Cross Faction Chat

Oh well. Who wants to talke to those evil Empire folks anyways! ;)

Are you kidding? That's where all the... late night chat lines are. >.>

Of all the stupic, archaic, perhistoric, outdated last-gen MMO tropes...

Well that and the idiotic Legacy naming system...

/end MMORage
(Seriously no anger, just disbelief at some of the, let's politely say, outdated, design decisions made by BioWare).

Back on topic...

Sounds like we'll need a Plan B to keep the communication lines open for those who are a little too shy to use Vent for voice chat.

Quote by Aldente

So web cams? :evil:

I kid! I kid! :whistle:

I believe my husband only charges $.99 per minute. ;)

Sounds like vent.

By the way the devs originally said this would happen, early betas had too much trash talk it seemed.

The game has, even of PvE servers, an open PvP planet(Republic vs Empire) where you "apparently" conquer territory. It's this reason that doesn't make the lack of cross-faction chat archaic but necessary.

It sucks for us but it would totally ruin that part of the game. You can't organise a raid-group of people to go attack an enemy base if somebody has already informed the other side you are coming and thus they sit ready. It kills all sort of surprise strategies and reaction times (counter attacks and the like).

Do we even know for sure if we can roll Empire and Republic on the same server? We can do it in beta but is it confirmed for launch?

I have to agree with Halish on this one. The two sides are at war why in the heck would there be cross faction chat? Makes no sense what so ever. In my humble opinion it would not make any sense for the Republic toons to be chatting with the Empire toons.

Sorry but maybe it's just me. And I don't buy the "I want to talk to my friends".

If folks want to chat they can log into vent and chat there. Or maybe create toons on the same faction????

I understand the underlying reasoning, but, in my personal opinion, blocking cross-faction chat is pointless. I may be completely nuts here, but I could swear there were a few games that used to have this restriction that lifted it.

I guess to me, this is kinda like gun-control... It regulates the people who play by the rules anyway, but a griefer, or spy, only needs to open up an IM, or use Vent to communicate with their friends/guilds to pass along information.

Just ignore me, it's just my belly aching. I fully admit this is my personal opinion, it just seems a barrier to the casual gamer with no real discernible benefit in practice.

Just to add one benefit (besides the obvious benefit for casual/general conversation with friends) to cross faction chat: With the special notation of having an officially aligned "Adversary", I'm wondering how they plan to implement organized PVP gameplay among Adversaries if they aren't able to communicate the who, what, where, and hows within the game.

I'm actually surprised by it. In SWG custom chat channels were part of it. Because some guilds, like us, have duel members. May times people like to play both factions. I'm hoping that this is a temporary limitation.

It's probably just me and not understanding why if you play one faction you want to be able to talk to someone in the opposite faction. I'm going by the story in game that the two sides are at war. If I want to talk to you I'll create a toon on your faction or jump into vent. Sorry don't care if we are friends or I like you, you are on the opposite side so you're the bad guy. :)

In other games I've played DAoC, WoW and Rift (in Rift you could do a /say and chat with members of the opposing faction but they had to be close enough to hear you) you could never send a msg or open up a chat channel with someone on the opposing faction. For me I like that. (points to previous paragraph above about the two sides at war)

I kind of like it that way as it seems more like we are at odds with the enemy. Enemies don't chat to discuss cooking tips or how bad their day was at work. For me it ruins the game experience if I can openly chat with the enemy faction. With open chat it suddenly doesn't feel like the sides are at war and makes it feel like we are all friends and happily living in the galaxy together.

Again it's just my humble opinion and I can see this feature means allot to folks. Maybe they will add it down the line in a future patch.

Van - I completely understand where you are coming from, and don't necessarily completely disagree. As an avid RPer for years in MMO's, I do understand the 'logic' behind the design decision.

I think I've just been spoiled by Cryptic. Ever since I joined City of Heroes when it was in beta, which later added CoV, then of course, STO with the Fed vs. Klingon faction, I've been used to having the freedom to chat with my friends "Out of Character" regardless of which faction I was currently playing on through a Global name & chat server.

This, to me, is especially relevant to fleet cohesion and raiding. In STO, for example, if you were levelling up a new Klingon character (an alt), then saw in chat that a Federation STF (aka Raid) was being organized, and you've been waiting for weeks to get into this given Raid on your main, you can hop off of your Klingon character, then log in with your Fed and join your fleetmates.

You lose that convenience of communication and spontaneity when cross-faction communication is eliminated.

I'm not saying either is right or wrong. It just feels like an outdated design choice to me. Like I said, I've just been spoiled the last 7 or so years. Ultimately it won't affect the fact that I will be playing the game. It's simply one of a few pet peeves for me.

Ah cool. I see how it could be hard for friends to chat if this feature isn't available.

Maybe down the line it will be implemented.

Quote by Aldente

I think it would be fair to say that SW:TOR holds to a lot of design decisions that have been discarded by other MMOs. I tend to think of SW:TOR as being part of the previous paradigm (e.g., WoW, EQ, Rift) instead of the next paradigm (GW2, TSW). I think we're seeing an interesting transition period in the genre.

Seconded (again). ;-)

That said, I'm still looking forward to enjoying a few new BioWare yarns. Only MikeyNY will need to deal with my regular whining about my pet peeves. But he has to, he married me. :P

Personally, I don't understand it. I can understand limiting public or local channels to being faction specific, but private channels is a bit much. We aren't really Sith/Jedi, we're actually just friends trying to play a game together.

This is the '10s and not allowing me to use a chat channel in-game to contact the other side doesn't stop me from doing so, it just makes it more inconvenient. I can just as easily call, text, IM, use IRC, facebook, email, or a host of other modes of communication to alert the other side to my nefarious plans if I really want to. MMOs are social games and this really limits the social aspect.

I really don't think that a custom Stonewall channel will be a hot bed of spy communications, but maybe that's just me.

Quote by Aldente

Quote by DakonKor

Sounds like we'll need a Plan B to keep the communication lines open for those who are a little too shy to use Vent for voice chat.

So web cams? :evil:

I kid! I kid! :whistle:

*waits for Aldente to turn on his webcam....*

i never understand why they let individuals have characters of both factions on the same server.

Quote by Xcentric

i never understand why they let individuals have characters of both factions on the same server.

Because it's just a game.

Quote by Angelsilhouette

Quote by Xcentric

i never understand why they let individuals have characters of both factions on the same server.

Because it's just a game.

lol. well why not have cross faction chat then? Seems inconsistent. You'd think either the 2 factions are as separate as can be or not.

I rarely if ever even pvp, so please don't confuse me with someone who has a stake in this. I'm just trying to understand.

Quote by DakonKor

I believe my husband only charges $.99 per minute. ;)

Wow.... I'm heartbroken that my own husband thinks I'm so cheap... I charge the standard $5.99/ per minute just for the basic webcam chat, (I am running a business after all trying to make money) and the price goes up as clothes come off.. :evil:

Seriously though, I agree that this is an outdated concept that is being dropped by other games but I am with Van on the fact that at it's very core, while we may all be stonewallers the two factions are at war. As for not passing along faction secrets I reserve the right to sell all of my secrets to the highest bidder.

Starting bid is half a million credits! Let all the Republic's Secrets be yours only Half a Million credits! The price can go higher if there is a bidding war!

clearly they didn't because I was able to "Liberate" them so easily...

Damn I've been putting in too much time on my Sith Inquisitor on the beta... I must start to remember that I'll be playing a Jedi Consular!