OOC Chatter..

[truce1]

just want to say, last night again, the channel was taken over by idle chit chat about everything under the sun.

[sprite]

just want to say, last night again, the channel was taken over by idle chit chat about everything under the sun.

Did you give the GMs a friendly nudge / report it?

[vguerin]

In fairness, the implementation is the problem... Labeling a channel "Universe" doesn't lend it to anything in particular. As everyone pays the same to play SoR, other than breaking the CoC they have have the right to use the channel for their "Universal" chatter. If they want a channel like this, they should have also added a "Help" and "RP" channel... then we can selectively choose which ones to monitor and the chatter can be more consistantly monitored.

As much as I dislike 50% of what I see in the channel, I typically monitor it in some fashion and feel no obligation to limit anything I say there to player help. Helping others in that channel is one of many things I am free to do in that channel. Until there is specific guidelines listed, nobody (even the trial players not paying yet for the right) is obligated to anything else.

[philu]

I agree with DT, I don't see that there's a problem with 'chit chat' in the universe channel. Yes it's there for current players to talk to and help new players (a noble intention IMHO) but is there a clearly written rule somewhere that says "thou shall only help people here"?

Trying to remember what it says on the warning message when you access the Universe channel......

A channel called Help with strict guidelines on what can be discussed there would be the best solution.

[rushin]

Trying to remember what it says on the warning message when you access the Universe channel......

it said, pretty much:

"thou shall only help people here"

only for gameplay related questions, not a general chat channel were definetly mentioned

[grimjim]

TBH it's a losing battle, people will use it to chat unless there's an alternative. A little leeway is a good thing and it does help create a fairly friendly impression.

[chessack]

The main problem is when a genuine question comes up and is lost in the spam. Then it's not so helpful.

Just this morning, I was foraging, and (as I do when digging) watching Universe. Someone talked about subs fees, which led to PayPal, and to discussions about PayPal's security (or lack thereof -- there were two views on that), and then computer and internet security, firewalls, Windows, and other things including bodily functions, eventually (urgh).

In the middle of that, a new player asked a question about magic XP. Specifically, he was teamed and healing players in combat and not getting any XP. I tried to ask him to clarify some things but he never answered, more than likely because he never saw it. I then sent him a tell, and we did a back-and-forth tell session. I ran out of my knowledge fairly quickly (being only level 23 in healing, and those 2 levels coming mostly from Fear on newbie island), and was not able to help him fix the problem.

Meanwhile nobody else on universe chat saw the question... but 3 or 4 people were now trying to halt the spam. It didn't work, though, until I actually said, "You know a newbie asked a question about magic XP and I had to take it to tells because of all this spam." THEN, finally, the spam let up, and several people said, "What's his question?" and one sent me a tell. I then asked the newbie to re-type his question in universe again, promising him it would not be spammy this time, and he did... and finally got help.

We need to watch this. I do not object to a bit of playful banter but when an actual question is put up there it must not get lost in the spam, or else the purpose of the channel is being subverted.

C