Increase effectiveness of the alliance chat

[outer sonnet]

**Lets face it. **
Current alliance chat is probably the most unused tool in the game.
99% unused
50% dont even know about it.

Can we solve this amazing tool though?
Yes!

1. I suggest to relocate the alliance chat below where the coordinates are (this way it becomes so accessible and much more convinient to monitor during normal gameplay).
Redesign it to fit-the-look (more like a chat-box with a small window pop up that always shows the most 3 recent messages) should be able to extend or close fully. This would be the main changes to deal with the second problem.

2. To further improve its effectiveness, the chat could integrate the existing list of online members, which is currently only accessible through the embassy. In the redesigned mini chat box, on thel side it could display members who are currently online (visible only to players with the appropriate alliance permissions).

Additionally, the chat should include a quick feature for sharing coordinates discovered on the map. Whenever a player clicks on a city or an island, next to the coordinates—where the “return” button already exists—there could be a “Share Coordinates” option. Selecting it would instantly send those coordinates to the alliance chat.

A similar mechanism could be implemented for sharing reports. Instead of players copying and sending mass HTML reports, which are often difficult to read, reports could be shared directly in chat with a clickable preview that opens the full report. This would make communication clearer and far more efficient INTERNALLY.

[lost otter]

I think it would be a lot of work to make the alliance chat usable in the first place and even then, most People would likely still prefer Discord or other external chats.

It's not about the positioning or the design, the usability is just not comparable to f.e discord.

Opening multiple chats for better structure, inviting other players from other alliances or even other servers, having all of the discusssions saved for basically eternity and so on and so forth.

Imo. it would be wasted manpower trying to compete with Discord and the likes of it.

[outer sonnet]

It does not need to compete with Discord. The objective should simply be to raise the in-game communication to a higher standard and give the game a more complete, polished experience. At the moment, this feels like a missed opportunity IMO. With the recent updates and server merges, we are now seeing a significant increase in total player numbers across these new worlds.

This could be a small step to introduce a world-chat (server specific) where players could engage, poke each other, recruit players. GAMEFORGE could profit from a PREMIUM feature at lets say 100 ambrosia cost for a large megaphone announcement that would appear on your screen.

[lost otter]

There was a suggestion in the past aswell regarding ingame chat.
Back then I said more or less the same, but a server-chat would imo be a completely different thing where I would be 100% for it.
Because unlike an alliance chat, that would definitely have a usage and smth that differentiates it from f.e discord.

[coral crystal]

The idea itself is not bad, the only problem i see it won't remove discord to be the main chat with players since you with discord get notification to your phone and when you are on the run discord is way more easy to keep you updated than login on the mobile and then open the chat ingame.

a chat for the server your playing on is another story and would love to see it 🙂

[vapid willow]

I believe a server chat would probably escalate quickly and every single one would have to be modarated quite thoroughly. Don't think that will happen

[lost otter]

Like yes, thats proly one of the reasons why we dont have that yet, but then again other games have it aswell and are ika-players rly that much more badly behaving?

[outer sonnet]

Regarding chat escalation, I assume you are referring to the use of inappropriate language. In that case, a censorship filter could certainly be implemented to address it

[vapid willow]

I know several games where such chats have been deactivated for good reason. And yes, I think ikariam players might be just as bad 😄

[small viper]

The chat is bad and no one uses it. A server wide chat would be worse.. especially with temp multis just to start a talk-war and insult people. Moderators cannot even moderate normal messages when they are reported in reasonable time.. this will overwhelm them.

A technical filter/censor is not enough in that case. Those filters only work on word base & blacklists, put a single space or whatever and they will miss, beside, blacklists are short and you would need them for all kinds of spoken languages. You also don't need to use a naughty word to insult someone. People are creative in that matter.

[idle cedar]

Source for those statistics : trust me bro

[stoic glade]

The question remains though how reasonable this is in times of Discord.
Feels like a waste of dev time when every alliance has a Discord anyway.
I am not quite convinced yet.

[chilly kernel]

unfortenatly thers ppl in their 40s and 50s that dont want to come to discord... I have a couple of them in my ally. We all tryed but they dont get tehnology and new stuff their answer is im to old to begin new stuff...

[stoic glade]

Yeah, I get it. I was never a fan of Discord, myself. The truth is: you have to go where the community goes. So whether I liked it or not, Discord became a thing. As a player it's similar. You either go where the community naturally gravitates towards or you end up somewhat alone with the other stubborn ones.
Ikariam is no exception there.

[chilly kernel]

I agree with you 100%. I tryed convincing them but you try dealing with stuborn 50 yearold balkan ppl. 😂

[stoic glade]

My ancestors are romanian and my wife is polish, trust me, i know older balkan ppl well enough, i get you 😉

[fathom needle]

our alliane dont use discord as a whole, we were a few players who did, but 80% of the alliance did not do so, and sure most probaly have discord, skype etc- but even sharing combat reports, we use the send message to alliance, so could even be made so we can share combat reports better/save them

[stoic glade]

Discord is, where the community as a whole gravitated towards. Whether we like it or not.
I am still not convinced putting effort on ingame messaging systems because a handful of stubborn users refuse to use Discord when the vast majority does, is really wise. Same for the suggestion about improving the ingame messaging system.

[idle cedar]

Tips for the stubborn ones : don't use the alliance chat, use an alliance forum section, there you can post picture, and it's somehow some sort of cheap version of discord

clearer than the chat at least

[chilly kernel]

I mean there are some improvements about the messaging system that could be done. Example the accepting of cultures or treatys don't count to the 5 message limitin 5 min?