IRC - Community spirit

[English lad]

What would people's thoughts be to having an FL IRC - and could we have one hosted as part of the forums - or maybe as part of the website, or would we need to find a free irc hosting service.

I use IRC quite a lot as part of the work i do with Linux in general, and Ubuntu in particular, and I really find it is a great way of building the community, and far more sociable than simply having people on MSN or whatever. The fact is that Instant messengers are already a part of FL, and that is how it should be, if we are going to not only survive, but grow the first thing we need to develop is a community, and an IRC channel is a great way for people in the community to be able to chat and get to know each other outside the constraints of the game. Of course it would need to be moderated to some degree, some of which can be done live, and some of which can be done via logs, but we don't seem to have a problem keeping the forum moderated, so I can't imagine it would be that big a deal.

[Evangelion]

http://forum.theforsakenlands.org/showthread.php?t=14692&highlight=chat+room

http://forum.theforsakenlands.org/showthread.php?t=11135&highlight=chat+room

It's been brought up before, and shot down each time. Yes, instant messengers are a reality of this game. However, should the IMMs simply accept it as an inevitably and facilitate the ultimate OOC chat room? Probably not a good decision.

While it would be cool to be able to chat with you all 24-7, I think the forum is as close as we will (and should) ever get.

[Pali]

Also, there was one way back in 1.0... it led to massive amounts of OOCness. Just not a good idea.

[Lytholm]

Also' date=' there was one way back in 1.0... it led to massive amounts of OOCness. Just not a good idea.[/quote']

This.

However, time do change so if you want to put forward a case as to why it should happen I'm happy to talk about it. Obviously the actual decision has to be run by some of the higher ups than me as well.

However, consider this:

* It has been done and failed before due to pure OOC - eq runs, telling who was logged on, abuse after PKills, sensitive info sharing. Bear in mind this channel was only up for something like 2 days (IIRC - I never was on it) before it all went very, very bad.

* I dont think anyone has the time to sit on it 24/7 and play policeman or policewoman. Moreover, I for one am not interestedin that. I hate it enough when I have to deal with posts on the forum that give out too much info. This leads to a situation where (unfortnately) we end up with players who are likely to abuse this again - which sucks a lot of the enjoyment from the game for others. Remember, rules aren't here to make life hard - they are here to make the game fun for all. If you want Godwars style anarchy I'm sure there are other MUDS to get it on.

I do appreciate the idea and the benefits we (the FL community) could reap. However, its seems like something that could easily do more harm than good.

Lytholm.

[Dizz]

Uhh.... the game is one big chat room.

[Mali]

Lol at dizz.

There used to be one.. I liked it.

[English lad]

I get all the negative possibilities that come from having an IRC or other type of chat room.

My argument would be that having access to a community area like this brings both positives and negatives - negatives as you have listed already. However the reality is, whether you have the community area or not the negatives will STILL exist. People will still use messengers and so forth for all of the things you have listed above. By not having an official, recognised community chat area we don't get rid of the negatives, we just get rid of the positives that could come with it.

[Evangelion]

Acknowledging that the negatives exist and facilitating the negatives are two different things.

I mean, it's a bit of a hyperbolic example, but that's like saying that in America we acknowledge that other countries have nuclear weapons, and so we distribute them freely so that everyone can have them at our expense.

And, frankly, I fail to see what positives can come out of having any type of chat room when we already have a fairly active forum community. If people spent as much time in the game as they do on the forums or would in a chat room, we would actually have a decent-sized playerbase.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I know that it's everyone's desire to have a positive community here because that's what draws and retains player, but I don't think that a positive community is going to be established via a chat room.

[Imoutgoodbye]

*chuckle*

Man, this chat room thing is harder to keep down than Eshaine's cooking.

Anyways, here's the ONLY way I see this thing working.

-You must be logged into the forums to make the connection so it's YOUR forum handle.

-An IMM MUST be present. Chat will never load without an IMM around. IMM leaves, chat shuts down.

-SEVERE punishments for giving out too much information. I'm talking a month long forum ban and if you gave away someone else's character information, etc...it would come with a two week ban on your characters also.

However, I myself am against this idea. There's already waaaayyyyy too much of this OOC nonsense going on. Whoever made the Forsakenlands Facebook page, kudos for a great idea for when the forums are down. However, I shortly unsubscribed after another player announced that a certain hidden/invis combo was on so he couldn't log on...it's that type of BS that just kills kittens.