Party and Guild Chat System Poll

[Ronk]

I'd be more than happy to see guildchat being removed. It makes it to easy for guilds to organize ingame. I definately think some organisation out of the game is needed for a good guild (read: irc, icq, msn or whatever).

However, as i said before. There should definately be some way to talk to people ingame without everyone on screen seing it. Such as the partychat.
I dont care about healthbars showing mana, or the fact that they dont dissapear of my ally is offscreening.

All i want is a way to say /load xxx and /drop xxx ingame, without using ventrilo/teamspeak.

Removing that option for us, is equal to forcing us to use ventrilo/teamspek, which would be stupid.

Era-accurate or not. 20 ping for the average guy isnt era-accurate either. So we'd have to add some lag aswell then. In this case i definately think we should consider how the third party programs (read: ventrilo) has changed since OSI T2A, and make the decision after that.

I agree with you. The best solution seems to be to just leave it in and treat is like a third party program. Alternatively, I guess someone could spend their time to make an actual chat third party program, but that seems like a big waste of time and effort.

[Mephistopheles]

[Edit] I understand the removal of the in-game chat systems would be a great inconvenience for some and there are those who just prefer not to use voice chat or the era-accurate communication crystals. Here's a good idea that's been put forth thus far though:

I use to run UO in window mode with IRC taking up the bottom portion of the screen. This was effectively a 'guild chat'.

I know that Razor isn't era accurate but unfortunately that is something we have to put up with because without it we wouldn't be able to play UOSA.

To the staff and the coders: Keep up the great work.

[venox]

Even though the admin has spoken...my 2 cents...

Is party and guild chat era accurate? No. Thats been proven and its a fact.

On that note, I am surprised that it can be removed. I was under the impression the whole chat thing was part of the client but i guess after considering it a little deeper the client must send the data to the server to doll out to others.

I know that prior to the guild chat, the Bloodrock always used MIRC. I use to run UO in window mode with IRC taking up the bottom portion of the screen. This was effectively a 'guild chat'. I do remember the party chat but can't remember if that was T2A or UO:R era.

In my opinion, from a strictly accuracy point of view the guild chat should be removed. It was not era accurate and the lack of it forced the usage of things like ICQ and MIRC.

On that note, I agree fully that voice chat was not popular during T2A and its existence here, in essence, means you'll never have a true T2A experience. Voicechat was in its infancy at that time, plus the speed of the net, made it unusable for most.

And on the topic of not era accurate. Razor is not era accurate either. Nor are our modern clients. So should not the players on this shard be limited to a true T2A client and the use of razor be banned? That would push things more toward true accuracy.

So, lets consider razor for a moment. Razor allows our clients to do many things that were not possible during the T2A era. Its likey that if guild chat and party chat did not exist, that razor would allow us to do these features in which case no one would complain for them to be removed. Razor already mimics UOAM's mapping feature that shows party members on the map.

So in essence, the guild chat/party chat/party system is something that would have been handled by razor had it not be implemented into the client. And removing these from the server would not satisfy anything other than forcing people who play here to download and run more third party software.

Further, given the shards lower population (which is not T2A accurate), I would find it a little silly to further hamper the ability to guilds to find each other and for players to 'group up'.

tldr;
Implement the removal of the guild/party chat only after other key T2A accuracy changes are fixed including the disabling of most non-t2a accurate razor features.

this has been my whole point all alone.
guild/party is just as alian as any other external chat program to t2a but you cant prevent them from been used, and i seriously doubt those that oppose this dont use them.
imo might as well keep it consolidated.

[Wernham Hogg]

[Edit] I understand the removal of the in-game chat systems would be a great inconvenience for some and there are those who just prefer not to use voice chat or the era-accurate communication crystals. Here's a good idea that's been put forth thus far though:

I use to run UO in window mode with IRC taking up the bottom portion of the screen. This was effectively a 'guild chat'.

I know that Razor isn't era accurate but unfortunately that is something we have to put up with because without it we wouldn't be able to play UOSA.

To the staff and the coders: Keep up the great work.

Im not sure if i miss something here, but was that an idea for "us" to use irc to call on?

If so, are we supposed to tab over to IRC, write "Load XXX", then tab back into game? And repeat when its time to drop?

It WOULD be able to play UOSA without razor aswell as it would be able to play UO without Partychat. However, it would suck. Just as it would to force us call through ventrilo. That, if ANYTHING, is NOT era-accurate. Calling load/drop ingame however, IS era-accurate.
So lets not remove that option, thanks.

[Mephistopheles]

I'm really looking forward to using communication crystals. I never used this item back in the day and anticipate the eventual fix!

[alcon]

But what is your point? Even if removing party/guild chat is accurate, if it isn't here, that will just make it easier for every guild who uses a voice chat to kill you. I mean if you like era accuracy that much, more power to you, but you are just going to get killed. =/

[RoadKill]

Not to bump a dead thread but..

bumpbump!

[Faust]

Still waiting for this to get removed.

Way too many available exploits used in scripts because of them.

[marvin]

UO Automap actually can send private messages in game using --[message], it sends to everyone connected with UOAM link.

I think if guild and party chat are removed people will just use UOAM link to send textual prompts to their drones when using master/slave macros.

Of course there are also tons of other ways people can synchronize drones.

[Faust]

UO Automap messages can't be retrieved as a system message.

We have already confirmed this during a testing process with Razor.

I think it may have been Blackfoot but can't be certain who it exactly was that tested it.

[MatronDeWinter]

UO Automap messages can't be retrieved as a system message.

We have already confirmed this during a testing process with Razor.

I think it may have been Blackfoot but can't be certain who it exactly was that tested it.

It seems to me, that since the issue here is scripting via the system messages, and UO automap presents an advantage (in-game chat) even though it cannot be used to script via razor. A simple solution would be to just change the guild-chat, so that it is not a system message.

[Faust]

Why fix something that didn't exist?

[MatronDeWinter]

Why fix something that didn't exist?

I dont remember UOAM having a chat feature during the era. If that is the case, then it seems the only fair option, is to allow non-scriptable chat to all, or forbid UOAM.

Actually UOAM chat was added in 2000.

http://uoam.net/rants.html#chat

So obviously, if in-game chat is removed, UOAM should be forbidden, it is not era-accurate.

[Faust]

A 3rd party utility isn't the same thing... Razor isn't era accurate but it's allowed. UOAM would ultimately have to fall under the same category. However, guild and party chat are two in game features that are coded in the scripts for the game mechanics.

[MatronDeWinter]

A 3rd party utility isn't the same thing... Razor isn't era accurate but it's allowed. UOAM would ultimately have to fall under the same category. However, guild and party chat are two in game features that are coded in the scripts for the game mechanics.

Suppose the only distro available for UOAM is UOAM 5.0. Assume the end of our target era was at UOAM 3.0. Sometime during UOAM 4.0 they introduced a feature to automatically sync spells/targets via a client hotkey. Would you think that it is accurate to use UOAM 5.0 on the grounds that UOAM 3.0 was available/legal in the era we emulate?

I never see 2010 mustangs driving around in 1950's movies, but there certainly were fords in existence at that time.

Some of us, (myself included) cannot run UOAM, or do not want to run it to stay competitive. Removing the scriptability of the guild-chat is a rational compromise.