[outdated] User-made chat channels

[manavortex]

Hey there,

I've given this some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the gain on our side outweighs the pain on your side for implementing this. (I have not made this decision light-heartedly!)



Basically, I would love user-defined chat channels like they had them in WOW:
Any user could "/join channelName" at any time and leave the channel again with "/part channelName".

This is how it used to behave:

• If the channel did not exist, it would be created when the first user joined
• The channels were global
• The channel would be destroyed as soon as the last denizen left it, not requiring any maintenance server-side.
• The channel names served as unique keys

What I want it for:

• An AddOn control channel:
  We could create a channel per add-on, so that we could send data between our users! Of course that would only work if our AddOns could automatically post to a certain chat channel, so another flag would be in order, but still - I could, for example, listen for certain text strings in that channel and have my AddOn react accordingly! It would be like AddOn-specific events!
  
• Single-purpose channels:
  Likeminded individuals could gather up and have conversations about whatever topic sparks their interest without bothering anyone else. Examples:
  • Trade
  • LFG
  • Lore discussions outside of /z
  • Minority roleplayers staying in touch despite the latest attempt at creating a single-topic RP guild going haywire again

This would be incredibly convenient for us AddOn-devs and take some of the spam load off the zone chats.

[Rhyono]

You missed the most important usage: politics. I'm kidding; we already know /z takes you to the politics channel.

[silvereyes]

It would also be very useful for guild officers to be able to tell arguing/debating/otherwise negative members to "Take it #OutsideOurGuild". "Take it to whispers" is all we have currently, which when you have more than 2 people involved is essentially saying "stop". It makes guildies feel like they are being censored, which leads to resentment.

[manavortex]

Originally Posted by silvereyes It would also be very useful for guild officers to be able to tell arguing/debating/otherwise negative members to "Take it #OutsideOurGuild".

Get a room

[Baertram]

I support this global chat channels as I always loved them within the game LOTRO.
The'll help you organize raids, dungeons, cross-guild events, sever wide fun events etc.

But:
The channels shouldn't be destroyed automatically as the last user quits! There should be one "founder admiN" who creates the channel and is able to kick and administrate this channel (maybe name officers like in a guild if this would be possible, who are also allowed to kick others).
The chat channel was destroyed as the admin tells the server to do so or if no user (including the admin) logged in there for at least 60+ days).

The cross addon chat channels would be a great benefit as well!

[Rhyono]

Yeah, if there isn't someone that can remove people from the channel, one person could muck up the whole channel.

[AssemblerManiac]

And make it work so that the user gets prompted when creating a channel, to make sure they want to do it (so they are totally aware that it's happening). If there is a "channel owner", like housing, have authorizations to join it.

By prompting, addon authors can create a channel for communications between clients, without risk of channel floods (since both users would need to ok it) because only the channel (or channels) their addon opens can post data automatically. This eliminates the possibility of chat bots spewing spam and opens up the ability to share data among consenting/informed users.

rough concept
channelNum = ChatSystem:CreateChannel("MyDataSwap")
ChatSystem:RegisterEvent(channelNum, "OnReceiveMsg", function) -- event args are @username, date/time, msgNum, msgText
ChatSystem:SendText(channelNum, msgText) -- internally picks up @username to prevent spoofing
ChatSystem:CloseChannel(channelNum)

Channel name would need to be agreed on by any users wanting to establish comms, or set up through a normal chat /w msg (that will still require user to press enter in the normal chat edit win).

comments/suggestions welcome (this isn't something I've given much thought, these are first impressions)

[Baertram]

One more point:

Currently the chat tabs allow us to "choose by the help of options" which channels are shown/output where at which tab.

I'd like to have this option for user/addon created channels as well so the output is not shown at every chat tab.

[Gamer1986PAN]

Do i get this right, you would be able in this channels to synchronise Addons with other Users like Furniture Cataloge? I mean User klicks in a specific Addon like Furniture Cataloge "share my Furnishings" and another Furniture Cataloge-User can save this Furnishings to his Character-list with the name of the character who just posted it? Would something like this be possible with that chats? If yes - that would be super-awesome. If not its really nice anyway.

[manavortex]

Originally Posted by Gamer1986PAN I mean User klicks in a specific Addon like Furniture Cataloge "share my Furnishings" and another Furniture Cataloge-User can save this Furnishings to his Character-list with the name of the character who just posted it? Would something like this be possible with that chats?

Something like that is already possible - see for example Harven's Custom Map Pin where the use can generate a chat string and then post it, and everyone who has the add-on gets the pin shared.
(Un)fortunately, as of now, AddOns can't send chat messages - we still need the user to press Enter. Of course the potential for abusing it is somewhat out of proportion (fully automated chat spam? Yay!), hence me asking for a certain channel that'd only be used for AddOns to communicate with each other.

[Anceane]

Indeed!! I love those in Lotro and TSW.

You can open the channel to who you want and even ban people from them. The use i saw was for raid only leader speaking, so no one could spam. For help, some people wanted to help and created a channel where you could join and ask for build. Another one was for the Lore.
10 years after on Lotro, the channels still exists and are very very used.

Originally Posted by Baertram I support this global chat channels as I always loved them within the game LOTRO. The'll help you organize raids, dungeons, cross-guild events, sever wide fun events etc. But: The channels shouldn't be destroyed automatically as the last user quits! There should be one "founder admiN" who creates the channel and is able to kick and administrate this channel (maybe name officers like in a guild if this would be possible, who are also allowed to kick others). The chat channel was destroyed as the admin tells the server to do so or if no user (including the admin) logged in there for at least 60+ days). The cross addon chat channels would be a great benefit as well!

[Gamer1986PAN]

Originally Posted by manavortex Something like that is already possible - see for example Harven's Custom Map Pin where the use can generate a chat string and then post it, and everyone who has the add-on gets the pin shared. (Un)fortunately, as of now, AddOns can't send chat messages - we still need the user to press Enter. Of course the potential for abusing it is somewhat out of proportion (fully automated chat spam? Yay!), hence me asking for a certain channel that'd only be used for AddOns to communicate with each other.

I just can say +1 from me ^^ hope you can make that happen...

[Ek1]

Originally Posted by Baertram The channels shouldn't be destroyed automatically as the last user quits! There should be one "founder admiN" who creates the channel and is able to kick and administrate this channel (maybe name officers like in a guild if this would be possible, who are also allowed to kick others).

That would create channel creation race as then those people would control the that channel and that control could be monetized.
Millions of chats like these have taught that the less channel power there is, the less it can be abused. Also having ghost channels is quite pointless as they could be simply re-created upon entry, just like group chats are.

Also if not some I/O is opened I don't see how this could be done through (or be related to) an add-on.

[Anceane]

If i take the example of Lotro, there is a created channel running for 10 years now, in which you can get only by invitation. But once you are in, each time you log in the game, you enter the channel. You can leave it, and enter in at your choice as you are part of it. But if you are banned from it, you will never be able to access it again.
This channel was created at start for a rp guild, but was so helpfull and creating activities that a lot outsiders from guild asked to be in and were invited. They still do raid on sunday with that channel for everyone, and any sorts of grouping to help everyone, as they also do rp. I do not think that people thought at first it was an controled channel. And it proved to be one of the most sucessfull channel of the game. Still exist. And i do not play regularly on lotro, but i am still in that channel, with the characters i wanted in, and i love when i log to see people i know and new people. You never fill alone.

Actually i created a guild in ESO, just to be able to keep things in mind, on a channel : help for quest, help for places i need to find, i am alone in it. (its a copy past channel from internet to game)

Originally Posted by Ek1 That would create channel creation race as then those people would control the that channel and that control could be monetized. Millions of chats like these have taught that the less channel power there is, the less it can be abused. Also having ghost channels is quite pointless as they could be simply re-created upon entry, just like group chats are. Also if not some I/O is opened I don't see how this could be done through (or be related to) an add-on.

[AssemblerManiac]

Yeah, I don't see a "channel creation race" problem for ESO. You could always create the channel with a slightly different name.

Comm channels for addons would be filled with gibberish anyway, so people wouldn't even need to know their names (and all of the specialty channels would be invite, or approve, only anyway).

It would be nice if Cyro had an officer chat channel, where only group leaders could join. Would make organizing groups much easier than having to wade through the, sometimes, constant zone chat texts.

[manavortex]

While we are at making requests:

How about just throwing ESO at an IRC backend without channel operators? It already works like we want it, and that way we could have IRC bridges into ESO - which would be seriously awesome! Imagine keeping in touch with your guild without the game up and running! Wohoo!
bitlbee_eso!

[Rhyono]

Originally Posted by manavortex How about just throwing ESO at an IRC backend without channel operators?

[BigMons]

Originally Posted by Anceane Actually i created a guild in ESO, just to be able to keep things in mind, on a channel : help for quest, help for places i need to find, i am alone in it. (its a copy past channel from internet to game)

I actually had one of these for the exact same use in LOTRO. It was my own channel. It has been a very long time since I played LOTRO, but I think one of the things that I used it for was a command that would spit out my character location coordinates or something along those lines. I just sent it to my personal chat. I used it to test things or for notes or whatever. There was also a group of my coworkers (5 or 6 of us) that played LOTRO, but we were not all in the same guilds due to raiding and other in-game activities. We had our own private channel where we could communicate with one another. It worked very well, and seems like a pretty basic chat function that ESO lacks.

In WoW, the one very useful function that I can remember us using custom channels for was cross-guild communications. My WoW guild was too large for everyone to fit into one guild, so we had two guilds and used an addon to relay guild chat through a private channel so that people in both guilds could communicate seamlessly as long as everyone was running the addon. We could also use the addon to communicate with a completely separate guild that we sometimes organized raids with. This relay channel and addon was immensely useful. I don't recall the addon name as it has been several years since I used it, but I think this addon (linked below) does the same thing and could possibly be based on the addon that we used.
https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/greenwall

I'm sure the back-end implementation cannot just be copied from WoW or LOTRO or whatever, but the ideas for how it should work, like the commands and options, could probably be borrowed from other games. I doubt these ideas are copyrighted since it's pretty broad. Otherwise, we wouldn't have zone chat, group chat, whispers, etc. since other MMOs already have those. Custom/private chat channels would be tremendously useful, especially if addons can communicate with other copies of the same addon that are run by other players. It's hard to imagine the possibilities if you haven't played WoW and experienced some of the things that can be done with addons over there.