There is a new channel based messaging system in the next update: Guilds and Messaging. See the following post for all the details.
The new system allows:
World chat (as currently).
Universe wide Player-Player chat.
Universe wide Guild chat.
We’re also thinking about added a few universe wide public channels. These would be channels that all players are automatically subscribed to. (You’ll be able to ignore and mute them if you’re not interested.)
We think that a few channels will really help a few actions that currently happen in a fragmented way across all the different community platforms. We’re thinking about:
Shops and Trading - A public channel for all players to promote their shops and ask for trades. You’d still need to visit shops and meet in person to trade. I think this is a good name for the channel.
Looking for Group - We want another channel for players to promote builds, hunts, community events and other collective stuff. Looking for group seems to be common here.
Questions and Help - We want a final channel for players requesting and responding to help.
Anyone have any other better ideas about how these 3 channels should be named? I’ve taken these from the Boundless Discord
The in game messenging system sounds like a great quality of life update. I think the channel names are great. Will you be able to just sort them by color so that you can discern which chat they are from?
As for names of the channels… perhaps putting some Oortian into them would be fun. So instead of looking for group it could be “Seeking Oortians”, or something to that effect.
Why not just a Global chat, let us decide what we use it for. We already use tags
LFG, WTB/WTS etc.
Less is more and the least amount of screens and windows added the better I think.
cuz that would require using the honor system for the most part when it comes to not flooding chat/over taking convos with LFG or trade stuff and thats a trolls dream
If done right, it should not be a problem. Maybe what would be best though is leave global limited to Server/planet. Guild can be universe wide though. Now that I think about this a little moar.
I think I would really only want to use the Global chat for finding out when hunts are starting. But I don’t want tons of chatting being spammed. I don’t want conversations, just a heads up for a hunt start time/location.
A specialised hunting group chat would be awesome!
What I wanted to ask about way earlier but forgot, is there an AFK/Idle thing? So we can see when people haven’t moved in a certain amount of time.
And, how about a Do Not Disturb option we can turn on ourself? Sometimes it can get busy and with all the messages popping on screen and the sounds that that makes (including emotes) can be distracting, especially during forging.
Both would be rather great additions. Especially the DND option!
I think these three channels in-game would be a benefit if moderated correctly. Couple questions:
How are these channels moderated?
Is there a spam timer? Can players report messages? Can mods see message history and act appropriately? Discord is troll-free partly because it’s opt-in and partly because it has good moderation tools.
Will the redundant Discord channels disappear?
For help and LFG channels it’s definitely pointless to view their history. They only contain real-time information. For trade channel I do enjoy reading the past posts to keep an eye on market prices but I don’t like how there would now be three places to post trades (in-game, discord, forum).
Whatever is done may I make a suggestion. Linking tools or items info in chat. Like a forge hammer or rocks showing exactly what it is. That would be epic.
I would definitely be grateful if there were something like Rumply just mention about linking items in chat.
Since shops aren’t necessarily accessible directly from a portal, the ability to link coordinates of a shop that we could click to add to our compass would be helpful as well. That way when we get to a planet, we know where to go.
Edit: I was a little off-topic, so here’s something on-topic.
Will there be anything to prevent players from spamming these chats, especially LFG and Trading?
I’ve played other games where you’re only allowed 1 message per minute to prevent spam, and the message must be different after 3 posts, even if only by a single character. This prevents spam from people just typing, for example, “.” like 10 times a second.
I wouldn’t be against a timed spam filter but 1 minute seems way too long. 5 seconds should be fine, especially if you can just close the LFG tab or open a different one. (tab = channel)
So if a chat tab is not active then you will not see any notifications for it unless someone @'s you in it. then it would be cool if there was a light or dot indicator in a corner somewhere letting you know theres a message specifically for you in one of the other channels. open up chat window and you can see all the tabs with the one containing your message being highlighted.
we dont want bots spamming stuff about shops