seperate window. Not good.

[aylwyne]

In my last game....

Don't you just love when people start a post like that?

Anyway, I always thought the chat system there was clunky... until I used Ryzom's.

You could open a configuration screen where you could check off which channels you wanted to subscribe to. There were a lot of standard channels (different races, different professions, new players, etc.). Also, anyone could start a "private" chat channel at any time, which could be optionally password protected. These were used heavily for things like multi-group hunts or cross-guild communication. I'd like to see something like this be added to the Ryzom chat system.

Also, I think it's important for them to allow ALL chat channels to be added to the "User" chat tab. It's annoying to have the new event channels not show up there.

Finally, I'd like to see the chat channel optionally prefixed to the chat messages in the "user" tab. With addition of more new channels that will hopefully be allowed to appear in the user tab, colors may not be sufficient to distinguish from one to the next.

[kgrieve]

And could we please have audible to alert us of a new message?

It would let us know when there was a message in a closed window so you wouldn't need to keep so many open.

[cloudy97]

GUI redesign is a valid point, yes. Keeping the interface clean and effective is the designers job.

But despite that, would custom chat channels be a satisfying solution to maintain the social networks that has been established in game now when game mechanics forces us to split some of the guilds?

[sx4rlet]

But despite that, would custom chat channels be a satisfying solution to maintain the social networks that has been established in game now when game mechanics forces us to split some of the guilds?

I think it *might*.
With the first crash of the guilddatabase, Evolution and Atys Ghost (I hope I am right with the last one) were lost. Only then we discovered how much the guildchannel was used, and how much it holds a guild together.

But it will only work if all parts of the split guild will use the new channel, instead of the guild one. As soon as they start to use guildchat, I think then it will slowly the different parts will grow further apart.
(now if the guildleader could turn of the guildchat for example...)

[norvic]

Dont like mentioning other games in an SoR forum but way back i used to play Horizons and you could set up Chat channels. These could be completly open to all ie, market or related to a specific building job, or they could be passworded by the creator to enable specific users only. A menu of available channels was available for all to see and was a simple click to join process.

[bobturke]

I think it *might*.
With the first crash of the guilddatabase, Evolution and Atys Ghost (I hope I am right with the last one) were lost. Only then we discovered how much the guildchannel was used, and how much it holds a guild together.

Synergy and one other guild also existed in the DB but didn't exist in game after that issue. The missing guild chat was by far the most missed feature when Synergy was destroyed. I'm not going to harp on it but it was a significant loss to the players involved.