I actually wanted to see anything that you have to say about accessibility because i have not had much experience with it. This is why I suggested moving to another thread. =)
There is just something special about it. Like doctor who. You cannot really explain why it is special or different or better from every other show, it just is.
But in this case, perhaps your conversation could have been enhanced by a free member. The last few days when Supporter Chat was broken, I noticed that the community was a lot more talkative with each other because you had no alternative. It was really quite rewarding of an experience.
I have nothing against free members or noobs, but i still like supporter chat. Not necessaeily for the reasons i was moaning about earlier. If it is not too hard have both. If it would cause a lot of problems i will shut up, but why not have both?
Because we have numerous complaints that chat isn't as "socialable" as much anymore. We commonly see Supporter Chat pictured JUST as it was above... There was no reason that chat couldn't of been had in town. What if Town chat was dead at that moment? Then to all the free members in Town, it looks like EMC sucks cause noones chatting. Group chat hurt the social aspect of EMC quite a lot, so having people chatting in so many other places OUTSIDE of town chat makes town look like nothing but newbie questions and spam. We need to bring the chit chat back. Removing Group Chat is not an option, as it has a strong purpose, but Supporter chats primary perk has been that its global, so we can keep that perk, and unite the community more.
Also don't forget if you REALLY want a "Secluded" chat, you can just /invite all of the supporters to a group...
I feel like that would be such a chore for those who want a chat like supporter chat :/ According to the vote right now, 1/4 of the people don't like this idea. That is a pretty big number of people that would be upset. I still don't understand why supporters can't have a chat to themselves, it never hurt anyone. A lot of people still like and use Supporter Chat like myself, and would like to still be able to use something like it. If someone is mad that noone talks in a channel, couldn't they blame themselves? I bet most people that complain that don't talk in the channel themselves. Not trying to hate on anyone here, but if you don't like Supporter Chat, you don't have to use it. At the same time, why ruin it for others that actually use it, and like using it? Now don't get me wrong, I like Town Chat. But their are times when I want to get away from it. I go to the wild to be in peace, if supporter chat was like the current town chat I wouldn't even support, just because of that. That would just bother me. It (IMO) is better when less people talk in it. I don't think it is fair to Supporters that actually use Supporter Chat for that chat to just be taken away, and not replaced by atlease a Donator chat, or anything like that. Yeah, we'll get Town Chat all the time, but what will that mean. That will mean I'll have to say "Please dont use caps" so much more than I already do. Yeah that will hopefully clean the server chat up, but tbh, noone wants to say "Stop capsing" that many times. All I will do, is ignore town chat. Simple as that. #endofrant
This saddens me. The community is meant to interact. I personally hope that there is never a down time in chat. I learn things and get to speak about things with my friends, the players of EMC. Yes there may be some reminder to people about caps or other chat rules, but shouldn't the stonger sense of community be worth at least that. I know that everyone enjoys their peace and quiet at one time or another and i can respect that, but these last few days without Supporter chat have really shown me the effect that this small change would have for the better of the community. Group chat is sufficient enough for private conversations if you absolutely must, but my hope is that all of emc learn to interact more and be a overall more accepting community.
Krsysyy, sometimes people want to be introverted. It is perfectly normal. Sometimes people get overwhelmed by too much interaction, and that is what is great about supporter and group chat. I like supporter chat as a secondary option if i do not know who to invite. It can be overwhelming chatting with a large group of people, and even with group chat and toggle-able abilities, I still wish it would exist. Aikar made a compelling argument, but I think that the chat is still okay.
Sorry, I think I worded that wrong >.< I like Supporter Chat, but if it were as active as Town Chat, I would not like it. I like it because it isn't as active as Town Chat. And I have never had to say "Please don't use caps". I don't understand how this is better for the community. Noone gains anything by Supporter Chat being gone.
Group chat is the better alternative if you want peace and quiet and want to be introverted. I can understand the want for solitude. My statements are based on research conducted on the server. Yes, there are some good moments in supporter chat. However, the same thing could be said about town chat. Frankly, supporter chat fragments the community and really isn't that valuable of a resource except that it is able to be used in the wild (which group chat can cover). We want the community to interact more. We are adding the feature to be toggle-able so you are no longer forced to listen to everyone. So for the introverts out there, you have a way to listen to only those that you want to listen to. Regarding a lot of the opposing votes, many people changed their mind once they realized that there would be the option to turn it off, so keep that in mind. I'd like for you to try an experiment for me. Go a few days without supporter chat. See how the community bonds more....Actually, nvm. We just (accidentally) did that and the results proved my point. Supporter chat is easily replaced by group chat and allows a non-prejudiced interaction between members of the community. Keep in mind that not all free players are new players. Many of them have either been a supporter before or are veteran members that built their reputation without a colored name. Don't they deserve to be integrated into the community, share in the jokes and laughter, and participate in the fun and random conversations that sometimes occur? We are not suggesting this solely for the new players to have a more rewarding experience upon log-in, but for the entire community to connect more and maybe learn something about being a community again, name colors aside...
What you mean is, group chat is a better alternative, in order to achieve how you want people to interact. What you mean is, you don't think it's valuable. People who aren't in the mood to "listen" to Town Chat are not "fragmenting the community." They think it's valuable, as many have commented in this thread. What happened to 'play your way'? This seems ridiculous to me. Maybe we should get rid of the Frontier, or limit how far out you can travel because players who go far out into the wild aren't communicating enough with everyone else who's in town. Or maybe on Mumble there should only be one room, instead of multiple ones, so people can't splinter into groups. There are going to be times when there isn't someone for you to talk to. If players are complaining about this, they need to learn that in real life you don't get exactly what you want all the time. I'm all for helping out new players when I'm in the right mood to, but let's be realistic. It takes a lot of patience sometimes and there are days when I'm just not in the mood to deal with it. I come home from work and want to unwind with some play. If certain people want to be anti-social part (or all) of the time, or if they don't feel like listening to or interacting with new or immature players, in order to converse intelligently with more mature players, they shouldn't be forced to. And explain how forcing the people who want peace and quiet, or rather... some quiet, intelligent conversation without annoying blabber, without the annoyance of having to invite a number of people into a Group is going to make those players happier and improve the sense of community. It is just going to irritate those players and they are going to be doing the exact same thing, just via a different method. "Easily" for whom? The thing that people seem to like about Supporter Chat is that it filters out the conversation from players who are the worst offenders, because those players are typically not Supporters. Making players form a group to chat, instead of a channel, seems to be viewed more as an annoyance than "easy." I would agree. So, I propose that "supporter" chat be replaced by "veteran" chat, where you have to be X days old on EMC before you can join. Maybe there are a certain number of supporters who aren't in the category that I spoke of above, but would just join the Supporters Chat out of default. But I really don't believe that eliminating Supporter chat, and not replacing it with something that provides the same kind of benefit, will have a large impact in increasing how much the majority of supporters interact with non-supporters overall. Despite how I feel at times about wanting to ignore the majority of Town Chat and engage in meaningful, peaceful conversation; even if I had access to Supporter Chat I wouldn't ignore Town Chat all the time, and I don't think supporters do either.
So you agree with some, but not all of my points. You agree that Supporter chat fragments the community on the grounds of splitting it from the non-supporter veteran members. So your only argument remaining is that you do not want to listen to new players. Maybe you should reread one of Aikar's posts. And then one of mine: The majority of players agree that we should remove supporter chat. It is not just staff that sees the difference that this small change could have. Therefore, no this is not just me asking the community to rethink their opinion of how chat works, but rather it is the community asking its own members to do something to mold the future of the Empire for the better.
Gonna say a few points here. The relevance to this specifically might not be completely there, but I feel they're important points, and this is a good enough point to address this. If you want non-biased votes that are from people's opinions entirely, then staff shouldn't be siding with a certain option. A thread saying "here's a topic that people in general feel is important, here is how we'd fix it, what do you think?" is so so so much better than a thread saying "we think this about X, we would fix it by this, what do you think?". Also, defending a side of a poll (which is completely happening here: anyone saying that they DON'T want it changing is being told that they're effectively wrong, with justification on why they're "wrong") shouldn't be happening on community votes. For example: Yes, you might have noticed this. Others might not have. This is a poll (or at least, should be) about personal preference. Say that I noticed that the community was talkative but in a negative way, with insults being flung around (which I didn't, it's an example), I might not want to say that when the people who are in charge are saying that they disagree. This should have been included in the OP. If something is potentially being changed because of community feedback, then it should be clear that it's because of community feedback from the start. Community feedback is the most important thing. You may feel that you're collecting it, and that it's unbiased, but that's not true. I personally don't get swayed by what the staff are saying about a topic, and keep my personal opinion, but I can guarantee that doesn't apply to all players, especially many younger ones. This was presented completely as "we want to change this as we think X, if you don't like it, you're gonna have to defend yourself". Something that I saw on a MMORPG a long time ago (no, I can't remember which one - might have been Runescape) was that if genuine feedback was wanted about something, then it'd be posted in a thread where you could only see the OP and your own posts, but staff could see all posts. The poll also had it's results hidden from everyone except staff. Staff didn't reply to any posts in this initial discussion phase - opinions were simply being collected. If collection of thoughts could start on something as simple as this, where people are saying THEIR OWN thoughts, without influence, then I'd be happy. It also means the later discussions where everyone can see each other's posts are a hell of a lot more likely to be honest. Also, that poll REALLY shouldn't have the ability to view who voted for what on it. This was posted stupidly quickly and probably doesn't flow too great, but hopefully the general ideas are there.
I agree with this. I also think their should be a Supporter Only vote on the Supporter Forums, since this would Only be effecting Supporters. Regular players would not be effected by this, and therefore should not effect the vote.
We never said we were presenting the idea with a non-biased approach. We thought of the idea and wanted to see what the rest of the community thought before making the change. There is no way to bring an idea to the community without it seeming like the staff supports it anyway. We have received a LOT of complaints from members of the community that are saying the 'community' of emc is not what it used to be. We are asking for feedback on something because we wanted to make sure that it wasn't just us and some players seeing that this would be a great thing. We are not telling people that they are wrong. We are showing people that their arguments are not as solid as they think and maybe try to get them to understand why we even thought of this idea in the first place. This is the basis of any good discussion that produces good results.. Being told WHAT is different than being told WHY. I WANT people to defend their votes because I WANT people to show us what we may not be seeing. Nothing said in this thread is held against anyone ever. We can't limit what posts players can and cannot see on the forums. I could have done a google form, but as all other suggestion polls have been completed this way we thought it best to put it here. I will go ahead and hide votes if I can at this point, but blame Aikar for that one. He made the thread =P
Past supporters need to be included as they may support again. And yes, we are going through and reading the names and checking if supporter or veteran supporter, etc.
