Game status brain dump

Do you have any negative experience with it?
I think pilots saying is exactly right: without the GPGnet-chat Fa would have never developed to what it is today. We would not have FAF and I myself would probably not be here either.

I'm sure @neutrino has his ears to the industry.
However, you guys might not truly understand the implications and a "live" global system can have.


Just this past week, Twitch has a huge massive kerfuffle with staff and mods in conflict with the streamers.
There was power tripping, blanket banning and copyright issues flaring up.
Essentially it sprawled into twitter and reddit. There was censorship and was very harmful to the Twitch brand.

If you want to read a little more, here's the official statement from Twitch....
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1r64e8/apology_official_twitch_response_to_controversy/


It's something Uber has to be careful about and I am very glad they are taking it seriously.
It can be some seriously bad press and potential legality and liability issues coming from that.
Uber just can't afford to have it backfire or blow up in their face.


So if anybody has some serious thoughts on how to avoid those issues, maybe slap together a proposal and start a new thread?

That's a different issue. Twitch is a video streaming thingy, and there is no moderation in place by default.
And when there is one, it's not managed by the editor (ie. Sony or Uber) themselves.

I never saw a IRC chat going to hell, ever. A bot to prevent spamming, some moderators, and in extreme cases, a global mute if needed.

The twitch issues was with licensed images being turned into Sub emotes which requires a user to be subscribed to the channel which is a fee of $5.99 a month. That's not really related at all to a global chat. It's a copyright issue. It then spiraled out of control from there.

I have played FA for years. The chat in gpgnet and the general experience with it was the feature that made it the most awesome game I ever played (yeah gameplay was pretty good, too). But seriously the client was the one feature that made the game. So I am quite aware of why a chat is damn crazy important. In turn I have _NEVER_ seen a game that was broken and failed because it had a working chat. Quite the contrary, I have seen games fail that would have profited a lot from a goood chat.

Twitch is pretty different, also the main issue that you linked was about unlicensed emoticon icons and more about the general interaction between users and moderators. That can happen in any forums, on reddit and anywhere else. It has nothing to do with a global chat.
Also I think at twitch final response with that answer is a pretty good example of how to handle such shitstorms. From reading that reddit entry my personal opinion of twitch actually just went up, definitely not down.

Also I feel like I have to repeat myself :

All games in steam have a ingame chat. All of them, it's a steam thingy.
It's easily accessible. It's a simple click when you display the overlay.

Still I never saw ANYONE in ANY game chat, EVER.

That's why a non-"mandatory" or "global" chat is as good as no chat at all.

I will say that comparing a chat for the people who go out to find and play FAF is a hell of a lot different to people who get a chat put in front of them anyway.

Take GPGnet as an example in that case. It's pretty much the predecessor to FAF, but it was mandatory to play FA online at the time.

Or starcraft Broad War lobby pre-battle.net 2.0. (my god how can you do a v2.0 so inferior in every way to the original !?)



(Yeah, Battle.net was awesome at some point in time)

I never used them.

But still my point stands that a small community of dedicated people will always be much better then a mass communication tool for everyone.

You mean more than the small community of 20894 online players of Starcraft ?
(By the way, how do you think Starcraft BW had a so strong community over the year?)

You've never used IRC I guess?

I guess I won't have any answer to that, but can Uber give me a mere approximation of the online user on UberNet, all servers together, at peak time?

I don't use any of them, I just don't really like competitive games at all, the atmosphere that they produce is really toxic to me.

Hell I didn't even play SupCom2 on-line, and I have played that game 4 times as much as FAF.

I don't think I even like people.

Then how can you say that a channel with 1000 players is a nightmare?

I went to the TeamLiquid IRC when Starcraft 2 was out, it was peaking at 2000+ users, and it was very readable and civilized.

It's not twitch. People are playing, so only a small % is actually able to chat at the same time.
Also, you are talking to each other, not screaming at some guy displayed a screen like during PA livecast chat .
More like PA livecast chat BEFORE the cast

Also, it has nothing to do with competitive gameplay.

It's about talking with people that have the same interest than you : The game you like.
That's how you can meet people, mingle, and why not, crazy idea, play with them for fun!
And you do that here already, so ... I think you just hate the principle for the sake of it

IRC seems to have a different atmosphere, and that I believe is down to the fact that it isn't in the game, its a side program that people have to actively go to.

Making it 1000 times better then any in game chat.

And that's what we are asking. Not a big chat screen on the PA home screen, but a nice chat interface on the launcher.
Well, it's not something you have to "actively go to" as it's mandatory to go through, but it's good.

That's what Battle.net 1.0, GPGNET, Spring Lobbies and FAF are.

And it's indeed 10000x better than any modern game chat (ie battle.net 2.0 or any Steamwork/Console chat).

I am unsure, and will await proper results.

Well, hopefully, you are not the guy that need to be convinced.

The example of global chat lobbies are many, and all very successful. Just see how many people regret the Battlenet 1.0 lobby on team liquid forums...

The example of games that failed because of a badly though lobby are legion too.

I though it was a no brainer, I'm quite shocked to see Neutrino hesitation on that feature.

Perhaps beta is the time to evaluate how it works, how it is received by the community and iron out problems that might arise?

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

It is just SO true.

we could even extend this to say Global chat is what keeps MODS alive.