Both Global and Help our gonna be out eventually becasue it is not scaleable. We used to use Help as a global chat and it simply became too big because there were too many people in the world.
There are lots fo groups to chat in including aseveral Global chat groups that everyone can join but again eventually they will become far too large to get anything done in them.
My question is: how will new players ever find these things (other groups, information, players they like to game with, projects, parties) without global?
Something should fill that void. I'm not sure what would, but local chat won't do it, nor will a groups page full of group names that new players wouldn't understand.
@jakie As far as I know, the local chat will still be there but If global is really going to get that big, maybe a regional chat (Like groddle heights for example)
+1 Pirate Apples The group chats are the best alternative (for me at least) right now. But as a user of the Global chat and contacting a ton of people is my main way of chatting. of course, the idea of a new group might work, but if that becomes massive, would the devs be forced to close an operation like that?
I started a group for those of us that will miss it- Beta Global Glitches - for those of us that love talking in global and love the people we've met :)
I should have been more specific in my response but i was attempting to eat after work and give an intelligent response at the same time. The hamburger won, my response did not.
So ya, @djoe, i did mean a Regional Chat for each major map area - 'Groodle Forest Chat', 'Ix Chat', 'Deeps Chat', etc. Local Chat is pretty much never used in my experience for long-term conversation and it more of a game-play log of events and acting as a way of 'talking out loud'. Thinking of it in terms of other MMOs that i have played (don't ask me how many, i have been at this too long) it's more a differentiation between a 'channel' and a 'say' command.
I can say that often times, especially during peak hours, I have to make the choice of closing my Global Chat simply because it becomes a lag-monster and the constant chiming drives me nuts. But then i get sad and lonely and start wearing black all the time because i am social starved in-game and start hanging out with Gwendolyn all the time in the Tower and pestering her about her brooch quest. No one likes Emo Glitches.
Granted, I can see Zone Chat for areas like Ix being a dead zone and other areas like Baqala & Choru being quiet simply because of the 'Can't talk, Weight of the Ancestors is on me and i gotta walk before someone else gets all these trap loots... shhhhh!"
On the other hand, areas in Ilmenskie zones would probably be happenin', because Giants know there is nothing else you could do while picking chunks besides typing in chat and telling everyone else to stay the Hell off your Sparkly nodes in Local. (The Devs really need to let me sort my inventory in mid-picking action. I will continue to complain about this far into the foreseeable future. *grumble*)
+1 zeeberk. Last I heard of this was that Global and Help chat would stay because they can be scaled... but perhaps I'm muddling it up with another element of the game.
Would different 'Global' or 'Help' channels work, to minimise crowding?
Presumably the group chats will remain? I am rarely in Global chat because my main group chat fills that function - chat and advice.
Surely the Help channel will remain? How else will newbies find out where to find spice trees and what to do with chunks of sparkly? Not to mention the "help my pigs stuck!" calls (which I have had to use twice now, and I can't really call myself a newbie anymore)
Thanks zeeberk, and I completely agree with your comment. You can't find groups or other players you like to play with if you can't come in contact with them. Besides, many of the upper level players spend a lot of time either in their houses or in areas that low levels won't commonly end up, so it will be very hard for the higher level players to meet new players as well.
I definitely agree that some info on groups and group chat ought be be available early on. I've been thinking that was missing nearly since I joined because a lot of people I know had a heck of a time finding the group we had created. The move to putting group names at the top of the friend list helped, but yes...something in the nature of an early quest might be nice.
I still think that certain areas having global chat (like in WoW) is a really great idea. For instance, major roads that get a lot of travel, or even people who are in their homes, only in those places can you turn on global. Otherwise you only get local chat.
I'm so surprised that so few people here care about whether global is still around or not. I didn't realize so few of us were concerned about the community and friendships we create with other players.
Another problem with losing Global Chat: we will lose the ability to adequately find groups to work on groups quests (such as the peat quest or the last egg quest, which although it is not necessary to have a group for that quest, some people do anyways).
I was really hoping the game was moving towards having more multiplayer quests, not away from it!
laurali, presuming status updates are broadcast into the game, that shouldn't be so much a problem.
if not status updates, there will be something else. it is unlikely Tiny Speck would yoink global chat without revisiting the chat panel and various broadcasting methods.
and even if yoinked global and nothing else at all, players can still build their own globals by way of group chat.
global isn't critical for multiplayer quests anyway, and maybe not even good .. i remember starting the first barnacle parties and those were all much better when using local chat to find players right there right then. regional chat would be much better for that particular application than global is.
i worry a lot, right? and i'm not even worried about this particular thing ; ]
Perhaps I am picturing this to be worse than it will be, but my favorite thing about glitch is the social aspects. ex: hearing the random comments that people broadcast over the world, seeing all the "hellos" and "goodbyes" when you come and go, and making new friends. I don't want to lose that, I don't want to lose friendships, and I don't want to lose the ability to just log onto the game to listen to pointless banter between people to help me escape the drama and stress of my daily life.
Bumping this. I still think several chat channels should be available without forcing players to join a group to get at them. I see how regional chat is supposed to work for all folks currently in Groddle or Andra or what have you, but I still think it too limiting.
I have not been hanging out in Global lately, and I think my Glitchiness is suffering for it. Global chat is like a big cotton candy spinner that makes tasty clouds of connected Glitchen all circling around a cone-shaped Ur. For players who don't come here with an established network (example Faunasphere players), Global chat is an essential stickiness/sweetness generator for the game. At least, that is how I see it and now I want something sweet to eat now to boot.
I agree that one single Global chat won't scale, but why not have several open channels, make them identical in operation and give them meaningless names that make fun of the concept of Global? Maybe there should be one for each of Glitch's holy trinity: Pig channel, Chicken channel, Butterfly channel. Maybe folks would largely gravitate to one single channel, but maybe not...
striatic's idea about getting status updates into the game...I keep trying to imagine how this would look and feel, and failing miserably. Can anyone (including striatic) describe this at length so I can actually envision using this in lieu of a global chat channel?
I completely agree Nanookie! Thank you for bumping this, losing Global Chat will be a sad sad day. Isn't it possible to leave it up just to see how it works? Not to sound harsh, but I'm guessing as soon as the game goes live the population won't go too crazy, as most people who are interested have gotten invites. So who is to say Global Chat will be overwhelmed with a big population increase?
IRC is good at lots of users. couldn't the devs integrate some sort of IRC chat into the game? or what about ventrillo type stuff? i would rather wear a headset and talk than type sometimes...
I definetly would miss Global Chat, I dont use it alot but like that if I need help or see someone who does Glitches on Global Chat flood u with advice!
I did read a VERY old thread from Alpha testing or mayb it was the Glitch Blog? Anyway it said they were getting rid of global chat, but yet MONTHS (even a year?) later its still around so mayb they are considering keeping it or atleast contining it untill/if it became a huge problem to use/upkeep??
it would be like all the wonderful back and forth communication that currently goes on via people's home pages, except accessible via the game client. plus much more refinement in features.
not very complicated, and is working very well as a communications tool already despite not actually being in the game and having had essentially no development since implementation.
ze thing works.
from a UI perspective it would probably be just another *tab* in the rightmost communications panel.
"Global chat is an essential stickiness/sweetness generator for the game."
it isn't essential. you know how flickr used to have a global chat, and then it didn't have one, and everything was fine?
that.
we should also say that global isn't innately sticky or sweet for most players. it can only become less sticky and less sweet over time. that, and spam filled. let's just imagine the worst and think of the deluge of penis pictures thlopping all over some future version of global.
We used to use Help chat as Global chat and then the devs split them up with the chat reform. Neither plan was scalable at all since there are more and more people using it. At the beginning of beta, I used it, now? Way too many people.
and let us remind ourselves before we go doubling down on global and swing for the fences with all the inaccesible complexity that is IRC, that in fact most people on the internets and indeed most people playing glitch have never done much in the way of group chatting .. while the revere is true when it comes to update based communications like twitter and facebook.
i think you could make a strong case for *global chat* being the weird, difficult, abnormal and strange communications method, and *real time updates* being the familiar, comfortable, inviting communications mode.
Striatic: the only problem there is still that you can really only see updates from your friends. And if it would be possible to see everyone's updates, it would be even worse than global chat as some people (including myself) make much longer statuses.
The thing I will miss about Global is the *community* feeling, and it only has the feeling if its available to people I know as well as people I don't know. Otherwise it just feels like a clique or something. It can be a cold confusing world you walk into, and while there are greeters to make you feel comfortable immediately, and they have added quests to have you meeting other players quite early, but imo that's just a way to meet a handful of people. Sure you can meet people on your own, but that's so different than having a huge outlet for everyone to use!
"The changes that will probably be most noticeable are the removal of global chat and the addition of "local" chat (audible to those on the same street as you), "party" chat (for ad hoc groups of 2 to 11 players) and the addition of a help channel (which is global). This is a transition that's obviously necessary as the world and its population grows and we are eager to get started experimenting." - BLOG POST 16th April 2010.
Found This too..
"This was (maybe) the last test we'll be doing with global chat at all; it's possible we keep it around for one or two more tests, but there definitely won't be global chat for much longer.
We have global chat now because the number of simultaneous players is low enough that it doesn't quite explode and it's useful for answering questions and seeing who's online. When we get rid of it forever, we'll have decently working local chat along with at least one of: multi-player IM, "party" chat (for small, transient ad-hoc groups) and group chat." Posted 16 months ago by stoot barfield
And apperently it went through a decent redesign in about January/Feb which still suggest they were still working on improving it more (although not a priority).
There is HEAPS of threads and my poor eyes can't handle reading every one of them, but the ones I have read (including the blog) I still can't see where it's 100% stated they'll get rid of Global competely. If there is a thread, I'd love someone to post it so I could read it.
"Striatic: the only problem there is still that you can really only see updates from your friends. And if it would be possible to see everyone's updates, it would be even worse than global chat as some people (including myself) make much longer statuses."
seeing stuff from people other than your friends are what things like lists and re-shares are for. and either region based updates or region based chats.
longer statuses aren't worse than a spammed global chat, since the people they bother will just unfollow you and the people who like them will have more to respond to.
I will take your advice on this, for now, but don't try to chase me off with the specter of thlopping. Twittery updates are more than a little asynchronous for my taste, certainly so when I am having a hankering for some fast, in the moment, potentially thloppy chat.
I am pretty much back to wishing for an in game location where avi's can hang and chat locally, er, that is not a project. Except then I would have to hang out there and not get anything done.
You have thlopped a word into the imaginations of your fellow Glitches, striatic. Thus this whole discussion is more than worth it, no matter what happens to global chat. I'm sorry, not really purposely staying OT but that word is so wondermous that it deserves its due. Please thlop along now.
"Twittery updates are more than a little asynchronous for my taste, certainly so when I am having a hankering for some fast, in the moment, potentially thloppy chat."
but that's the thing, y'see.
in the glitch client context you are just a click away from replying to an update via IM.
and then thlops away via that or via a party chat.
Speaking as someone who does use IRC frequently and has helped people into using IRC: I do kind of wish global was IRC sometimes, and think that IRC is mmmaybe as complex as the game itself, and that it can be taught. But I realize I am a slice of the pie of users here, so.
I honestly don't use status updates because they are so far divorced from the gameplay concept right now, and I have relatively little to say...? But I like global because I occasionally glean updates into things I would otherwise never hear about, given that my circle of friends so far is kind of small. I guess I would have more incentive to friend others, but I would start screening my friends akin to twitter: are they close enough to me that I care about their personal content, or are they informative otherwise? And I'm not sure that's how they want me to interact with the design, but there you go.
Will it really be an obsolete feature? It really doesn't make sense for the huge amounts of players and maps this game has. Not to mention, global chat has been the only way I've been meeting/chatting with new friends, learning about new tips/features, events from others. Usually people are too busy doing their own things and traveling to different roads to even contemplate using local chat. It'll really take away from the massively social aspect of this game if they decide to take it away. :(
On a side note, why are friends not addable simply by adding them in-game by typing in their names? Seems like such a simple feature that should be possible seeing as I'm not really a fan of the FB/Twitter-esque status updates.
Another option is to follow CCP's lead and make a number of system-owned groups with silly names and drop each new user in to one at random. As they fill up you can always create more and you still get a somewhat global-ish feel (better if combined with hub-level channels too).