For Normal talking, I cant see I would ever use it, might turn it off as it would be too busy and hard to follow when there are players all talking that are not on your server... However, I can see it used as a Econ Channel instead of server jumping, or even as a support channel... For example, if player A needs help and is on smp3 but everyone there is either out of town or afk, then they can ask in that channel and maybe find a player B to help from another server without switching servers... Those are the only cases I could see this working... As for the supporter part, have it open for everyone, but Supporters are able to to use it out of town (All Supporters).
I don't really support the "global chat" thing. Depending on implementation. Having all smps talking at the same time just sounds more chaotic than proactive. Like others said as well, each smp has its own personality... and we can escape the annoying smps lol. If it does happen as a blanket global chat without being a "help channel" or an ACTUAL "economy channel" (economy channel should be for advertising and we can't advertise in economy chat but once like every 3 hours or something ridiculously insane) I will probably just keep it off most times as it would interfere with the chat that I do have in game, with the people that I do want to talk to, that ARE in my group lol.
After flying over the suggestions I landed on this one that I support. My question is which letter we would use to represent this channel? S already used for supporter B is used for broadcast T is used for town R is used for residence L is used for local M is used for Moderation G is used for Group I would say maybe use "C" to stand for "Cross-Server". I also saw that people are concerned with the individual smps loosing their personalities. I think in order to prevent each smp from loosing their personalities, maybe when someone types in this channel, in "[ ]" it would tell you which smp the message came from. For instance if I type "herro" in this channel, it may appear something like this: C rburke5786 [SMP5]: herro I've also seen that this channel be able to be toggled on/off. This I think would be done the same way all the other channels are : "/chat hide c" "/chat show c" As for advertising in this channel I think it may encourage advertising as people would no longer have to jump from server to server. I would be in favor of initiating a zero tolerance policy for this channel for zero ads. As soon as someone advertises in this channel, instant mute/ban. I think (as suggested before), we may be able to create a separate advertising global channel. I would say use letter "A" for this channel for Advertising. Krysyy says that the policy is 3 hours between any ads (don't know if that timer varies). So in this channel when someone uses it, that someone will have a 3 hour timer put on them before they can use it again. Of course this channel could also be toggled on/off with commands: /chat hide a /chat show a
I like the idea although I think it would be better to have it on a server level rather than global so I can to see what server chat is originating on(S1, S2, S3, E1, E2, E3, ... ) and to allow me to filter out the ones I want to or don't want to see. If I have a friend on one server I could add it. If something is being discussed that I am not interested in I could remove that server from my chat. Global chat would help with new players. I've seen and heard about many new players who log in and no one is around or no one answers when they ask questions or were hoping for a "warm welcome". If you wanted to go help a player in person you would know where to find them also. The same with Reporting: More eyes on the chat. I think advertising would be better. Currently people pop onto a server, advertising, then exit creating three messages. With this, they could stay on their server and their message would be pushed into the E channel of all the other servers rather than connect/message/disconnect like we have now. I am not sure how Staff do their server announcements, but this might simplify things for them also similarly to advertisements.
This also raises a few good points. The staff have already come up with a system that would aid in making it possible to only show or hide certain smp's globally with the server settings menu. I also agree that it would be a great help to new players as even on smp5(yes i am biased) there are times where there are very few people on to help. This could also be a first step in implementing a global advertising channel, one that would of course have restrictions on the frequency of messages.
When do you need cross-server chat? - announce, advertise or ask for something globally - talk to distinct people when you know they are logged in on a different SMP. For example keep participating in a discussion after switching servers. It is sometimes not convenient to switch servers just to talk, for example when you're on an 10 minutes rail ride through the Nether. Cross-Server PM would be useful - and what Pab10S said - to be able to switch to a channel on a different server. - when there are so few active users that one global chat would be enough (?) - anything else?
