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Brainstorming - A world without Open Chat. How bad could it be?
jesad
Member UncommonPosts: 882
The main question in this post is in the title. The wall of text that follows is optional. This is an opinion topic and so I won't be arguing points but you are welcomed to.
So I have this theory that I bat around in my head a lot of the time. It goes like this.
Faction chat is bad for MMORPG's.
My reasoning.
MMORPG's are supposed to be, or at least were supposed to be, the first steps along the path towards virtual realities. Now I'm not going to break down the term "virtual realities" in order to make this point, but what I am going to say is that an actual virtual reality would be a lot more involved than an MMORPG and so before we get on that whole conversation I'd like to agree that they, MMORPG's, are NOT.
Still they are supposed to be the first steps and so along those first steps the idea should be that the MMORPG transports you to a world. It is a world that is different from your real world but maybe no SO different as to make you feel as though it is a complete departure from that world.
Enter Server Chat or Faction Chat or Barrens Chat or Area Chat or whatever you want to call it. A place in the game where any player, no matter where they are standing within the world or what they are doing within the world, can communicate with another player in pretty much whatever manner they desire. People use it to find groups, to sell things, to buy things, to hurl obscenities at one another, to harass and insult one another, and on occasion to even help one another with only one single OVERWHELMING problem......
Server Chat Breaks The Game!!
I mean come on folks let's be serious. What do we have in the real world that really functions like server chat? The entire Internet does not function like server chat because you have to actually SEEK a person out in order to have what they are saying reach your ears. Television doesn't work like server chat because you have to make a conscious decision to turn the television on and watch it in order to have whatever is coming out of it to come into you. And even then you can only watch one channel at a time which only usually features one person speaking at a time unless you purposefully seek out one of those "Friends" type of shows where everyone is so busy trying to get a joke in edgewise that the entire thing becomes one big quip session until the show is over.
And that, I believe, is as close to server chat as you can get right there. One big "Friends" type of conversation only most of the people speaking AREN'T YOUR FRIENDS
Cities sit empty. Houses sit empty. Entire zones sit empty because who needs to visit anywhere when we are all telepathically linked to one another in the most annoying way possible? In fact, it's so bad that you have to literally "opt out" of it instead of turning it on in most games because developers have used it, almost since the beginning, to circumvent having to produce "instructions" for the title. I mean, "why waste money on ink and paper or even a website when we can just throw everyone into a big pile and slowly drip information out to them that way right?"
Meanwhile however, your adventure has become SERIOUSLY crippled. Places no longer have value, congregation no longer has value, information no longer has value, pretty much the entire exploration factor of the whole world has been cut by more than 50% because once you have been to a place and done all the things that you needed to do there, that place no longer has value to you.
Imagine a game without area chat though? How bad could it be?
And by area chat I mean all conversation that could exist in a range farther than a normal voice.
Could you stand it? Or would having to actually TRAVEL to a person in order to speak with them make a big difference in how immersed you might become in your favorite title?
So I have this theory that I bat around in my head a lot of the time. It goes like this.
Faction chat is bad for MMORPG's.
My reasoning.
MMORPG's are supposed to be, or at least were supposed to be, the first steps along the path towards virtual realities. Now I'm not going to break down the term "virtual realities" in order to make this point, but what I am going to say is that an actual virtual reality would be a lot more involved than an MMORPG and so before we get on that whole conversation I'd like to agree that they, MMORPG's, are NOT.
Still they are supposed to be the first steps and so along those first steps the idea should be that the MMORPG transports you to a world. It is a world that is different from your real world but maybe no SO different as to make you feel as though it is a complete departure from that world.
Enter Server Chat or Faction Chat or Barrens Chat or Area Chat or whatever you want to call it. A place in the game where any player, no matter where they are standing within the world or what they are doing within the world, can communicate with another player in pretty much whatever manner they desire. People use it to find groups, to sell things, to buy things, to hurl obscenities at one another, to harass and insult one another, and on occasion to even help one another with only one single OVERWHELMING problem......
Server Chat Breaks The Game!!
I mean come on folks let's be serious. What do we have in the real world that really functions like server chat? The entire Internet does not function like server chat because you have to actually SEEK a person out in order to have what they are saying reach your ears. Television doesn't work like server chat because you have to make a conscious decision to turn the television on and watch it in order to have whatever is coming out of it to come into you. And even then you can only watch one channel at a time which only usually features one person speaking at a time unless you purposefully seek out one of those "Friends" type of shows where everyone is so busy trying to get a joke in edgewise that the entire thing becomes one big quip session until the show is over.
And that, I believe, is as close to server chat as you can get right there. One big "Friends" type of conversation only most of the people speaking AREN'T YOUR FRIENDS
Cities sit empty. Houses sit empty. Entire zones sit empty because who needs to visit anywhere when we are all telepathically linked to one another in the most annoying way possible? In fact, it's so bad that you have to literally "opt out" of it instead of turning it on in most games because developers have used it, almost since the beginning, to circumvent having to produce "instructions" for the title. I mean, "why waste money on ink and paper or even a website when we can just throw everyone into a big pile and slowly drip information out to them that way right?"
Meanwhile however, your adventure has become SERIOUSLY crippled. Places no longer have value, congregation no longer has value, information no longer has value, pretty much the entire exploration factor of the whole world has been cut by more than 50% because once you have been to a place and done all the things that you needed to do there, that place no longer has value to you.
Imagine a game without area chat though? How bad could it be?
And by area chat I mean all conversation that could exist in a range farther than a normal voice.
Could you stand it? Or would having to actually TRAVEL to a person in order to speak with them make a big difference in how immersed you might become in your favorite title?
Comments
Global chats do not break immersion in modern or sci fi settings where it does (or would) actually exist. I understand your view regarding ancient/fantasy settings. As an "immersion freak" I would be ok with it, but 99% of mmorpg players would not. Some would be willing to live without "Barrens chat" but few would be willing to give up their guild channel or the ability to pm their friends. It seems that most use voice comms or third party IM anyway so removing these features from the game would not change all that much. As for game instructions, such useful information is always found in player-made forum guides, so devs will not be making us instruction manuals in any case.
All that happens nowadays is folks move to 3rd party voice chat. They even setup public servers.
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Sure, not everyone would use third party stuff and it would likely be more segratated then being able to speak directly to everyone in a specific zone. But all it really does is advantage people who uses out of game means of communication if the ingame ones aren't sufficient. Is that really a good thing?
Zone wide chat, however, has legitimate uses. I remember a few roleplay events I was in for City of Heroes and SWG where the GM was providing descriptions of really huge events that would, realistically speaking, effect an entire zone:
::You see a 747 on fire fly overhead. Moments later, you hear a crash in the lake.::
::A scream can be heard in the distance: "Noooooo!"::
It was important to our event participants to be able to broadcast globally. Moreover, we also got bystanderds involved in the action because they heard the things said in global and followed up on it.
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As for just chat boxes over characters? no
The chat box is more of an organizational tool then anything, and very necessary.
Oh, i wouldn't mind if open chat is taken away though .. since I solo mostly. But, it is usually just an option anyway .. so why even bother to taken it away?
Just have a button to turn it off. Those who do not want it can opt out. Problem solved.
Just wish there was some kind of way to breath social life into the real estate in all of these games. Imagine a city like Greyhawk (for any who know what that is) and then think about what we have in these games and you can't help but want to think of a way to fix that.
If we could somehow stop the Chuck Norris jokes and childish behavior then we don't need any changes to the idea.Another thing i don't like is people spamming their items they want to sell,put them on the dam AH and quit spamming chat.
Chat should be to share game ideas and to offer or ask for help or questions related to the game.Sadly what chat really is are ideas 90% of the time not game related or petty game arguments.
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And once they developed custom channels and VOIP, I could even get rid of the AIM.
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