General Chat Suggestion

Bleeep · Jul 3, 2018

Hello! I was wondering if it was possible to get rid of the general chat cool down . I believe that the cool down in the general chat prevents a lot of conversations that would occur otherwise. I also think that it widens the gap between role-play and faction players since the only meaningful chat the two share is general. General chats typically help create more of a community feel. Without it, I feel many new players are left on islands without an easy way to connect with other players in the community, which leads them to become less engaged only to eventually quit.

Let me know what you all think. Since there is a cool down on it right now, it was probably set there for a reason. My best guesses for a cool down would be role-players trying to use the general chat for role-play or too much toxicity from the player base.

Zacatero · Jul 3, 2018

I can see it potentially being reduced but definitely not removed

MadamAries · Jul 3, 2018

Bleeep said:
cool down in the general chat prevents a lot of conversations that would occur otherwise.

I don't think the cooldown prevents or restricts much for new or old players, really. One of the only things it prevents are spamming messages from player, and keeping the chat clean. Most player chat among their faction or alliance chat, or are Roleplaying. On the side of a new player, if someone were to say "Hello" there are an abundance of people to greet them back, the conversation continuing as people go back and forth, and people will comment on the last thing sent in the General chat.

Bleeep said:
role-players trying to use the general chat for role-play

There is a chat called 'RP-OOC' and Roleplayers use it to find the happening ons of Regalia, or promote RP families, etc. Most Roleplayers don't even have General chat open, as the channel can become flooded and their RP can be filtered out. PvP'ers even have their own PvP chat to find raids and challenge people, etc.

Bleeep said:
chat the two share is general. General chats typically help create more of a community feel.

RP'ers and PvP'ers alike use General chat to converse about whatever it is at the given moment. I don't see any shyness from either side. Now there are down times every single day, something that obviously no one can control, and General chat can become quiet, but even then I have seen new players say a "Hello" and at least one person says it back.

In the end, I don't think a cooldown is needed or necessary. It's not preventing or holding back conversation, and when it is being used, conversation usually flow very easy, even with the 60 second cooldown. This is just my opinion, playing on the server.

Bleeep · Jul 3, 2018

MadamAries said:
I don't think the cooldown prevents or restricts much for new or old players, really. One of the only things it prevents are spamming messages from player, and keeping the chat clean. Most player chat among their faction or alliance chat, or are Roleplaying. On the side of a new player, if someone were to say "Hello" there are an abundance of people to greet them back, the conversation continuing as people go back and forth, and people will comment on the last thing sent in the General chat.

I have to strongly disagree with your observations. Conversations are killed when you have to wait an entire minute just to give a response or make a comment. The General chat is more than just 'quiet', it's absolutely barren. It's obvious there is an issue when I AFK for 30 minutes at any point in the day, come back, and there have been two lines worth of chat. Who wants to have a conversation in general chat if you can only make one statement per one minute? A minute cool down completely disincentives any substantive conversation. By the time you can make a statement on the rare occasion there is actually a semi-conversation in General chat, the subject has changed completely.

I also do not understand the spamming argument, especially coming from a game staff member. Warn, kick, mute. It's a simple formula that never failed me when I staffed for a server two times the size of Massive's current community. There is always a staff member online, so there is absolutely no reason to worry about a spammer in the general chat.

MadamAries said:
There is a chat called 'RP-OOC' and Roleplayers use it to find the happening ons of Regalia, or promote RP families, etc. Most Roleplayers don't even have General chat open, as the channel can become flooded and their RP can be filtered out. PvP'ers even have their own PvP chat to find raids and challenge people, etc.

I am also aware of the different chat channels available to users.

Zacatero · Jul 3, 2018

Bleeep said:
Conversations are killed when you have to wait an entire minute just to give a response or make a comment. The General chat is more than just 'quiet', it's absolutely barren. It's obvious there is an issue when I AFK for 30 minutes at any point in the day, come back, and there have been two lines worth of chat. Who wants to have a conversation in general chat if you can only make one statement per one minute?

Premiums get 30s

Bleeep said:
I also do not understand the spamming argument, especially coming from a game staff member. Warn, kick, mute. It's a simple formula that never failed me when I staffed for a server two times the size of Massive's current community. There is always a staff member online, so there is absolutely no reason to worry about a spammer in the general chat

There is not always a gamestaff present. Only gamestaff monitor those channels regularliy. Sure other staff step in when absolutely necessary but it's a gamestaff job.

Bleeep said:
I am also aware of the different chat channels available to users

MadamAries's point is that there is a channel dedicated to the reason you want the cooldown removed. RP-OOC. So why do you need to have general for additional rp conversations?

Bleeep · Jul 3, 2018

Zacatero said:
MadamAries's point is that there is a channel dedicated to the reason you want the cooldown removed. RP-OOC. So why do you need to have general for additional rp conversations?

You completely missed my point. My initial comment about the role-play chat was me speculating as to why we have a cool down to begin with because I am unsure as to why there is one in the first place. I am a factions player, and I do not role-play . Additional role-play conversations is not what I'm advocating for. I am advocating for a General chat that can be used by everyone without a cool down to promote chat activity.

Zacatero said:
Premiums get 30s

Is this even a real argument? Everyone should just buy premium to half your wait time in general chat! What an uninspired solution.

Zacatero said:
There is not always a gamestaff present. Only gamestaff monitor those channels regularliy. Sure other staff step in when absolutely necessary but it's a gamestaff job.

Is our community not able to self-police itself on the extremely rare occasion someone spams General without a Game Staff online? Even so, someone could message another staff online to deal with a situation that would last all of 10 seconds.

Winterless · Jul 4, 2018

Rubar_ said:
General chat is gross, if you make it less memey and argumenty and more rule-followy there's no need for the cooldown. But that's impossible with a mixing pot of players. The slowdown is so mods can tell people to knock off poor behavior promptly when needed. Whether or not anyone gives a crap about that determines the existence of the slowdown.

As for the purpose of helping General chats purpose: I am not interested in General chat, removing cooldowns would not tempt me to join in. I use discord for RP chat and I don't bother with factions. If you want cooperation, just name it FactionsXRegalia and people will get the gist. But general chat is an important avenue for factions friendship and non-forum user roleplayer discussion, not mixing factions and rp.

So in the end, the slowdown is for cute newbies.

P.S I'm not mad I have a childish pottymouth.

You should bother with factions

We're excellent

Zacatero · Jul 4, 2018

Bleeep said:
You completely missed my point. My initial comment about the role-play chat was me speculating as to why we have a cool down to begin with because I am unsure as to why there is one in the first place. I am a factions player, and I do not role-play . Additional role-play conversations is not what I'm advocating for. I am advocating for a General chat that can be used by everyone without a cool down to promote chat activity

The point being made by myself is that there's a reason general chat has a cooldown.

Bleeep said:
Is this even a real argument? Everyone should just buy premium to half your wait time in general chat! What an uninspired solution

It's not a solution for all sure but it's a solution to the problem you presented. If you're premium you get 30s cooldown instead of 60s which really does feel like most of the time that there's no cooldown at all.

Bleeep said:
Is our community not able to self-police itself on the extremely rare occasion someone spams General without a Game Staff online? Even so, someone could message another staff online to deal with a situation that would last all of 10 seconds

There's no such thing as self policing on the internet. Without elevated permissions you really can't make somebody else do what you want.

Bleeep · Jul 4, 2018

Zacatero said:
There's no such thing as self policing on the internet. Without elevated permissions you really can't make somebody else do what you want.

One can't ask another staff, even outside of game staff, to step in for a moment and handle what would be an outlier situation? They are a real active bunch of players, it would just take initiative on the off-chance a Game Staff is not online to solve it themselves. Spam isn't even an issue for general chats the vast majority of the time. It's not as if opening up the general chat will suddenly make it a complete war zone filled with nothing but advertisements and spam.

Zacatero said:
It's not a solution for all sure but it's a solution to the problem you presented. If you're premium you get 30s cooldown instead of 60s which really does feel like most of the time that there's no cooldown at all.

Considering I want a solution for all, it would not be a solution to my problem.

Zacatero said:
The point being made by myself is that there's a reason general chat has a cooldown.

And I am still confused as to why it exists. I already strongly disagree that removing the cool down would make general chat insufferably toxic because of spam due to my previous staffing experiences, and I also know that the staff team is extremely active and available in almost every situation. I just don't understand the fuss, and maybe that's just me not understanding the community.

aprader1 · Jul 4, 2018

Back over 5 years ago when Massive had an absolutely ridiculous population the general chat still felt fairly spammy even with the cooldown. Now a days that population has dwindled. But the cool down has stayed the same. Now let me point you to the most recent example where this was done.

When RP chat was made (it's fairly new guys) they originally didn't have a cool down because staff thought it wasn't necessary. Long story short now we have a cool down... it was way to Spammy. I'm all for reducing it a tad but removing it is not a good idea.

Also... why all the insults on Game staff? I don't think anyone cares if you staffed on some other server. Lots of people have anyways. Massive isn't like other servers, we all know this. The cool down means that almost every single general chat message is at least worth reading. People have to think about what to say. Why put more work on staff when we already have it working now...

It's been done as recently as RP chat and was changed within a few days. No way is the cool down leaving.

Bleeep · Jul 4, 2018

aprader1 said:
Also... why all the insults on Game staff? I don't think anyone cares if you staffed on some other server. Lots of people have anyways. Massive isn't like other servers, we all know this. The cool down means that almost every single general chat message is at least worth reading. People have to think about what to say. Why put more work on staff when we already have it working now...

I most definitely did not and never will take a jab at the staff team. I am using my previous experiences staffing in a large community that had a vibrant general chat to back up my argument.

MadamAries · Jul 4, 2018

Obviously there is no great benefit to removing the cooldown completely, and reducing it seems plausible but what would be a good cooldown? You say that it is holding people back and not giving it "a community feel". So what is a good cooldown limit? What about for premiums? Give the benefits of what this reduced cooldown will do.

We need to hear reason and have an explanation as to why something should be this way, so we can clearly see and understand it. Opinions have been given, so it would be nice to see a solution to this suggestion.

Bleeep · Jul 4, 2018

MadamAries said:
Obviously there is no great benefit to removing the cooldown completely, and reducing it seems plausible but what would be a good cooldown? You say that it is holding people back and not giving it "a community feel". So what is a good cooldown limit? What about for premiums? Give the benefits of what this reduced cooldown will do.

We need to hear reason and have an explanation as to why something should be this way, so we can clearly see and understand it. Opinions have been given, so it would be nice to see a solution to this suggestion.

I would be content with a 5-10 second cooldown for regulars and the complete removal of the cooldown for premiums. Imagine having a conversation in the real world in which you'd have to wait a minute to give your next statement. It's just unnatural. I think limiting the cooldown would give people more of a reason to hold and engage in conversations for more than a sentence. I don't believe the benefit of more conversation would be, as you said, 'great', but it could encourage more chat participation, which would be fantastic to see.

Zacatero · Jul 4, 2018

Bleeep said:
I would be content with a 5-10 second cooldown for regulars and the complete removal of the cooldown for premiums. Imagine having a conversation in the real world in which you'd have to wait a minute to give your next statement. It's just unnatural. I think limiting the cooldown would give people more of a reason to hold and engage in conversations for more than a sentence. I don't believe the benefit of more conversation would be, as you said, 'great', but it could encourage more chat participation, which would be fantastic to see.

So let me ask this then. Say the staff go for this suggestion here. 5 for nonprem and 0 for prem.

What's stopping general chat from just being abandoned? I know I would leave a chat so active everything I do gets pushed back into the history. So what's stopping people from leaving it and it just ends up just as active as it is now?

Daekon · Jul 4, 2018

Bleeep said:
I would be content with a 5-10 second cooldown for regulars and the complete removal of the cooldown for premiums. Imagine having a conversation in the real world in which you'd have to wait a minute to give your next statement. It's just unnatural. I think limiting the cooldown would give people more of a reason to hold and engage in conversations for more than a sentence. I don't believe the benefit of more conversation would be, as you said, 'great', but it could encourage more chat participation, which would be fantastic to see.

5-10 seconds is barely a cool down, considering a lot of messages take that long to type. Spam is an issue, and I don't understand how this is not something you have seen, considering rpooc had a cool down enforced due to the spam and spam still occurs in general across numerous players.

aprader1 · Jul 4, 2018

MadamAries said:
Obviously there is no great benefit to removing the cooldown completely, and reducing it seems plausible but what would be a good cooldown? You say that it is holding people back and not giving it "a community feel". So what is a good cooldown limit? What about for premiums? Give the benefits of what this reduced cooldown will do.

We need to hear reason and have an explanation as to why something should be this way, so we can clearly see and understand it. Opinions have been given, so it would be nice to see a solution to this suggestion.

So currently it's 30 seconds for regular and 15 for premium. What if we just reduced it by like 10 seconds? 15 or 20 for regular and 10 for premium. That's roughly half and isn't quick enough to be spammy since there is still a blocker.

My original numbers may be off but I'm saying about a 40-50 percent reduction. Roughly half

Bleeep · Jul 4, 2018

Zacatero said:
So let me ask this then. Say the staff go for this suggestion here. 5 for nonprem and 0 for prem.

What's stopping general chat from just being abandoned? I know I would leave a chat so active everything I do gets pushed back into the history. So what's stopping people from leaving it and it just ends up just as active as it is now?

I don't understand your logic. In your scenario the general chat becomes super popular and becomes a fun way to connect with loads of players, but it becomes so popular that players start to feel discouraged from using it so it becomes abandoned. That's a logical fallacy. It becomes so popular that it quickly stops being used at all by every player much like it is now?

Daekon said:
5-10 seconds is barely a cool down, considering a lot of messages take that long to type. Spam is an issue, and I don't understand how this is not something you have seen, considering rpooc had a cool down enforced due to the spam and spam still occurs in general across numerous players.

Spam isn't typing out a message every 5-10 seconds. Spam is three or more different lines of text in the span of five or so seconds from a single player. Holding conversations in general chat is not spam, which is what you seem to be describing in this response.

Zacatero · Jul 4, 2018

Bleeep said:
I don't understand your logic. In your scenario the general chat becomes super popular and becomes a fun way to connect with loads of players, but it becomes so popular that players start to feel discouraged from using it so it becomes abandoned. That's a logical fallacy. It becomes so popular that it quickly stops being used at all by every player much like it is now?

No I'm saying that it turns into a place that, if you aren't using it, it spams the actual crap out of your chat so everything you are focused on gets shoved away. And general chat isn't a constantly used thing so right now it's casual... you can be in it without having to constantly focus on it... But in your suggestion it would really turn into a place where you have to opt-in every single time you want to use it then opt back out afterward unless you want to have all of your chat spammed away. So that means that the only people in general chat at a given time are the ones using it, and pretty much nobody else. So yes I foresee it being even more dead than it is now.

FireFan96 · Jul 4, 2018

Frankly I just use massive discord for general chat. does the same job without the chat cooldown.

CnocBride · Jul 4, 2018

This was previously suggested but reducing the cooldown was rescinded.

Explanation:
https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/shorten-chat-cooldown.66868/#post-845971

Bleeep · Jul 4, 2018

CnocBride said:
This was previously suggested but reducing the cooldown was rescinded.

Explanation:
https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/shorten-chat-cooldown.66868/#post-845971

That's disappointing to read. I believe it should at the very least be tested, but I suppose restrictions on chat are here to stay. I still firmly believe it's detrimental to newer players without connections and overall community cohesiveness, but I rest my case.

Thanks for the debates and opinions.

JepTheLegend · Jul 8, 2018

I don't believe the cooldown ruins the chance of discussion in general chat, in fact I would go so far as to say that it encourages it. If you only have one message every thirty seconds to a minute you will make it count more, if the cooldown was removed all you would see would be people spouting memes at eachother none stop. For an example of this in action check out @Winterless lyrics spam in general

Winterless · Jul 8, 2018

JepThePumpkin said:
I don't believe the cooldown ruins the chance of discussion in general chat, in fact I would go so far as to say that it encourages it. If you only have one message every thirty seconds to a minute you will make it count more, if the cooldown was removed all you would see would be people spouting memes at eachother none stop. For an example of this in action check out @Winterless lyrics spam in general

hey now I abide to the cooldown

mostly

Besides, it gets the players talking mate

Zacatero · Jul 8, 2018

I would also like to mention 30s doesn't seem so long when other people are also talking. If I send a message.. by the time in the convo when I'd speak again it's been 30s already

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