From the advertising server hopping thread came this suggestion: How about a new chat channel, specifically for trading and advertising? Many servers/games do this, so people who don't want to be spammed with buy/sell/trade/advertising messages can simply turn it off, and enjoy general chat. And it seems to work well. The downside of this is a lot of manual moderating by staff. As you'd most likely ask people to use the Trade channel instead of Town chat. Lots of people want to hear advertising. they want to know what people are selling, and want to sell their goods. This is a one-stop place for all of that where it won't annoy other people who don't want to hear it. This will become particularly useful the more people you have on the server. To minimise chat spam for people who don't want it.
Everyone hears it, or town only? Also, how would you keep it from becoming the same as town chat if it has some extent of globality?
..this would go perfectly with the /ignore <channel> so you can for example ignore the trade channel if you don't want to hear the business stuff!
Words like Buying, Selling, Shop, etc. will be blocked from the Town chat and the sender gets a message saying to talk about that in trade chat?
Will this be across server? So when someone goes into that channel it will go all across the SMP's? It's pretty hard to get a message out if no ones even listening, no offence but I hope EMC don't do this...
What if people want to ask "where is the best shop on this server that I can buy stuff and sell it?" I use buy and sell a lot asking about shops.
How do you mean? The Trade channel would have the same spam rules at town chat. It would probably be same coverage as Town chat also (as in, only those in town can hear it). Once we have revamped chat system, can probably get more global chat, and Trade will go global. Advertisers on Town chat would be asked to use Trade chat. That's where the 'moderation' comes in. It would be an increase in work to moderate this channel unfortunately. You could do a certain amount of it automatically, but filters wouldn't really work. IE. If someone used the word 'sell' in chat, it pops up a message "Please use Trade chat to buy/sell/trade/advertise. Thank you". But not 'block' the message. The less 'restrictions' the better. ATM, Server not setup for cross server chat. I think I remember something mentioned about Aikar working on new chat code. (but many more things to do before that, like DT). And I do hope we get fully global chat.. just not sure how it'll work and yes, it'l be super spammy, and require constant chat moderation.
If that was possible, that'd be cool. But again, that is a restriction. And people never like restrictions And I don't think we can do that with chat yet?
I'm fairly positive the way it works is that it makes sure the message doesn't hit any filters, and if it does it sends it to the channel you have "attached" to your name (town, supporter, etc). It'd be possible most likely to just add code before the sending that checks for the keywords to send it to the trade channel instead of the one attached to you.
There will be some situations where the filter sends a message to the wrong channel. Or in other words, the filter incorrectly sends the message to a channel other than you intended. And I personally would find that very frustrating, and an invasion of my freedom to play as I want. To have some automatic filter incorrectly affecting how I play the game annoys me. Hence why I'd suggest instead of forcing the message to another channel, or 'blocking' it with a filter. Rather have a colored message sent to the player to "Please use Trade chat....". To educate the player on future usage of buy/sell/trade/advertising messages. That way, any incorrectly filtered message will still go where it's meant to, and the player can ignore the 'helpful' tip. Other than that, it's a great idea. If only there was a way to auto-filter accurately 100% of the time. EDIT: An example of where filtered words may be used in the Town chat, and should not be filtered to Trade chat, would be when people are discussing something to do with shops, or a building, or real world topics. Such as: "I just went to McDonalds to buy their cheeseburger deal. And there was a huge for sale or trade sign out the front. And thought, what would you trade for that? maybe I could offer them 1,000,000 rupees, plus a DC or Diamonds?"
I would put a positive input but I cannot. I fear that if this happens, it will end up like the forums: people typing stuff in the wrong places causing players like me to tell them to move it to the right channel.
I don't agree with this suggestion. It seems like a lot of extra work for nothing. Advertisement is just fine in main chat, long as people don't spam. And if there is a trade channel, and it won't be allowed in the main channel, I think it's kind of unfair to the people advertising. Not to mention, if people start ignoring them, it's kinda a disadvantage to both sides. In short, I think the chat is fine how it is, and a trade channel is unnecessary.
