Regarding ESO's in game chat. [i don't know if this has been brought up before]

Requiemslove · March 2016

Does Zenimax have any intention of altering the in game chat function? As it works now, you have guild chat, and zone chat in 3 different languages as well as simply zone chat. Guild chat is no use if you are in no guild, and zone chat is next to useless, because obviously there are some zones where there is a higher player density, and there are some where hardly anyone is. That and it seems like the zone chat is never used. I mentioned this in a thread earlier yet it seemed to vanish, so I will say it again. I have played ESO for 8 hours at a time and seen 4 comments in the zone chat, in all that time. I am aware of course when I see other players they are hard to miss, yet this does not stop the despair of it seeming like the game lacks a social element certain other MMOs I know and love have.

I feel like Zenimax made a mistake when they designed that feature of the game. A more rational option to my mind would be something along the lines of faction chat. A much larger version of zone chat that spreads to all corners of each of the 3 factions, and you get chat for the faction you belong to, or the faction you are playing in if you are doing Caldwells. Another option, and personally one I feel would be in the long run better, is to just allow there to be a full server chat. One for the EU server and one for the US one. This will benefit ESO in its feeling of community for people who choose for whatever reason to not join guilds at this time.

I also want to clarify this before I press send. This is NOT a critic on ESOs overall community. It's a critic on the limited chat function on the PC version of the game. I am well aware people are likely to be using outside apps such as TS, and also aware that most of chat probably goes on there or in guild chat...i just feel the in game chat that is not guild or set up via an outside source, is a weakness Zenimax should address.

LiquidSchwartz · March 2016

a zone chat would be nice

Elsonso · March 2016

Faction chat would be insane. Imagine thousands of people in there.

The reason that zone chat might be unused is the amount of noise. I rarely look at zone, and have my client configuration set to hide it. A Faction chat would suffer the same fate, I fear.

Eiagra · March 2016

While the addition of an Alliance-wide chat channel would be interesting and maybe even helpful, I feel as though it would quickly become flooded with banter, as zone chat in more populated areas sometimes do, only to a worse degree. I have separate chat tabs, only one of which includes Zone chat, and I often tab away from Zone chat because it's distracting me.

As well, if Alliance Chat becomes the default channel, certain new player questions that are specific to a zone might lose their context, and they may find themselves being quietly ignored by the general hubbub. Less of an issue if Zone remains the default chat channel, but still something to bear in mind. They may also not see an answer if Alliance chat is flooding out Zone chat.

I do like the idea, I'm just not certain how well it would go in practice.

Turelus · March 2016

This is an issue with all games at later dates though. It's not really the chat feature at fault but simply that out leveling a zone then gives you no reasons to ever go back there, thus it's a wasteland.

Having a chat across all five (six or seven with starter areas) zones might help a little but you're mostly just going to see the LFG spam from the faction capital zones with anything from the other zones drowned out.

What they could do is try adding ZOS made channels which are global and set up specifically for say; Questing, Dungeons, PvP, etc. where players looking for or interested in that content can have a server wide communication for chatting with their faction.

Requiemslove · March 2016

Turelus wrote: »

This is an issue with all games at later dates though. It's not really the chat feature at fault but simply that out leveling a zone then gives you no reasons to ever go back there, thus it's a wasteland.

Having a chat across all five (six or seven with starter areas) zones might help a little but you're mostly just going to see the LFG spam from the faction capital zones with anything from the other zones drowned out.

What they could do is try adding ZOS made channels which are global and set up specifically for say; Questing, Dungeons, PvP, etc. where players looking for or interested in that content can have a server wide communication for chatting with their faction.

Exactly, and people can customize to their own contentment for what best suits them. All would be global and in the long run it will create a better and more vibrant ESO community. As far as banter goes, there is nothing at all wrong with banter, even when your busy fighting things or whatever or questing if anything, it would add to that.

dRudE · March 2016

What about player made chats? I know we have guilds, but like the OP pointed out some people don't join guilds but would benefit from having player made help channels, I know I'd be happy to use that channel to help new players find their feet and with it being player made, it would require invites to the channel so it wouldn't get flooded with vet LFG spam.

Calippe_Hac · March 2016

One mmo I used to play had a help channel (chat) that was universal and moderated at times as well as faction type chats and player created chat channels.
The help chat was wonderful as we tended to have an expansive definition of "help" with which the moderators did not often agree (we did defer to them out of a sense of loyalty tho) BUT when there was a patch that didn't work..... even the DEVS (those gods of all) would deign to "pacify" the "rumblings of the rabble" which were disturbing their functionality.
It was easier than logging out and posting on the forums and it was nice to know they "cared"

Ahhhhh..... (where is that huggy emoji anyway?)

LostScot · March 2016

Often people divide their chat channels into tabs but since the game offers no visual notification of new messages in a tab unless you hover the mouse over the chat window players don't know to stop and check other tabs for new messages. This means once someone sorts their chat into tabs and settles on a tab for say guild chat, we tend to become oblivious to all other chat. Making the chat window appear and flash when there's a new message on a non-active chat tab doesn't sound like much but it will yield a worthwhile boost to in-game communication.

As for the multiple zone channels, well since we choose our country on the character selection screen first time the game is run, maybe we could get a little dialogue after that to allow us to manually choose other zone channels in addition to the primary zone channel associated with our choice of country.