a general chat channel would be nice

[Halivel]

OTOH, why not just use NN? Is there a reason why people gotta leave when they hit 80?

There are few reasons for that:

1. Sprout is a temporal state and you will lose it when meet certain conditions.
2. Before you will return into NN as a Mentor, you will need to have all three roles leveled until 80 one job in each (the easiest thing), have 1000 dungeons cleared (a bit harder) and reach 1500 commendations (the most tricky part). It doesn't sound as anything serious for somebody who plays for 6 years I suppose (though I got only 1800 comms in 5.5 tbh), but for a new player who just yesterday was a sprout it's a way to go. In this period they don't have any "World" chat except /shout in every area separately.
3. At a time only 100 Mentors can be online in NN.
4. There is a thing community seem to forget: Novice Network originally isn't supposed to be a place for chatting about weather in California and that cool wedding ceremony you visited on the weekend. It's a place where people ask questions and get answers for them. But since there is no any other Server-wide chat that doesn't depend on where you are, either is an area on the map or duty, it became... what it is now. A messy can full of drama and irrelevant off-topic while actual questions often tend to stay ignored because you just fail to notice them in that scroll-the-wall mess of text.

[Mihana]

Not that it would stop RMT but that "we can't have nice things because people would ruin it" is not my favorite thing to prevent nice things

My response isn't in the mindset of preventing nice things, that's why I said I was kind of against it. Having it as a channel anyone could easily join would be the problem. I'm not looking for some special exclusivity but maybe a level requirement like you have to reach Level 20 in any given job or progress the story to a certain point in order to access it. To prevent RMT accounts from just using it as their dumping grounds for advertisements. That's the problem a universal chat channel would suffer. And actually the Novice Network isn't meant to be your casual place to chat it up in the first place. In upcoming patches they'll be releasing the "Fellowship" system anyway that will make it easier for wider audiences to communicate to each other. That aside, rejoining the Novice Network really isn't that hard anyway. Mentorship is also possible by leveling one DoL and DoH class to 80. This will still grant you access to the Novice Network and future patches aim to make gathering and crafting even easier.

[Violet_Galaxy]

I forget the name of it now but the noob chat channel was really nice for jokes, questions, hunt announces, and etc. I got booted I guess when I hit L80 and I miss it now. The world seems much smaller.

I'm not against it if you and others want it. Just give me the option to turn that feature off as I like the way chat is now.

[Shougun]

My response isn't in the mindset of preventing nice things, that's why I said I was kind of against it. Having it as a channel anyone could easily join would be the problem. I'm not looking for some special exclusivity but maybe a level requirement like you have to reach Level 20 in any given job or progress the story to a certain point in order to access it. To prevent RMT accounts from just using it as their dumping grounds for advertisements. That's the problem a universal chat channel would suffer. And actually the Novice Network isn't meant to be your casual place to chat it up in the first place. In upcoming patches they'll be releasing the "Fellowship" system anyway that will make it easier for wider audiences to communicate to each other. That aside, rejoining the Novice Network really isn't that hard anyway. Mentorship is also possible by leveling one DoL and DoH class to 80. This will still grant you access to the Novice Network and future patches aim to make gathering and crafting even easier.

I didn't really get that feeling from the post:

If you meet the requirements for Mentor status you can rejoin the Novice Network. But as for a server-wide general chat channel that anyone could join I'm kind of against that... It would be abused by RMT botters to spam their messages. I'm not sure if the Novice Network suffers from this as I generally don't use it.

But I appreciate the clarification, as I must not have got what you were intending- which is why I felt you were saying no on the basis some people will ruin it a bit (RMT), the "no because we can't have nice things" comment came from that.

Also because OP wanted a general chat (title and the fact they wanted jokes and discussion outside of help like hunts) I felt that NN didn't even fully apply to what they were looking for, at least in the sense that a general chat would work better than using NN as a hunt linkshell. So when you suggested to just rejoin the NN I felt both you were saying no and also suggesting to use NN for not something fully intended (not a great evil to put a joke in there but obviously not the core point of the chat).

An aside but Fellowship, to my knowledge, will not have a chat feature. So while it could be useful for OP I don't think it'll apply to the OP's desire of this thread.

So maybe you didn't intend to say purely no but I felt you were (didn't get the vibe of kind of, though you did indeed say "kind of against" lol- I guess I'm just used of people using that wording and meaning "I'm fully against it" XD. My fault to your credit ). But I guess more importantly felt even if op could join a NN that general regional chat would be better for them anyways (has the features they're looking for in the package they're looking for). That and while it's true that RMT would use it that we could also report it and other measures could be put into place including being optional.

Especially if we had it defaulted to off- right? Then you wouldn't be spammed and bothered to turn it off, you'd have to turn it on lol.

[Enla]

So long as there would be methods in place to prevent gil spammers from using it (maybe a three day old account rule since most gil spammers delete their accounts within a day to avoid bans) I'd be for it.

[savageink]

I'm actually thrilled there isn't one. Every other game I've played with general chat is basically a toxic cesspool mixed with spam that I have to dig around in settings to disable. I'm fine with social interaction to be something you can choose by joining an FC or a linkshell or whatever that fellowship thing is that's coming.

[Liam_Harper]

I'd be up for that. I'm sure there are restrictions they could add to it that would prevent bots getting in. Better a restricted general chat than no chat at all.

[Cyreil]

I don't enjoy the shout chat in Uldah at anytime of the day. A general chat or global chat would just make it to where I would see it all the time since I know for a fact it will all move there.

Because people crave attention in the worst possible ways.

[Senn]

You mean like a global chat channel? Sure, I'd be for that. There's a risk of rmt spam, so maybe it should be restricted to level 80 or something. idk That, or there can be a chat restriction that only let's people post every 20-30 seconds, but that might get kind of annoying.

For people who don't want to see global chat, they can have the option to turn it off.

[Fhaerron]

Back in RIFT we also had this 'level' chat system.
So IIRC it was per 10 lvls. 1-10 / 11-20 etc all the way to lvl 41-49 and then lvl 50. Everybody with the correct level was grouped in those chats and you could talk in that chat no matter what zone you were in.

I would love to have a 'general' and/or to have like the 'level' chat we had in RIFT.
Currently I'm in 3 hunt LS and 1 cross world LS which is for the static I am in. And the FC I'm in (FC chat). I have a handfull of people on my FL but 99% of the times I cannot talk with them because either they or I am in a duty and thus locked out of talking.

So, I do not really talk much with people or have the chance to do so. As a result I also don't really have much people I meet or friends with.
Compared to RIFT (vanilla rift played for about 3 years since launch), Guild Wars 2 (about 2 years) and overal much less time spend in those game but I had much more people I talked with and connections. And now that I think back about it that was mainly due to being able to talk with just about anybody in general and level chats and such.
In this game I'm sitting at 4.5K hours in 5 years and a half and just handfull of people on all those years.

I'm hoping fellowships might maybe increase my 'social' stuff in this game but I'm kind of sceptical since all chats and social improvements made over the years haven't really done that much to help.

But so yes I would really love this.


Edit: for the RMT and spamming, that will be an issue but I would love to have other QOL improvements such as, auto remove of "unable to find" names on our black list (bots we will blacklist but those characters get removed sometimes on daily basis) yet it still shows up on our blacklist as that, A right click drop menu when you right click a name with report for spam (and have that name also automatically added to your blacklist).