I have been in various chat channels and its really hard for capsuleers to identify themselves to others or for newbros in that chat to know who to turn to for help. I think players should be able to add a 4-8 digit ‘handle/rank/tag/specialty’ next to their name in chat channels and under the name on the chat list. Here are some examples.
Haulers Chat - ’Low Sec’ means you specialize in low sec hauling shipments and taking personal contracts ’JF/Int’ means you can do Jump Freighters & Interceptors ’Hek>Jita’ hauler currently in Hek looking for work to Jita ’HiFrght’ accepting High Sec freighter contracts
Mining Chat - ’Orca’ could mean you understand Orca fittings and skills ’Gas/Ice’ you specialize in knowledge on Gas & Ice mining ’PubFleet’ nice player trying to organize a public mining fleet
Rookie Help - ’Explore’ you can help an exploration related questions ’Combat’ willing to help field questions about combat (locking on targets, damage types etc) ’CorpAgent’ person who represents a Corp and is looking for newbro recruits ’Newbro’ this could be a tag that is given to new players for the first month or so. This way others are more inclined to lend a helping hand or advice.
Abyssal Lurkers - ’T4-5 Fire’ specialize in high end firestorm filament runs ’Ishtar’ knowledgeable about Ishtar fits for Abyssal Deadspace ’Solo Frig’ does solo frigate runs exclusively ’GilaOP’ could be a tag that others copy and form a small community within the chat channel that agree Gilas are OP
General/any chat - ’AFK’ so people know that you are actually gone and not just ignoring them ’L4Corp’ Looking for a Corp to join ’Memer’ I am here for fun and offer no real advice ’(rank)’ way to assign yourself or others ranks within corp chat channels ’RPing’ currently roleplaying ’AmmoBPs’ someone who is currently looking to buy or sell their ammo BPs ’HNR-Orca’ likely has an Orca on the Hyper Net Relay
The list can go on. You can edit your own ‘tag’ in each chat channel and do it instantly based on your needs, who you want to help, or self identify as a specialist in a certain field. I think this is a feature that can benefit anyone whether you are a trader, hauler, corp CEO, miner, solo pvper, or an explorer. Tags would allow you to bring out more individuality, group content, personal profit and another layer of culture to chat channels.
What you need is a proper 3rd party comms platform such a Discord or Guilded or whatever to better organize and identify yourselves and communicate (eg. via different channels and channel categories, etc). CCP has no intention of reinventing the wheel in this regard, nor should it devote its limited time and resources to do so.
Most player organizations that heavily rely on multiple in-game channels instead of out-of-game comms are likely to fail.
True but this isn’t necessarily targeted towards the organized corps that are on Discord/TeamSpeak etc and already have clear directions for people to get help/guidance within the corp.
This is for NPC corp players, solo corp players, people that dont want to add/download a 3rd party program, or people that are in player corps but still chat and hangout in those channels. This is by no means to completely replace those comms platforms but this does add another way for player make themselves stand out, roleplay, trade or haul more efficiently etc.
I am not sure how this is reinventing the wheel? If you can create a new corp, update your character bio and change your avatar while docked and appear different instantly to thousands of people why not this? I’m no software engineer and I’m super its more complicated than I am making it out to be.
Again this isnt for player corps that are trying to completely organize on in-game channels through text. But I guess thats the nice part about it, is that you can use it literally however you want. As you know there are many playstyles, professions, things players take pride in, isk generating activities that everyone has and this is just another way to represent that and get it out to the masses if you wish.
Its mostly because chat would become even more full of junk than it already is, you can already do that if you want if you are in a player corp and someone can create an ingame role with the name you want and it will show up on your show info page
Agreed, chat is already pretty cluttered. Although public chat channels are one of the first things newbros are taught to use to ask for information. We dont need to talk about the extreme falloff rate of new players and I am not saying this is the solution but it wont hurt either. A 15+ yr Eve player might see less use for this than the solo player who does use public chat channels to communicate, trade, advise etc. Again this could be used in an unlimited number of ways to anyone who wishes to use it.
My argument here was that you can create or change corps based on personal need instantly, you can change your appearance or update your bio so you are perceived in a different way than you were before instantly. All of these are ways a person can use to project their goals, aesthetics, etc to others. So why not a 4-8 digit tag next to your name?
I have only played Eve for about 4-5 months even though my character is 2+ yrs old. There are still thousands of people that flow in/out public chat channels and use it for different reasons. Already public channels have been called garbage & junk. I guess I am tired of vets trying to shoehorn in the same advice and playstyle
“How do I make more isk?” - “just go to low/null sec”
“How do I find more content?” - “just join a corp”
“I keep dying to other players” - “just get more friends and outnumber them”
To me it seems the time/resource or ‘how does this benefit me’ mentality flows heavily with Eve vets. So quick to dismiss anything that doesn’t immediately benefit them. Little empathy or thought to people that play differently than they do. If this is a change that won’t affect you but still thousands of other players for creative, economic and social purposes than why is it a problem?
Sorry for the rant and I know I made a lot of assumptions, but there has to be more to it than “public chats are trash, join a corp, the end” because not everyone wants that experience including myself. Thanks everyone so far for your opinions!