New Chat Channel so we can finally use our indoor voices for RP

[BlackHearted]

Hello everyone and thank you ahead of time to anyone taking the time to read this idea or share their thoughts on the subject.

I'll just get right to it:  Local chat is kind of a pita for RP..... it's often joked about as being "yelling distance" and not really "local distance" due to the fact the radius is 100 in game feet. For anyone not familiar with this I've posted photo's for reference below.  Basically what I would like to suggest is adding another chat channel to the game so that it is possible to have a conversation without feeling like you're screaming across a room when you speak.. The name "whisper"  has been suggested to me repeatedly and /w is not currently a command used in the games, so that seems like the most appropriate name for a new chat with shorter range than local has.  After going over it with several people in the RP community I would suggest that making/adding this new chat channel and make it's range 25 in game ft.... Doing this would be a HUUGE help to people who build RP bases as well as make it easier for your average RP participant to read chat in an area with lots of people without it scrolling by at mind bending speeds when lots of folks are talking at once.  

BIG Thank you to HC staff for any consideration given to this idea, we all greatly appreciate your efforts to make the game a better place for all of us.


Current 100ft distance at which local can be seen:

 

with UI: 



Suggested distance of 25 ft:

(notice how you can actually begin to see the person you're interacting with around this distance)


Anyways there you have it, if you support this idea please leave a comment saying such so that the people who need to can see how many of us would like this to be a thing!

[BlackHearted]

<saving a post spot here incase I need to add something for w/e reason>

[Kartanian]

Absolutely, yes.

I'm co-manager of two active RP night clubs and RP facilitator for a variety of groups and stories on Everlasting. Having some way to have what is currently seen in Local limited to a small-group interaction distance would be extremely helpful. Quite a few players opt out of RP and leave the base when "chat scroll" gets too active. Others get tired or overwhelmed and go mostly silent to just sit back and watch because they can't both read and type their responses to be an active participant.

I think this would benefit Pocket D, Atlas Park, and other costume contest or SG recruiting venues, and not just base or club RP. (Although "club RP" is where the chat scroll problem seems the most difficult for people to handle.)

If a "Whisper" channel could be added reasonably easily, that would be of huge benefit. I would suggest trying this out with a 20 ft range. Most groups that are RPing together tend to cluster in the 10-15 ft range (groups of 2-5), or 15-20 ft range (groups of 4-8). If the radius is 20 feet, that gives a lot of space for a circle or cluster of characters to interact, and enough for a bar dancing line of people to hear most of those in the line. This seems realistic, and more manageable from a sensory input standpoint.

[derangement]

Oh my goodness, yes please!

 

There are a lot of gorgeous player-created clubs and social meeting spots, whose creators have invested a lot of time and passion into.

Many of these places were designed to look like they could be a real place: a pavilion with stalls for supergroup representatives, like you'd find in a convention; a cozy little nightclub with a bar by the entrance, a dance floor to the side, and some balconies with seats and tables overlooking the room, for those seeking a little bit more privacy...

 

Sadly, adhering to real world aesthetics makes chat in these places feel too crowded, and it takes an immense amount of personal energy and attention to not miss what the people you are interacting with may have said. 

I have seen people resorting to team/league chat to try and mitigate this, but it comes with a couple of drawbacks:

1) By moving conversation to a private channel, one closes the group off from most external interactions. A friendly nearby stranger can no longer chime in on something they overhear, making it that much harder for them to engage with an ongoing conversation they would have been welcome to join. 

2) to join a team or league within a supergroup base, all members of the team need to be the same faction: heroes cannot invite villains to team, and vice-versa. 

 

Creating a short-range public channel like this thread suggests would greatly alleviate the issue, allowing social base builders to focus on creating as attractive a base as possible, without needing to artificially inflate room sizes to try and mitigate how many people would be within earshot of each other on an average night. :) 

[Baney]

100% this. 

Edit to add, I am not an RPer, but I +1 this for various reasons.

/w would make a great use for a quick chat command, since this game uses "tells" for private messages, and not whispers.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Baney

[TheZag]

I dont roleplay,  i dont plan to roleplay,  but i still support this suggestion.  Perhaps that last channel thats useless (that global one) can be repurposed into this.

[CoGDork]

I support this 200%. It would definitely aid in walkup RP in otherwise crowded venues.

[Bay]

5 hours ago, TheZag said:

I dont roleplay,  i dont plan to roleplay,  but i still support this suggestion.  Perhaps that last channel thats useless (that global one) can be repurposed into this.

General (/z) is anything but useless. The entire intent behind it was to give players a place (channel) to converse without needing to be on a team, league, or zone-chat that wasn't LFG or Help, since general conversations would break out there rather frequently.

 

As for the topic matter, while I'm not an RP'er myself I can see the benefits to this and have my two cents to add in; don't worry, I can break change.

1.) Perhaps change the name from Whisper, since that implies near private conversation, to something like Personal (/p), given the conversation is happening in/around/near your character's 'personal bubble' that's normally a rather short distance.

2.) Alternatively, change the range of Local to the shorter distance and then have the new channel be something more like Regional or Area Chat; no useful suggestions on command shortcut for the last two. Personally, I'd have the larger chat area command be /stfu since anybody talking at volume enough to be heard 100' feet away is usually eliciting thoughts of people wanting them to shut up/quiet down, lol.

[TorrentYed]

I am on board with this one-hundred percent if it can be done.

 

And to express my support, I'd like to begin with addressing one of the more extant criticisms I've seen for such an idea! Having seen this topic shared on some Discords, one of the suggestions folks have offered is to just create a team or league (or global channel!) which, you know, is a sort of ad-hoc, 'necessity is the mother of invention rah, rah, rah' solution that one could lean towards in terms of sharing thoughts between parties without concern of distance or disruption... except it prevents the opportunity for walk-up as @derangement points out! Plus it's a lot more clicks! 

 

I do personally like the current non-Pocket D local range as it is, because it widens that bubble for potential interaction in parts of the game world where people are flying/jumping/running and overall doing the speeding bullet thing (also teleporting, not to forget you all!). And even if one doesn't pause to stop and chat on the way between destinations, catching a little blurb of chatter in Atlas or Kings Row does help to make the world feel more lived in. At least to me.

 

For areas where things are more subdued (SG bases come to mind), where more groups are more likely to form within a smaller space, it would be nice to have a chat option that facilitates less cross-chatter, while also allowing for somebody to just walk up and ask what's up without having to wait for a team invite or something like that.

 

 

[Mystery]

Love the idea. Looking at the example images though, a 20 ft radius might be too much? The player would also be hearing everything 20 ft behind them as well. Just a thought.

[Jet Flash]

Great suggestion, let's get it done!

 

[Shenanigunner]

Thumbs up here. I don't RP but having a "close" channel would be nice. Tag it F2F.

[betsumei]

I endorse the heck out of this idea. Most of my characters don't constantly yell and I'd like to have that as an option.

[VileTerror]

Here I am on the completely other end of this where I feel the Local distances are too short.
Although, chat scroll in crowded places is definitely a disruptive influence.  Additional features to reduce barriers and improve players' abilities to keep their chat experiences easily organized is very welcome.  

 

How much of a pain would it be to give players an option to set their Local reception ranges independently?

Bonus points if we can have multiple ranges of Local (ie:  Local 250, Local 100, Local 50, Local 25), and players can pick-and-choose which Chat Tabs receive which ranges.

[Burnsidhe]

Chat scroll is a pretty big thing in large social gatherings. Even in small ones where one group is very active conversationally. So an additional chat mode with a smaller 'audible' distance would be very welcome.

[DJ Midnight Masque]

Co-signed!

[Ravenheart8985]

I second @VileTerror's idea. Being able to set chat radius, allowing us to lower it in more crowded areas, or keep it as it if less crowded to promote walk ups could potentially be done in the game coding as easily as a slash command. 100% on board.  /chat radius 20/40/60/80/100?

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Ravenheart8985

[skoryy]

'Whisper'

'Intimate'

 

Oof.  Why not just go all the way and call it 'The Playboy Channel'?

[Shenanigunner]

24 minutes ago, skoryy said:

'Whisper'

'Intimate'

 

Oof.  Why not just go all the way and call it 'The Playboy Channel'?

 

The "Do I need to scale my chest down?" channel.

 

I still suggest F2F as a neutral name.

[Shenanigunner]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

However, I do really like the inside voice idea. Maybe even change the radius of Local to something smaller? I mean if people are running a Costume Contest in Atlas, most communication is from Broadcast anyway.

 

Local isn't used much for anything, but I think it's a useful option to talk at people in that area and not the whole zone. I use it, f'rex, when a new alt needs an Ouro portal at Liberty Plaza.

 

Leave Local; add a very close-range channel. The three options should remain useful.

 

I don't think a user-adjustable range is possible. Creating a new channel modeled on Local should be pretty easy; hacking code to allow individual settings... I'd bet it's a lot closer to "impossible" than "workable."

[skoryy]

Honestly, though, I don't think its a bad or unworkable idea.  Chat spam can be headache inducing!  Caveats I've thought of though:

 

- Players will have to cluster to listen in, and walk up to those clusters to notice.  That comes across as a little awkward.

- Teams and leagues are a useful workaround.  Your conversations won't be noticed, of course, but see the line above.

[BlackHearted]

Thank you all for your opinions on the subject. To address some of the points made: 

I was informed by a developer that in their view adding a new channel with a short range would be the preferable option over altering local chat. Hence that being the suggestion put forth.

Personally I would prefer it if local was 50 ft game wide like it is in pocket D currently.. *Points to their pictures above*  the 100 ft distance is a range at which I would just type into broadcast or send a tell if I were trying to get someone's attention who was that far away.   .. 50 is more of a "Hey over there! *big wave*"  kinda distance.

As for my suggested range of 25 ft: That's something I've deliberated on for days.  A slightly shorter range of 20 or even 15 would be a little more realistic for "calm conversation between friends" range... but also.. from a "functioning inside an MMO for RP" perspective it would still be nice to have the option to be like " *over hears her name and turns to look at the group behind them* "OH .. John! Didn't see you there!! How are you ol chap?"  etc etc.  so  I choose to suggest 25 as a bit of a compromise to give it a little buffer for that sort of thing. 

Personally I am not particularly hung up on the details of how this gets done, my main goal for this post is to illustrate the fact that this is a an actual problem which is actively hurting the RP community's ability to hold functions......  Due to sensory issues, I often have to leave when the chat scroll gets bad in local, or just swap to a tab with team only chat and not talk to anyone besides those i'm directly interacting with, which is a rather unpleasant work around.  It's a real catch 22 to have to turn off the channel people are RP'ing in to be able to stand hanging around when you want to RP..... It's something that's driven many people away from RP settings.

Edited September 13, 2021 by BlackHearted

[Greycat]

I ALWAYS USE MY INDOOR VOICE TO CHAT!

IT'S NOT MY FAULT PEOPLE  HAVE REALLY GOOD HEARING AROUND HERE!

 

 

 

OK, seriously, though... I'm slightly on the fence. I'm not sure it would help the chat scroll issue *that* much. (Which could be environment dependent.) Then again, it could be adopted much more eagerly than I think and help a great deal. Can't say I'm really against it, regardless.  Might need different coloration so it can be told apart from local more easily, that's about it.

[arthurh35353]

Close-Local chat sounds like an awesome way to improve the game! I'm 3,000% behind this! 

[twozerofoxtrot]

Something like this has been an ask from the RP community for a while. Probably the #1 requested change.

 

Thanks BH for taking output from your conversations and putting them here, with the rationale behind the specific suggestion as well.