The General chat channel should be split into separate GeneralEQ and GeneralOOC channels

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Bernel, Nov 14, 2021.

  1. Bernel Augur

    I'm coming back to EQ after about a decade. A lot is new and I'm trying to get caught up. The General chat channel has been useful to get a feel of what's going on in the game and to ask questions, but quantity of non-game related chat in General can be frustrating. The political discussions are especially problematic. No political discussion in the history of mankind has ever been enjoyable, and the ones in EQ chat are no different. I'm sure that many people would prefer to mute all that stuff, but it's not really feasible without putting lots of people on ignore or leaving the General channel completely. But leaving the channel means not being able to keep up with the game-related discussions, so that's not really a great solution.

    What I think would help is if there were two channels for general chat: GeneralEQ and GeneralOOC. GeneralEQ would be for questions specifically relating to EQ gameplay while GeneralOOC would be about everything else, such as politics, sports, life, the universe, etc. People who only wanted the EQ related chat could leave the OOC channel and just have the EQ-related discussions left.
    Sprooce likes this.
  2. Vumad Cape Wearer


    I think you have a reasonable suggestion but it would be up to the community to police it, and that probably wouldn't go well. Problem is that most people would just move the the generalEQ channel because they need attention and are not getting it in the less populated OOC channel, especially since a lot of times they seem to be just dumping in there to trigger people and get ruckus going for their entertainment. I'm not against the idea at all, and if implemented, I would very gladly stay in GenEQ and leave GenOOC.
    CatsPaws likes this.
  3. KermittheFroglok Augur

    I'm not really sure understand the need. There's already a "NewPlayers" chat channel you can ask gameplay questions in? What gameplay question would you ask in chat that wouldn't already be answerable on the forum's class threads or in the NewPlayers channel?

    I don't think I understand your comment or concern on non-gameplay related chat in the general channel either. That's how EQ works, its a social game, people socialize and mingle? I feel like anything serious gameplay related usually takes place via tells, party chat, or guild chat, at least when its not on another platform like Discord?
    Barton likes this.
  4. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    A lot depends on your server, time of day and population. I can't remember the last time our general chat had a political discussion but it has lots of other talk. But everyone holds off those conversations and chips in when someone asks a question.

    Newplayer chat is a good idea except for the fact that it is the default channel for free accounts (the only one they can join) and in order for Silver or Paid accounts to use it then they have to actually join it. Most do not. But a few old timers like to help and will join newplayerchat.

    Our class channels are pretty quiet. Many of us do not use discord either.

    Overall I don't see the feasibility of separate channels since the content seems to be very server specific. And a lot of folks already have numerous channels going, friends, guild, whatever. Do we really need another window?

    The game automatically spins up a second General chat if the first one hits 400 (+/-) population. So not sure how that would affect a second general type chat.

    And one of the big issues would be that chat usually breaks about every 6 months. Its gotten better though.
  5. Barton The Mischievous


    As others have mentioned most use the Newplayers channel for this I join it just to help out when I can with questions, but any channel that was made would have the same problem there is no way to make people not talk politics, religion, other dumb stuff, etc in a certain channel.
  6. Dharken Elder

    The general channel is made for General use.
    You have an ignore feature.. If you dont like political discussion, put the ones who engage in it on ignore. This can go for any topic, and its usually the same players engaging in it.

    Splitting down the chat channels for General, General OOC, General Auctions, General BobsGarage...Is going to do nothing. People needing GeneralClassAssistance will go to that channel, ask a question and then need to go back to General to ask it again.

    It is easier to have one generalized channel for people of all walks to just say "Hey, How does this work/Where Do I go/<Insert ability question>/whatever."
    Many of the people on my server are Super willing to help, but we are not going to join sub channels and have more headache to help others.

    A Prime example is people posting in general "I have bard questions, someone send me a tell so I can ask them."
    ---No, we wont do that. But many of us will tell them "Ask the questions in general, you are more likely to get a response!" And they usually do. If we told them to go to the bard channel as a bard and ask... I bet they get crickets.
    CatsPaws likes this.
  7. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    This is so very true. Most of us have alts that are not in those class specific channels atm. But we can answer any class question in general.
  8. Nolrog Augur

    Splitting the chats does nothing to fix the problem. People will just move to GeneralEQ and chat there. Find someone that likes to answer questions and send then a /tell asking if you could shoot them a message next time you have a question. Most people would be happy to answer something.
  9. Tucoh Augur

    One channel would be used the same as general, the other would be dead.

    Best to ask questions and get help in the forums anyway, where there is more uhh, permanence to the answers and more people who can help.
    Nolrog likes this.
  10. Velisaris_MS Augur

    Just give me a way to turn off/ignore all cross-server messages in General (and overall) and I'll be happy.
  11. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Back when there were a lot of them you could type out /ignore charactername.tunare

    But have not had to do that in a long time.

    Although the latest update in official help says:

    /ignore <player name> in the in-game chat window. Doing so will block all chat text coming from the specified character including server-wide or cross-server messages.
  12. Velisaris_MS Augur

    Yeah, but having to indidually ignore EVERY cross-server spammer from EVERY server is a pain in the backside, especially when they use multiple toons to spam. It would be much easier if there was a checkbox to turn off ALL messages/tells from other servers.