Unlike other MMOs the community is pretty poor because everyone is split across so many planets and there is no way to communicate on a server across factions. Perhaps they did that to reduce trolling and gold spammers, but I kind of miss those personalities that come across.

 

It also means no open world pvp because no one can shout out 'hey there is a 50 on tatooine' where people on Fleet could hear them.

 

Its a shame, it doesnt have the feel of a classic MMO without the community and communication.

Unlike other MMOs the community is pretty poor because everyone is split across so many planets and there is no way to communicate on a server across factions. Perhaps they did that to reduce trolling and gold spammers, but I kind of miss those personalities that come across.

 

It also means no open world pvp because no one can shout out 'hey there is a 50 on tatooine' where people on Fleet could hear them.

 

Its a shame, it doesnt have the feel of a classic MMO without the community and communication.

 

I don't disagree with you at all - let me get that out there first.

 

I just want to point out, though, how one of the biggest complaints about a different, popular MMO (not saying you were one of the complainers - just saying there are others who are) was criticized because no players had incentive/reason to go out in the world and everyone was stuck in the capitol cities.

 

So while I agree with you 100% about the lack of community, I just find it interesting that some people find that people being spread out over different planets to reflect a rich environment, whereas others perceive this as having no community and needing some central hub.

 

Like I said though, I agree with ya. Just interesting how people perceive things differently.

Totally agree. A server wide LFG channel would be nice to...

Totally agree. A server wide LFG channel would be nice to...

 

LFG channel would be the future Spam Central. I am not exactly looking forward to people spamming chat but I am worried it will happen here eventually. Actually so far I haven't seen any spammers in this game but maybe its because I haven't spent all my time on Fleet.

LFG channel would be the future Spam Central. I am not exactly looking forward to people spamming chat but I am worried it will happen here eventually. Actually so far I haven't seen any spammers in this game but maybe its because I haven't spent all my time on Fleet.

 

Spamming the channel with what? Looking for group requests? I'd hardly call that spamming. Most servers in LOTRO have a GLFF channel that does wonders for finding groups. A high level sees a lowbie looking for a group for something he needs on an alt.

 

I don't see the problem here.

Did you know you can start your own channel?

 

Roleplayers frequently use factionwide channels (e.g. EmpireRP / RepublicRP / LFRP).

 

If so many people want cross planet communication, get a /real/ server community going by compounding them all into a snazzy little channel. It'll even feel better because you organised it yourself instead of waiting for Bioware to do it for you.

Thanks for that info. I'll see if I can get one started on Kath Hound.

 

Thanks

Did you know you can start your own channel?

 

Roleplayers frequently use factionwide channels (e.g. EmpireRP / RepublicRP / LFRP).

 

If so many people want cross planet communication, get a /real/ server community going by compounding them all into a snazzy little channel. It'll even feel better because you organised it yourself instead of waiting for Bioware to do it for you.

 

Because any newbie or anyone not in the know would have insta directions on how to find these channels right?

The empire over on "the hutt" have some game-wide custom channels as well as our own server forum. It's very possible to have/build a community, just takes a little work from the players. While most of us are conditioned to have the dev's hand us everything, in this case they've given us (some of) the tools and are letting us develop as we see best for our servers.

LFG channel would be the future Spam Central. .....

 

at least it would be...something.

 

.

Because any newbie or anyone not in the know would have insta directions on how to find these channels right?

 

I didn't know they existed when I started out.

 

I found them because the community recommended them or advertised them.

 

Proactivity. Seriously.

Id also have to say as long as people can turn on and off the various chat channels who cares if people really do spam or troll. It doesnt matter because if you dont like it and you can turn that channel off then BAM theres the solution.

I agree as well. I even made a thread to this end in the Suggestion Box. Even if they are divided by levels. 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-49, and 50s have their own channel.

 

We need to have a server-wide global chat channel so that if you are, say, on the Fleet Station really wanting to finish the Heroics on Corellia but had to go there for something (because they make us go there for everything) and I just went to Corellia and still want a partner to do a +2 Heroic, I can shout for someone and you can see it.

 

In a game where the planets/areas are so segmented and are also subject to being sent around to different planets at different levels, you can feel very alone ,,,, this would be a very good way to unite the ocmmunity.

 

 

Oh, but please let Dromund Kaas chat stay their very own special-needs chat. That place can drive someone out of the game!

Agreed. Having to go from a planet to the fleet constantly to advertise in that general channel to get people for a FP is an unnecessary inconvinient. I'm not even lobbying for a LFG tool, but at least this would help a lot. Even if it turns to Spam Central, as they say. Edited March 2, 2012 by Morlaak

Unlike other MMOs the community is pretty poor because everyone is split across so many planets and there is no way to communicate on a server across factions. Perhaps they did that to reduce trolling and gold spammers, but I kind of miss those personalities that come across.

 

It also means no open world pvp because no one can shout out 'hey there is a 50 on tatooine' where people on Fleet could hear them.

 

Its a shame, it doesnt have the feel of a classic MMO without the community and communication.

 

As others have stated, this does tend to lead to massive amounts of unwanted spamming. It would, of course, be up to the community to ensure it was a good place to advertise for groups.

 

As for cross faction communication, you can do that in /say.

 

In most MMO's that I have played, they do not have a central server wide channel unless it is created. Most MMO's are split between territories, which is no different than being split by planets in regards to chatting.

I agree as well. I even made a thread to this end in the Suggestion Box. Even if they are divided by levels. 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-49, and 50s have their own channel.

 

We need to have a server-wide global chat channel so that if you are, say, on the Fleet Station really wanting to finish the Heroics on Corellia but had to go there for something (because they make us go there for everything) and I just went to Corellia and still want a partner to do a +2 Heroic, I can shout for someone and you can see it.

 

In a game where the planets/areas are so segmented and are also subject to being sent around to different planets at different levels, you can feel very alone ,,,, this would be a very good way to unite the ocmmunity.

 

 

Oh, but please let Dromund Kaas chat stay their very own special-needs chat. That place can drive someone out of the game!

 

Having chat channels that were divided by Level ranges was actually something that I thought worked pretty well for Rift. It was pretty handy for forming groups for group quests and dungeon runs before they implemented the automated tool for that.

Unlike other MMOs the community is pretty poor because everyone is split across so many planets and there is no way to communicate on a server across factions. Perhaps they did that to reduce trolling and gold spammers, but I kind of miss those personalities that come across.

 

It also means no open world pvp because no one can shout out 'hey there is a 50 on tatooine' where people on Fleet could hear them.

 

Its a shame, it doesnt have the feel of a classic MMO without the community and communication.

 

servers have no community because they made a single player game online and tacked on some pvp... They have no concept of how to make a game socially interactive. Cross planet comms will not rectify the feeling and such a lonely game. The entire game is flawed from top to bottom and riddled with wow ******* who know nothing but what blizzard showed them..

Spamming the channel with what? Looking for group requests? I'd hardly call that spamming. Most servers in LOTRO have a GLFF channel that does wonders for finding groups. A high level sees a lowbie looking for a group for something he needs on an alt.

 

I don't see the problem here.

 

The problem is that LFG would also turn into cross-one Trade, PvP, guild recruiting, general chat, flaming, etc, all in one.

 

Shoot, how often do you see the existing Trade and PvP channels actually used for those topics? Maybe once a day? That's because they're all just dumped into General chat, and that's because there's no special restrictions on General *or* extra features on the other channels.

 

Make restrictions like not linking items in General, and you'd see Trade see some activity. (They'd have to fix linking *anything at all* first, but you get my point.)

 

Make extra features in the other channels like

[3 - PvP] [somebody] LFM for that one warzone, [click here] to see current group comp

with a useful popup window, and you'd see more people using it. Make a special LFG channel with the ability to link something unique there, and spam wouldn't be as much of a problem.

 

I don't think the global LFG channels should be automatically split up by level range though, because like you said above, I want to be able to find groups for my lower-level alts.

 

The current /who window can search the content of the LFG Comment, which right now is the only way to find people outside of your current zone. This is good, since the average planetary zone holds about six people, but a failure since you can only see the first 10 letters of the LFG Comment. >< We desperately need a global LFG.

It seems that Bioware prefers little or no community for some reason. It's been a major complaint both here and in the game. There have been exhaustive suggestions to improve this but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Sad really because the lack of community is a major turn-off for me.

The channels should be able to be tabbed, I.e. general tab, trade tab, etc. this gets rid of the "giant text box" problem.

 

This stops the chat window scrolling at a horrific rate and decreases the amount of text on screen.

If the chat panel worked like this it would give people an incentive to actually use the channels, thus decreasing spam and thus paving the way for a non spammed to hell LFG channel.

 

Being able to restrict the view to planet chat/server chat/etc would be extremely handy and wouldn't be hard to implement into the hud.

They can be tabbed. Or rather, each tab has its own list of displayed channels. Right-click on the tab and play with the settings; uncheck the things you don't want to see.

 

I tend to move all public channels off the main NPC conversation tab because... there is no traffic in public channels, because there are no people in the planetary zones. Might as well avoid potential noise when trying to follow conversations.

 

When I'm back on the Fleet and there's a chance of actual public chat, I display the secondary tab instead. Can also filter out a lot of the annoying system messages that way too.

When I first started playing Star Trek Online, I didn't like the way their servers are set up. Having played this game after playing STO, I am starting to miss the STO way of doing things.

 

In STO, there is only one "shard". Every single person is playing on the same "shard". Every single person is part of the same auction house. Everyone can send personal messages and in-game email to everyone else logged in at the same time.

 

The downside to this is that Cryptic achieved this by aggressively instancing everything, even the space stations (the equivalent of cities in a normal MMORPG). The downside to this is that areas that are traditional community hubs in other MMORPGs feel strangely desolate and underpopulated in STO. Another drawback is that EVERY name has to be unique to everyone in the entire game, not just to your particular server "shard". If STO had as many players as this game, there would be a lot of people named XoXoXoXoKirrrrr***kXoXoXo or something.

 

On the other hand, in game communications, the in game auction house, and grouping all receive obvious benefits from this arrangement.

 

Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever see that approach done in this game. Making such changes involves big alterations to very low level code that affects just about every other piece of code in the game. It would simply be too massive an undertaking, even for a MMORPG with a large customer base like this one. The more post-release content they put out, the more unreasonable low level changes like this become.

if you want a LFG Channel ,create a channel with the /create LFG command.

you will be suprised about that the most servers already use one!

I must respectfully disagree with you about a dearth of cross-planet comms.

 

Guild channels are galaxy-wide.

 

Custom channels are galaxy-wide. Most servers have them, particularly RP servers.

 

I think I might even also disagree with you that cross-planet comms are needed to bolster the "community", but that's a seperate discussion...

 

 

 

Paige

 

 

PS

 

Sanctum of the Exalted (RP-PvE US EST)

 

Republicnet is the Republic IC channel, and Republicooc is the Republic OOC channel. These are server-wide, like guild chat, which is why they’re better than general.

 

Type this into your chat box to join: /cjoin Republicnet

Type this into your chat box to join: /cjoin Republicooc

 

Imperialnet and Imperialooc are the Imperial equivalents.

Type this into your chat box to join: /cjoin Imperialnet

Type this into your chat box to join: /cjoin Imperialooc

Because any newbie or anyone not in the know would have insta directions on how to find these channels right?

 

Hopefully, the guilds, boards, and people on this server advertise the channels as appropriate.

 

 

Paige