Add local chat command: /L, behaves like clanchat

[Mumberthrax]

A lot of times I am passing by in the wilderness, want to say hi to someone but don't know how to spell their name, or am juggling a few other PMs, so i find myself just saying "hello" in global to whomever and having a little conversation because it is easier - this may annoy other people who are not nearby if global chat is busy - which is common.

 

Or maybe I am helping a new player, and they don't understand PMs. telling them to just prepend /L before their messages to talk only to people nearby trying to help might be convenient.

 

Or maybe I am passing through a town and want to ask anyone who lives there a question about their town, rather than ask "is anyone from ___ online?" in global, or join their town's clanchat - if they have one and if I can figure out what its called, and then later leave the channel - I can just use /L to local chat.

 

This wouldn't be a replacement for global chat. It would behave like a clanchat channel does. When you use it, it shows your messages to anyone within a specified radius - maybe something like 50 meters, or maybe more or less.

 

I do not know what plugins exist which have this feature. I would be willing to bet there are several commonly used ones. I imagine if the techadmins want to they could probably even modify clanchat or make some new thing with CH to achieve the same results. But it might be easiest to just look around first. Sorry I haven't done the legwork.

 

I know in the past, back before clanchat was even a thing, both local and clan chat ideas were brought up and the head admins at the time shot it down because it would detract from the sense of community felt by everyone participating in global chat. I do not think this fear has manifested in reality since the introduction of clanchat. I think local chat should be adopted on a trial run for at least one full revision.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Mumberthrax

[Mumberthrax]

actually this is probably not a good idea. maybe at the beginning of the revision when there are tons of people online... but around now it can get pretty quiet for extended periods... so this may not be a good thing to add after all...