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December 19, 2006

***PLEASE NO OPEN CHAT IN THE GROUP***

One of the nice features of most MMOs is their variety of broadcast chat channels. With them, you can send a text message to everyone in your guild, your current zone, or even your entire server. Such broadcast channels are an excellent means for meeting up with acquaintances or complete strangers and obtaining answers to specific questions. Even when you solo, you can still maintain a peripheral awareness of your social world by monitoring these broadcast channels, especially your guild chat.

Of course, the downside of broadcast channels is their misuse for "spam" (excessive or offensive messages). To discourage spam, fellow players tend to publicly rebuke the accused spammer and threaten to put him or her on "ignore." Social control is even easier within guild chat since members who repeatedly spam the guild can be easily kicked from it. But overall, broadcast chat channels, especially guild chat, tend to be used for good rather than evil. Take the following bit of banter which shows how guild chat can work well...

01 26:26 Di says to the guild,"Hi all"
02 26:40 Ae says to the guild,"hi di"
03 26:47 Di says to the guild,"all day long in trader and I sold 1 damn butterfly"
04 26:55 Bo says to the guild,"lol"
05 27:03 Bo says to the guild,"sorry to hear that"
06 27:21 Ta says to the guild,"awwwww did you enjoy your dinner?"
07 27:55 Wo says to the guild,"everyone buys on the day after Thanksgiving -
08 just have a sale"
09 28:25 Ta says to the guild,"LOL"
10 28:27 Me says to the guild,"Night All"
11 28:30 Di says to the guild,"LOL just might have to do that sale thing"
12 28:36 Di says to the guild,"Night Me"
13 28:39 Bo says to the guild,"night"
14 28:53 Di says to the guild,"Dinner was a complete success"
15 29:03 Guildmate: Me has logged out.
16 29:09 Wo says to the guild,"night"
17 30:42 Di says to the guild,"anything going on tonight?"
18 31:23 Ka says to the guild,"if you find something let me know...pretty quiet"
19 32:08 Bo says to the guild,"well if you two want to do something i am sure me
20 an In will tag along"
21 20:32:19 Or says to the guild,"Is there an access quest for the Tomb of Valor?
22 and what is a good level to head in there?"
23 32:26 Bo says to the guild,"just trying to get him to ding real fast"
24 34:15 Di says to the guild,"lets clean some up"
25 34:22 Di says to the guild,"errr MT"
26 41:42 Ka says to the guild,"Tha you need any help in SH?"
27 42:13 Tha says to the guild,"Ad and Or are grouping for some random stuff"
28 42:37 Ka says to the guild,"I have a few alts in that level if you needed any help"

Here we see players greeting (lines 01-02) and saying farewell (lines 10, 12, 13, 16) to each other, sharing their experiences (lines 03, 14), knowledge (lines 07-08, 21-22), and laughs (lines 09, 11). They're also using the guild chat channel to find things to do together (lines 17, 18, 19-20, 26, 27, 28). Guild chat is the way players stay in touch with their online families.

So what's the deal with Second Life?

Unlike most other MMOs, Second Life provides only one kind of broadcast chat channel, "Group IM." Second Life "groups" have a special chat channel for broadcasting messages to the entire group. In other words, a kind of guild chat. But while group IM is very similar to guild chat in form, the ways it is used by players are surprisingly different. Contrast the following bit of group chat (for a group associated with a popular bar) with the guild chat above...

01 [11:32] AB: hey everyone im slightly bored........... wondering if anyone
02 has any ideas of something that will give me a good time?
03 [11:32] CT: come to my gig
04 [11:32] HF: me too :)
05 [11:32] FZ: getting screwed lol
06 [11:33] SM: me!! lol
07 [11:33] HF: oops. spam.
08 [11:33] Second Life: SM has left this session.
09 [11:33] KB: don't spam the group god!
10 [11:33] Second Life: KB has left this session.
11 [11:33] Second Life: FZ has left this session.
12 [11:33] JH: the bouncy castle outside
13 [11:33] PP: Ok, keep off the group channel please folks
14 [11:33] HJ: RL alcohol - its the ponly way to go
15 [11:33] TC: who is the group god?
16 [11:33] SF: oh i have a few ideas but it will take a partner;)
17 [11:33] KC: enough on the group channel
18 [11:33] WH: Im always here for you SF :P
19 [11:33] Second Life: JH has left this session.
20 [11:33] MM: thanks for the spam really not annoying at all
21 [11:33] Second Life: HF has left this session.
22 [11:33] Second Life: TC has left this session.
23 [11:33] SF: sorry KC
24 [11:33] Second Life: KC has left this session.
25 [11:33] Second Life: SF has left this session.
26 [11:33] JH: hahaha
27 [11:33] KC: :) did you need tp HF?
28 [11:33] Second Life: WH has left this session.
29 [11:33] Second Life: JH has left this session.
30 [11:34] Second Life: MM has left this session.
31 [11:34] AA: ehm?
32 [11:34] JS: hm?
33 [11:35] Second Life: JS has left this session.
34 [11:35] Second Life: AB has left this session.
35 [11:43] Second Life: HJ has left this session.
36 [11:43] Second Life: CT has left this session.

AB attempts to use Group IM, much like Di above (line 17), to find something to do (lines 1-2). She receives several proposals of things she could do (lines 03, 05, 06, 12, 14, 16, 18), most of them playful and suggestive like her query itself. However, in addition, she receives a few harsh rebukes for talking on the group channel in the first place (lines 09, 13, 17). While only a few members openly chastise her, fifteen group members respond simply by leaving the session. Hardly a sociable environment. A couple of other interesting responses are the self-chastising by HF (line 07) and the dissent by MM (line 20) that AB's query constitutes an unwelcome intrusion. It's probably safer not to say anything to your group at all.

In fact, when one joins a new group in Second Life, one is often warned not to use the group chat channel, for example:

"***PLEASE NO OPEN CHAT IN THE GROUP***"
or

"Please do not use open group chat. Especially to get on there and say something stupid like "Want to play". Everyone that is against spam, please e-mail the Lindens support and ask that they make us able to disable open group chat within the groups. If it were possible, I would have done it already. Anyone using open chat will be kicked from the group from this point on. Thank you. :)"

or an exception

"Can somebody help me? Yes they can... Welcome to SL! Welcome to Help Me!, this group is to chit chat as much as you like, nobody is to be accused of SPAM here lol."

So why is using group chat in Second Life considered such a crime? Why aren't Second Lifers using group chat to stay in touch with their online families like players in other MMOs?

I believe the answer is simply a matter of poor user interface design. In Second Life, IM messages (personal and group messages alike) are displayed in an IM window which the player can open, close and tab through (see screenshot, upper left). However, all IMs are ALSO plastered across the player's field of view in a transparent text box over which players have no control (see screenshot, lower left). They cannot turn it off, minimize it nor filter it. Therefore all IM messages are highly intrusive for the player. To make matters worse, the system publicly reports whenever a group member leaves a group IM session, which contributes to the flood of messages across the player's field of view. Finally, there is also a very noticeable audio alert for all members whenever someone starts a new group session. So receiving IMs that are personally directed to you are disruptive enough to your gameplay experience, but IMs and system messages broadcast to an entire group are just a nuisance. (As far as I can tell, there is no way to change these features to minimize disruption.) Consequently the shared practice is to avoid using group IM channels for personal questions or frivolous comments, but to reserve it for more official group announcements (although there is a separate feature specifically for group announcements).

In contrast, in most MMOs, the user interfaces handle messages differently. Guild chat messages are contained in a chat box that can be resized and sometimes collapsed. Players can often set up tabs and filters in order to hide their guild chat when they don't want to be distracted. In addition, while one-to-one messages, or "tells," usually trigger an audio alert, broadcast messages do not. As a result of this UI design, guild chat and other types of broadcast chat can be easily ignored. The design principle here appears to be: messages that are directly addressed to the recipient should be more noticeable than those that are not.

To fix this, the above player suggests adding a feature to "Disable open group chat" all together. Instead, I would suggest simply adding the following features (as defaults):

Hide on-screen IM
Disable IM alerts for Group IM
Disable "member left session" alerts

Post by Bob

Posted by at 09:06 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack