Is 'General Chat' good for communities?

scragcat

 Been thinking about this recently.  Don't remember which game brought in general - server/zone/city wide chat first but does this lower a communities standards?

Long ago i remember unless you were in a guild/party, in UO the only real chat was 'LOCAL' and because of this the only way people could grief or troll chat was by following others around and well they either got bored really quickly, were avoided by people recalling away or ganked outside town.  I became a murderer for killing some kid being totally rude to females lol.

With General chat channels, yes it is easier to communicate with a larger group of players but then it makes it so much easier to start troll conversations since there will always be someone to bait or to join in and this usually escalates.  Imagine if all there was were local and maybe guild/raid/party chats.  People who wanted to just make lame Chuck Norris jokes would have to hang out in the same area as others who wanted to make same kind of lame jokes or join a guild of lame chuck norris joke tales.

People DO leave games at the worst or turn chat channels off at the least because of what is read in general chat, because if you log into a game and see nothing but a bunch of retarded text spam it will put you off the game experience (well for the most part, not always true)  With only a local/guild/party chat system wouldn't it make a stronger community?

Maybe it is all pointless and has nothing to do with how games are now but maybe General Chat is a cancer?

SnarlingWolf

It doesn't change how nice or rude a community is. LotRO has very pleasant chat, WoW has terrible chat. Both are using the same regional style global chats.

 

If a game released now and didn't have a regional chat it probably wouldn't do well. People in the early days were very social in MMOs, they didn't care about sitting around for an hour or two just chatting and not earning xp/level/loot. Current players always want to get to the top as fast as possible so they don't want to be forced to sit in a town in order to chat to others. They want to be out fighting and questing while talking or while waiting to find a group. It's all about maximizing xp/time.

Kyleran

I'm fine with General chat channels, they serve a useful function in some cases, (like home defense) and the positives overall outweigh the negatives.

No one forces you to read what's typed there, and you are always free to ignore anyone or the entire channel if you like.

 

Mardy

Yes, General Chat is good for communities.  Welcome to 2009.   And yes, you always have the option to turn them off.  It's just funny too many people complain about general chat yet they read it all day long because they too enjoy the drama.

Emhster

Global chats are fine. They should, however, be monitored more carefully by GMs, not to prevent drama but to prevent destructive chats. For example, every time I logged into Age of Conan, the global chat was littered with doomsayers complaining about how the game suck and how no one plays it anymore.

Mardy

Originally posted by Emhster


Global chats are fine. They should, however, be monitored more carefully by GMs, not to prevent drama but to prevent destructive chats. For example, every time I logged into Age of Conan, the global chat was littered with doomsayers complaining about how the game suck and how no one plays it anymore.

 

When you see that kind of chat, the strange thing is it's often true.  People who pay to play want to voice their opinions and experiences ingame.  Kinda hard for GM's to filter that out, it'd be to filter any negative opinions.

Emhster

Originally posted by Mardy

Originally posted by Emhster


Global chats are fine. They should, however, be monitored more carefully by GMs, not to prevent drama but to prevent destructive chats. For example, every time I logged into Age of Conan, the global chat was littered with doomsayers complaining about how the game suck and how no one plays it anymore.

 

When you see that kind of chat, the strange thing is it's often true.  People who pay to play want to voice their opinions and experiences ingame.  Kinda hard for GM's to filter that out, it'd be to filter any negative opinions.

I understand that, especially for a game like Age of Conan. But I think as gamers, we are forced to tolerate such bad behaviors in game. Spamming "This game sucks, this server is dead" all day long is neither pleasant nor constructive for the other users, and should not be tolerated by GMs. 

To make an analogy, if somebody goes to McDonald's, orders a Big Mac, and then starts complaining loudly how crappy a big mac is, or how that food is bad for your health, I dont think the restaurant's staff would tolerate it for too long...

Laughing-man

I can answer your question with a single word.

No.

 

UO had the best community of an Online game.

EQ was a downgrade, and it slipped ever since.   General Chat is the devil.