Alphaman Posted July 18, 2008 Report Posted July 18, 2008 I've noticed that a lot of people seem to use the broadcaster to chat with one another (which is odd enough because they could just talk to each other on that map...) but anyway my suggestion is for a chatting system that allows communication across the board, any map you are on and only if you want to participate. I've seen this done in two different ways, neither of which I happen to know the code for, but I'll try and describe how they work. 1) The first, and my personal preference, is one chat channel (known as "main" in most servers) that you turn on with a simple "@main on" command which enables you to then both send and see messages sent in this channel, as if you joined a party and were talking in the party chat instead of public. It's easy to send messages to - you just put a comma in front of your text, or send pms to "main". Messages appear in a different color than public speech (usually yellow), with a "main:" desigation in front of the character name for further clarification. Should you no longer want to recieve the messages, you type "main off" and you won't see them again, it's fairly simple. This channel allows you to talk to anyone who has it on in ANY map from any map, as well as meet people who may not visit the same maps you do, and even provides an alternative place for GMs to talk to people (though the next example has a more specific thing for that). It's a pretty fun/useful feature :D 2)The second way I've seen this done is essentially the same thing, just with a few tweaks. For starters there are multiple channels, the full list is available to seen with the command "@join". "@join #channelname" turns that channel on for you (and if I remember correctly, a message is sent to the channel saying when someone joins and leaves, with "@exit #channelname"). You talk to the channel by sending pms/whispers to "#channelname", and messages from that channel have the specific channel name designated in front (and again, messages are typically in a different color than public chat, such as yellow, or green). With multiple channels you occasionally see people bunching up in one to only talk in that channel, but with a little moderation from gms it's easy to keep it organized, and it doesn't really matter much as long as people keep b>/S>/T> messages to #trade. With these there is even a #support channel, which can be used both for gms to be in to support players in game, as well as whoever is kind enough to help out and answer questions (not an official position for them, they just do it. In the server I was in where we had multiple channels like this, people would tend to gather in #support to chat, with the rule being that if someone came and asked a question you had to quiet down to let them get help before continuing your conversation. There were a number of people who would be in the channel helping others out on a regular basis, including some forum moderators who otherwise don't have in game power/authority, but can help to keep the channels a little more organised as long as they remain lenient.) Lemme know if you have questions on what's done in them, how they're run, all that good stuff.
FemLelouch Posted July 18, 2008 Report Posted July 18, 2008 My last server had something like this and I loved it. It worked great.
Jewel Posted July 18, 2008 Report Posted July 18, 2008 Nicely put Alpha. I'd love to see the abuse of the broadcaster put to rest but there's always going to be one jerk in the bunch that needs to ruin it for everyone. Still, I think a main channel would put quite a bit of that to rest.
Alphaman Posted July 19, 2008 Author Report Posted July 19, 2008 Even if it didn't affect the broadcaster, it would allow for people to chat with people in other maps, without having to meet/know them first. Brings the community together all that much more :wub:
Genesis Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 Do you mean like an IRC feature? For example, #support, #guildnamehere etc?
Jewel Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 There's two options when it comes to universal chat. There's the simple @main feature ( where @main is the only channel ) and then there's the IRClike idea of having multiple channels.
Icon Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 I don't think it'd be bad at all to have broadcasting tied into this @main and not really worry about all the other channels since ignoring the broadcasts is what I see as the source of the suggestion. That way all you gotta do is @main to see it or @main to ignore it.
Alphaman Posted July 19, 2008 Author Report Posted July 19, 2008 Kinda Genesis. Of course, guild channels aren't neccesary when you can just switch your text box to "send to guild". Really though, with the population and all, only one channel would really be necessary if implemented.
Jewel Posted July 26, 2008 Report Posted July 26, 2008 I agree with Alphaman. @main would be nice AT LEAST, considering the population size. It would, however, need to be moderated to a certain degree as I'm sure people will get carried away with such freedom.
