Mmm, I'm behind you 100% Plight.
- Blue D.
An interesting idea, and one not without merit.
However, I would be cautious of being too overzealous on the "you're not talking about PvP, please leave" issue.
With any group of people there is going to be a certain percentage of inane banter. People chat to each other - it is, afterall, the nature of people - and it's that interaction that fosters communities, lets people get to know each other and can gel a disparate collection of individuals into a group of friends. (And it's fun 
)
Be mindful that a chat channel is not a forum. While it's relatively easy to keep on topic in a forum thread, people's brains don't tend to work that way in real-time - trying to coerce people into staying on topic with threats of lodging petitions may only have the effect of killing off the community you're trying to protect.
Now, I'm only a casual lurker on /arena, so may well be talking out of my hat 
- but I'm an old fart who's been knocking about in online games for donkey's years and while I applaud the idea of keeping the signal to noise ratio on /arena to an acceptable level, I know it's the people and the community who you chat with that makes the game worth playing.
First, just to be 100% clear, I agree that channels should be used for their intended purpose. That said:
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The global chat system has some default channels for servers and teams etc, although one of the biggest general rooms there is called "Global", AFAIK none of the Ops play anymore so if you don't like what goes on there use /gignore or leave, however this is the best and most appropriate channel for general chit chat and Q&A type stuff. If you have membership to 5 global channels already, tough really, leave 1 temporarily and join global with /chanjoin global.
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This is unlikely to work. Simple as that.
"Tough really, leave 1 temporarily" doesn't work for things that people largely use passively - they just keep an eye on it for interesting things happening. You can't join that sort of channel temporarily, because you don't know when you want to be on it or not because you don't know whether anything you'd be interested in is being said or not at any particular time without actually being on it.
The problem then is that some people are never going to join those global channels, because of the five channel limit. So you then have other people who would perhaps use those channels being discouraged from using them instead because there aren't many people on them. But they can all use arena, which brings us to the current situation.
I realise you know this, and your attitude is presumably (and not unreasonably) "tough, it's not my problem". Unfortunately "tough" isn't the most persuasive argument in the world. The result of your campaign is consequently likely to be just arguments, petitioning, etc. I don't think, somehow, that NCSoft want to start handing out bans for someone LFT on the arena channel. So all that's likely to really be achieved is the arguing.
Like I said to start off with, I totally agree Arena should be for Arena. But while Arena is, in practical terms, the best channel for other purposes, it's going to be very hard, if not impossible, for that to happen.
We need either a server channel (like arena or help) called something like 'General', and/or the five channel limit gone. Without one or both of these, I can't see your campaign going very far I'm afraid. That's not to say you shouldn't do it, because 'not very far' is still 'somewhere'. But I really think there needs to be an equally or more practical alternative for it to be effective.
But maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic. Good luck with it anyway.
Yeah, for 2 weeks it was the Jack Channel - and it quite possibly may become the Winter Lord Channel next month 
It's an unofficial server wide channel, and because of that, a lot of people use it for general server wide chat - I've seen more requests for help on it than on the Help Channel, for example.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Arena channel is the channel with the best server-wide coverage (apart for help, which REALLY should be kept for it's only purpose), and personally, I will continue using it as a server wide announcement channel if I need to, as well as reply to people who ask questions there, as long as I get banned from the game for doing so, or we get a proper server-wide channel.
Well at least everyone who reads this can start helping by not spamming the arena themselves.
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Well at least everyone who reads this can start helping by not spamming the arena themselves.
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Agree
Good Post Plight, I think this would be a real good positive step towards getting the arena chat to where alot of us would like it.
I keep arena chat visiable at all times myself when I play as I do venture into arena and all different aspects of PvP when I can and at times it is quiet frustrating to try and keep up with some chat as alot of chatter goes on in the channel.
It would be nice to see this reduced and for people just to be mindful that now with the global chats avalible and global friends list that chatting to friends can be conducted like this.
In full support of this idea Plight I hope alot more follow
If you agree with this post, which, I do not. As robbie_redhat said, we have a problem now because of the 5 channels limit on globals. And, what I think its the biggest issue here, arena is the only widely known server-wide channel. Only Help has this too, and it is not default visible for most of the toons.
That was the main reason Arena was taken for the general chat on each server. If your reason for this plight, is to use Globals, why don't the PvP crowd use the Global Arena Chat which everyone is a member by default (just type /send Arena msg or bind "/bind <key> beginchat /send Arena "). It is diferent from the /ac.
The only solution for this, would be a new server-wide channel "General", "Server", anything, that is on the tab by default and anyone can check, then maybe, we can shift away from it. But that will take time, and bully tatics on the channel and on people because of that is far from the best solution.
Dark Out.
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why don't the PvP crowd use the Global Arena Chat which everyone is a member by default
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Because the Arena channel is there for Arena/PvP releated chat?
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why don't the PvP crowd use the Global Arena Chat which everyone is a member by default
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Because the Arena channel is there for Arena/PvP releated chat?
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The same goes for the Global channel. My point is that the PvPers already have a global for that, the off-topicers(by lack of better word) do not have one. It is not fair with any of the groups to be trown out of the only good server-wide channel.
I get what you're saying, and I agree, there should be a server wide channel that is just for general stuff, like people looking for a team, giant monster announcements etc.
But the fact remains, the arena channel is for arena releated discussions. That's why it's called the arena channel. Although personally I don't really care if there's other stuff in there.
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why don't the PvP crowd use the Global Arena Chat which everyone is a member by default
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Because the Arena channel is there for Arena/PvP releated chat?
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The same goes for the Global channel. My point is that the PvPers already have a global for that, the off-topicers(by lack of better word) do not have one. It is not fair with any of the groups to be trown out of the only good server-wide channel.
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1st, global channel is a global channel and subject to the 5-channel limit of global channels. I am not a member of Global because of that reason.
2nd, there is a global channel for random stuff, asking help, etc. It is called Forumites.
The problem with global channels is that people dont know what they are for really, since most are very inactive. Note: Forumites is pretty active, I have to keep it on a tab of its own.
I would have to agree with Empath - the clue is in what the channel is called - "Arena". That being the case you'd expect there to be mainly Arena/PvP related chat in there.
The hard part is to wean people away from using Arena as the global chat area. A hard line tactic will more than likely alienate people and cause disharmony. When something like this is being self policed, the approach has to be considered. A "hi" in the Arena channel does not mean you are out of order, but I would have thought that requests for TF's, teams etc would be better served elsewhere. The more experienced users should be able to use common sense when it comes to determining what is misuse of the channel - and maybe adopt a "three strikes and your reported" approach?
At the end of the day, I don't PvP enough for this to be a real concern for me. But I'd hate to think that something like this causes a rift in the community.
The defiant one of the family.
[B]Order of the Cruciform/Crucified Swords[/B] - [B]Defiant[/B]
50's - Tridento (claws/invul scrapper), Robo Medic MkIV (empath/rad defender), Entrino (dark/dark defender) & Captain Wombat (thugs/traps mastermind)
[I]@EU-Cambo[/I]
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If you agree with this post, which, I do not. As robbie_redhat said, we have a problem now because of the 5 channels limit on globals. And, what I think its the biggest issue here, arena is the only widely known server-wide channel. Only Help has this too, and it is not default visible for most of the toons.
That was the main reason Arena was taken for the general chat on each server. If your reason for this plight, is to use Globals, why don't the PvP crowd use the Global Arena Chat which everyone is a member by default (just type /send Arena msg or bind "/bind <key> beginchat /send Arena "). It is diferent from the /ac.
The only solution for this, would be a new server-wide channel "General", "Server", anything, that is on the tab by default and anyone can check, then maybe, we can shift away from it. But that will take time, and bully tatics on the channel and on people because of that is far from the best solution.
Dark Out.
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I totally agree that there should be a server channel for each server Dark, I also think that it is not unreasonable to ask that the PvP channel is to the PvPers. The option is there for players to make serverwise channels and I am not being totally ignorant when I ask people not to chat in arena, I am directing them to /help for help and "global" for general chat. I think it's easy to see that arena channel is showing preference to the PvPers from the devs over the general chatters, although the PvP community is easier to define than the people who just want to talk IMO. There are varying degrees of how much people want to chit chat, whereas for PvP it's pretty much black and white as to whether you are lookinfg for PvP of type X, Y or Z.
I also agree with the earlier post thatt a certain amount of chat is human, and going off topic is the nature of a MMOG channel, although when there are people in a channel to be nothing but off topic that is the ingame equivalent of trolling. I'd just like to see a day where you could put arena in your main bottom chat tab and not have the tab rammed with rubbish with absolutely no chance of getting any arena related content sent to it. This is why many of the PvPers stopped reading Arena full time, or at all in some cases.
Maybe the Bridger man will ask the devs for a server channel? I think someone should be making moves to get this implemented, I think coding time wise this is a very small job (look at help channel, it's not that complex), or maybe starting a thread to get more than 5 global channels for the limit on global chat. The solution is not just "I'm using Arena 'cos I can", that will just lead to wasted time for the GMs who tbh prolly have better things to do.
Plight
EDIT: "/send arena" does nothing and "arena" is not a default global channel sorry
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An interesting idea, and one not without merit.
However, I would be cautious of being too overzealous on the "you're not talking about PvP, please leave" issue.
With any group of people there is going to be a certain percentage of inane banter. People chat to each other - it is, afterall, the nature of people - and it's that interaction that fosters communities, lets people get to know each other and can gel a disparate collection of individuals into a group of friends. (And it's fun )
Be mindful that a chat channel is not a forum. While it's relatively easy to keep on topic in a forum thread, people's brains don't tend to work that way in real-time - trying to coerce people into staying on topic with threats of lodging petitions may only have the effect of killing off the community you're trying to protect.
Now, I'm only a casual lurker on /arena, so may well be talking out of my hat - but I'm an old fart who's been knocking about in online games for donkey's years and while I applaud the idea of keeping the signal to noise ratio on /arena to an acceptable level, I know it's the people and the community who you chat with that makes the game worth playing.
[/ QUOTE ]Totally agree with the signal to noise ratio type comments, see my last post for opinions. I wouldnt want anyone to think I or anyone was going overboard, but you can't get people into new global habits without laying down some simple rules initially. Well said and all that
Plight
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First, just to be 100% clear, I agree that channels should be used for their intended purpose. That said:
[ QUOTE ]
The global chat system has some default channels for servers and teams etc, although one of the biggest general rooms there is called "Global", AFAIK none of the Ops play anymore so if you don't like what goes on there use /gignore or leave, however this is the best and most appropriate channel for general chit chat and Q&A type stuff. If you have membership to 5 global channels already, tough really, leave 1 temporarily and join global with /chanjoin global.
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This is unlikely to work. Simple as that.
"Tough really, leave 1 temporarily" doesn't work for things that people largely use passively - they just keep an eye on it for interesting things happening. You can't join that sort of channel temporarily, because you don't know when you want to be on it or not because you don't know whether anything you'd be interested in is being said or not at any particular time without actually being on it.
The problem then is that some people are never going to join those global channels, because of the five channel limit. So you then have other people who would perhaps use those channels being discouraged from using them instead because there aren't many people on them. But they can all use arena, which brings us to the current situation.
I realise you know this, and your attitude is presumably (and not unreasonably) "tough, it's not my problem". Unfortunately "tough" isn't the most persuasive argument in the world. The result of your campaign is consequently likely to be just arguments, petitioning, etc. I don't think, somehow, that NCSoft want to start handing out bans for someone LFT on the arena channel. So all that's likely to really be achieved is the arguing.
Like I said to start off with, I totally agree Arena should be for Arena. But while Arena is, in practical terms, the best channel for other purposes, it's going to be very hard, if not impossible, for that to happen.
We need either a server channel (like arena or help) called something like 'General', and/or the five channel limit gone. Without one or both of these, I can't see your campaign going very far I'm afraid. That's not to say you shouldn't do it, because 'not very far' is still 'somewhere'. But I really think there needs to be an equally or more practical alternative for it to be effective.
But maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic. Good luck with it anyway.
[/ QUOTE ]I agree "tough" isnt the best argument, however most people who play are intelligent enough to read between the lines, get the idea, and use the global system. As I have said before, those that feel the need for a community channel should ask for one, rather thn just abuse another channel. I have had to make decisions about which global channels i'm in cos of the 5 limit, and i dealt with it way back on the US servers in 2004 when global was introduced and there was no arena.
Also for the record, my "tough" policy as you called it, is not as totally idiotic as some may think, the one toon i made a macro on for this actually has the text explaioning how to join "global" channel and use the help. I would be stupid and ignorant and negligent to not give people the information they need to help me and other PvPers in whatever quest we are on.
Plight
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Yeah, for 2 weeks it was the Jack Channel - and it quite possibly may become the Winter Lord Channel next month
It's an unofficial server wide channel, and because of that, a lot of people use it for general server wide chat - I've seen more requests for help on it than on the Help Channel, for example.
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Maybe something needs to be done about this by the general server community then? Maybe Cryptic should be thinking about adding the help tab to the main bottom chat tab as default, I even told warwitch this in person!
Funny thing about the unofficial server wide channel, is the the official server wide channel is called Defiant (EN), is easily viewable by a defgualt global channel search and, wait for it, there's no one in it! there is an issue here, and I think a lot of it could be sorted out by people using their noggins a bit more.
Plight
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Arena channel is the channel with the best server-wide coverage (apart for help, which REALLY should be kept for it's only purpose), and personally, I will continue using it as a server wide announcement channel if I need to, as well as reply to people who ask questions there, as long as I get banned from the game for doing so, or we get a proper server-wide channel.
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Apart from help you say? So why not use it? Oh because for /help it is more important that there is no spam than for /arena? Right you are mate, glad you are imposing your own opinions about things on this issue. I personally told people to keep off /help when it went up 'cos I would rather see arena spammed, this is not the csae any more 'cos i'm so sick of it! So I have decided to do something? And why are no rednames disagreeing or many players disagreeing? Becuase the channel is for PvP, that's Pee Vee Pee to you and I.
You will continue to use it for server weide announcements if you need to? I didn't know you had any need to? What do you mean by need? I really think the only time you should need anything is for help with certain missions? Need is a funny word, and you're friends list should serve you well, /arena is neither my own personal chat room or yours.
Assuming the typoes I have assumed in your last sentence, then GL with that, 'cos if anyone starts petitioning you, you will, I imagine, get told the score by the mods and then I assume be quiet about it, it is a great shame that people want to break rules until they are told not to IMO.
finally, this attitude of "I'm carrying on until I'm told not to" is not good enough, you people are supposed to be a community and should make proactive steps to improve the social aspect of the game, not just make fsat stands 'cos something doesn't suit you when you are inately 'wrong' already. Carrying on replying to /arena only perpetuates a problem, at least try and help, as I said above, and redirect this sort of thing to the global system which is there for exactly this reason!
Plight
My 2c.
I think that the Arena channel should have its name changed to Server, and that the handful of people who want to use arena create a global channel for it.
Like it or not Arena has become a server general channel and making its name reflect that asap will save a lot of arguments.
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My 2c.
I think that the Arena channel should have its name changed to Server, and that the handful of people who want to use arena create a global channel for it.
Like it or not Arena has become a server general channel and making its name reflect that asap will save a lot of arguments.
[/ QUOTE ]1 Solution, although it requires Dev input, as opposed to bit of player organisation.
As you said ingame, it is about what the US servers (and although you didnt say it, the Korean ones) and what they want, they do not want your suggestion and will not make a regional change like this, I suggest you make a thread proposing a server channel.
I cant remember if i posted this or not, and I cant go back to quote myself cos the old forum was deleted, although I did say back in the day that arena would eb a sensible alternative to global until global was implemented, I posted and PMed both mods and devs asking for global several times and not a lot was done due to some tech issue i dont understand, at the end of it when global was introduced no one bothered to move the chat there and now they are suffering the consequences, but even worse IMO is that the PvP community has suffered the consequences already.
before arena,and before global there were only tells for mass organisation, we should be thankful for what we have and use it, not moan because "i already have 5 global channels", if people chatted too much on /help there would be uproar, i dont see how this is different.
Plight
[ QUOTE ]
Arena channel is the channel with the best server-wide coverage (apart for help, which REALLY should be kept for it's only purpose), and personally, I will continue using it as a server wide announcement channel if I need to, as well as reply to people who ask questions there, as long as I get banned from the game for doing so, or we get a proper server-wide channel.
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what he said
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[ QUOTE ]
Arena channel is the channel with the best server-wide coverage (apart for help, which REALLY should be kept for it's only purpose), and personally, I will continue using it as a server wide announcement channel if I need to, as well as reply to people who ask questions there, as long as I get banned from the game for doing so, or we get a proper server-wide channel.
[/ QUOTE ]
what he said
[/ QUOTE ]
What they said.
*hugs nobel*
Herro all
. As some of you may know and/or have noticed, I have started a movement to "take /arena back for the PvPers". Yay how I admit partial responsibility for it's commonplaceness amongst 'spammers' regular channels, although woe betide me that I have lost the attention of many good people who would otherwise dabble in PvP.
What do I do?
but I am not totally unreasonable, and if I can manage it, then so can you fellow MMOG lovers!
So what's it all about?
Well basically, I think what I'm trying to say is that it'd be nice if the arena channel was used for PvP and related discussions only, I'm not the one to lay down more explicit rules than that, but I hope common sense will prevail (so if it becomes a two way chat take it to tells). Hopefully this will bring back some credibility to the channel so that people who are interested to hear of PvP goings on can have the channel in an easily visible tab so that when messages are sent, they are noticed, and when they are not noticed, they soon will be, because there is less irrelevent banter, so hopefully, and we come back to it, the channel can be put in a more prominent place in interested party's UIs (user interface).
Why?
Because the PvP community is proportionally very small, 'we' have a channel and should be grateful for it and promote it's corrct use at long last
What can I do if I want to chat or ask a general question
The help channel is there for anyone to ask a question, this channel is not defaultly visible on most characters AFAIK although it is in the help tab for new toons (bit rusty as my UI is far from standard), to send to this channel use /h followed by the text string you want to send.
The global chat system has some default channels for servers and teams etc, although one of the biggest general rooms there is called "Global", AFAIK none of the Ops play anymore so if you don't like what goes on there use /gignore or leave, however this is the best and most appropriate channel for general chit chat and Q&A type stuff. If you have membership to 5 global channels already, tough really, leave 1 temporarily and join global with /chanjoin global. Remember to send to these channels is /send <channel name>, if the channel name is more than 1 word it needs to be in "quotes", hence most well thought out globals are single word titles.
I would discourage people from 'spamming' the help channel though as we don't want another Arena chat free for all for the next 18 months, or the new players will just think the community are all eejits.
There is always the forum to post questions on, but obviously the response is a little slower, but it's usually higher quality too, sort of.
Remember that heroes can't see villain broadcasts and vice versa so get enabling it people.
Why do this now when arena chat is already a mess?
Because the PvP communities are starting to migrate to other EU and even US servers, I don't want to move just because a group of non PvP people took liberties and 'forced out' casual PvPers from the specific channel. About time someone moved people to do something about it really, and I'd personally like some more opponents, so yay for selfcentred motivation.
OK, so I'm gonn look at the PvP/Arena channel. Erm, how?
Right click the chat tab you want arena text to be sent to, click edit, highlight arena in the right hand column of channels, click add, click ok. To send type /ac followed by any text you wan to send, although if you are a bit of abinder try /bind <key> beginchat /ac . Note the space at the end of said bind.
People are still spamming arena chat
If you think you can be polite about it then maybe a sensible reminder in Arena chat that the channel is for PvP and arena related chat and that the above mentioned channels are there for various other purposes (it would be unhelpful to just say "oi, this is our channel" without providing some kind of support or redirection). If the person gives you grief then a petition would not be unreasonable, afterall, as players we can only truely moderate ourselves, it is NC's job to police their own channel infrastructure afterall. I guess we should just be vigilant. [Also no point going into massive arguments on arena about arena spam, I guess this is the place for that if anywhere, although I suggest you just use /ignore]
ZOMG, Plight you are so bigheaded and I'd pwn you on my MM!1 Why don't you just shut the hell upand stop acting like you pwn the place!?
That's not really the point, if you dont like it then it's not really my problem, a prime example of bowing out when people are right even though you might not like it is when I agree with MaXimillian, makes me
JT can take sexeh back all he likes, but I think taking arena back would be at least marginally more productive lollerskates
Plight