May Contain Nuts

Chat is, quite frankly, a nightmare.

MMOs are an odd mix of traditional online communication methods (IMs and chat channels) with an attempt to enable players to communicate with others (usually via text) in a way that mimics that of the real world. The only problem is that, by and large, these two forms of communication are based on entirely different architectures, so to speak. In the real world, you only communicate with those in your immediate vicinity, unless you happen to have a cell phone on-hand, in which case you can also communicate one-on-one (or maybe a 3-way call) with someone else in a completely separate area.

In MMOs, communication tends to be global, or at least, far broader in scope than the “immediate vicinity” range of traditional real-world communication. I think the biggest reason for that is the reliance on text-based communication, which has no tangible fall-off range like vocal communication does. The only problem is that this communication method, while it works well in the abstract realm of the Internets, becomes too fluid and expansive when applied to a simulated world with physical boundaries. It’d be like being able to converse with the entire downtown population of a major city on your cell phone. Doesn’t really work.

So really, what’s needed are two separate chat systems… one to simulate conversation in the real world, and the other to replicate existing IM behaviors as found in clients like AIM and such. The challenge is implementing them in a way that is seamless, understandable, and user-friendly. I think the chat system as devised for Uru is part-way there, but I want to take it a step farther…

One of the nice thing about Uru’s chat system is that it automatically limits chat to a certain range once the Age population reaches a certain limit. The problem is that there is no visible indicator of this chat range, be it a boundary line in the game itself or an indicator beside the names of those in your buddy list who can “hear” you. Because my goal is to create an environment in Phoenix that has no load time between areas of the game, an “Age Players” equivalent would basically be the shard’s online population. Obviously, this doesn’t work. What I’d like to do instead is a more extreme version of Uru’s chat range system, where not only does your message only get broadcast to those in range, you only see those who are in range of your message listed in the “local” section of your buddy list. This list would only display players who are within, say, 50 to 100 meters of your position, and only they would be able to receive your public chat messages. This would likely result in the creation of “pockets” of chat, where a small group of players would gather to discuss something, and across the street, say, another group could gather to discuss something else, without interfering with each other’s chats, because that’s how it works in the real world.

In addition to this dynamic public chat system, there would also be a more traditional IM chat format, which would enable communication with players on totally opposite sides of the game world. Most IMs would be one-to-one chats, and could be easily tabbed beside or beneath the “public” chat, for easy access. These private chats would display in the same space as the public chat, replacing its contents much like a tabbed IM window would on a computer’s chat client. In addition, group chats could be initiated and named by the chat group’s creator, and also placed in the chat’s tab list, perhaps with a distinctive icon to delineate it from P2P chats.

The real challenge, though, comes in voice chat, because there just isn’t a way to properly and realistically simulate its effects in an online world. A large group of people conversing in a room like Bevin’s community room would create considerable echo and ambient sound, even if the specific voices were indistinguishable. However, once your voice reaches the edge of the broadcast envelope, it vanishes, and goes nowhere. Hopefully, Live will fix the sudden cut-off and replace it with a more gradual fall-off curve, but the total loss of voice over distance is still a considerable problem for creating believable ambience in group situations.

Additionally, voice chat should be possible over a phone-like service to other players in other regions of the game, even if only on a one-to-one basis (although small-group chat would be very nice for group-based quest situations requiring real-time rapid collaboration). I’ve not even begun to consider the necessary UI requirements for such a system, but it’d be nice…

Anyhoo, just some ramblings inspired by a few posts on the Uru Live forums and a chancing across a more recent re-design of my KI impersonator today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 3:06 am and is filed under Computing, Game Development, Phoenix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.