As I write this, I know many people will say it’s a horrid idea, and I’m going to suggest it anyhow. With all the chat abuse that goes on in public, I feel it’s time to change how the chat system works. Here’s my plan:
From now on, when you type in chat, only your friends will be able to see it. If you want everybody to see it you need to use Menu chat (and that’s the ONLY option regardless of membership, age, etc).
If you’re on the person’s friend’s list, you can use the text Chat option and they’ll see it just fine
If you’re a True Friend with that person, then you can use the Open Chat option.
Why do this? Because if you’re somebody’s friend, you’re likely to allow a greater flexibility in word choice. You can still report them, but you’d be able to see more of what they say and this would stop people from using a lot of the bad chatting that we KNOW goes on. What else does this do? ELIMINATE bad chatters from being able to thrive. Since KI only programs certain phrases, it’s guaranteed to be the best filter for public chatting there is! I saw a screen shot of a few players talking about bedroom talk by getting around the filters. What’s worse is I understood everything they were saying. The person who took the screen shot reported them all, but if it was Menu Chat only in public, that would NEVER have happened
Im sorry, but the abusers are making this a much needed option.
If this option were introduced, we should be able to reset what age our characters are (once only). I KNOW KI has said they can't do it, but they USED to be able to do it, which makes me believe it is still possible. Since changing the age wouldnt affect public chatting anymore, I feel we should be able to ONE TIME reset the age of the account. Think about it, who would it affect? Only the small number of people on your friends list and not the millions of players in the game who USED to be subjected to public chat harassment/adult talk.
There's no point in this. Allowing age changes is basically saying, "Go ahead and lie" and defeats the purpose of age limits. You already have the ability to ignore anyone you choose to. You can also close the chat window and turn off balloons. There's absolutely no reason to have draconion measures like this. It would make it completely impossible to team up or do battles with anyone who isn't a friend. It's a horrible idea.
I really don't like it. If you see someone abusing chat, Report them, and then Ignore them. Maybe even change Realms. There is a reason you have to be 13+ to have Text Chat. If someone abuses Text Chat, they get muted. That simple. Your idea basically says, those who abuse Text Chat ruin it for the 85% of Wizards that don't abuse it.
Short answer: No. Long answer: Nooooooooooo. Seriously, text chat is more or less a necessity. Basically, if your friends list is full you can never play with randoms again unless you delete your friends.
Ya know. I love this idea I really do. If this happened I would not have to listen to so much, but I could like to add something to this being that if such a thing was done, I think text chatters and open chatters should have much more available menu chat options to communicate well.But there is a HUGE problem I see with this idea which would make it a huge issue. Players would end up having to end so many people to talk to them. I think that if King isle does this, they should also allow group chatters to talk. There could also be the following issues: 1. People spamming friend requests 2. The fun crowd element of chatting could go down seriously. Sometimes its fun when larges groups of people are talking. 3. People lots of people would have their defenses up to add someone more because all sorts of bad people would try to add them. 4. Sometimes someone may wanna speak to someone but not add them.
Not trying to hate but I think you're taking it a little too far. If they are talking like that you don't need to listen in on them, and you yourself can report them if you think what they're saying is wrong. if you do that then it wouldn't be fair to those who are respecting the rules. Also, if you take it away then teammates can't communicate to each other or discuss a plan or even chat while battling. It's called an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game for a reason.
I think (not really sure) you can just block those texts by going into the settings, you can correct me if i'm wrong.
Actually, I like this idea. Your reasons are very good to begin with, but there are more reasons it would be nice.
A lot of bullying goes on, particularly in the Commons, and some people just can't walk away even though they should. It could potentially put a stop to a lot of that.
However one downfall I could see to this is the lack of community involvement of preventing abuse. You take that same person who can't walk away from bullying who becomes friends with someone who is one of these bullies. Let's say it's an 8 year old kid who doesn't have the courage to report this person, but doesn't want to unfriend them neither. They need someone to stand up for them, which means we all need the visibility to see what's going on.
I know people can bully through private chat too, but most are brazen enough to do it in public because they're mostly just doing it under the belief that they're impressing someone, especially their friends that are all gathered around with them participating in it.
I do really like the idea otherwise though. There are a lot of conversations that happen in the Commons (I normally stay away, but fishing takes me there these days... need the Cranky Catfish to be more common so I don't have to go back anymore) that I'd rather not see.
This is not a good idea in my opinion. I have open chat. I dont think I should be punished to use text chat with friends and ONLY be able to use open chat with true friends. Just because someone abuses open chat.
I think it should stay the same. If you bypass filters you get reported/muted or hall monitor deals with it.
Usually only places i see these kinds of words is in the PvP arena(s) or in the wizard city dye shop
Interesting idea, but what I really want to see are players being able to use numbers. I just don't get why the option is blocked. Can't used things like second or twenty and you can't use numerals. It's just weird. People have found ways around the problem but still, I'm wondering what is the point of blocking them. Is there concern that people may start giving out their phone numbers?
Interesting idea, but what I really want to see are players being able to use numbers. I just don't get why the option is blocked. Can't used things like second or twenty and you can't use numerals. It's just weird. People have found ways around the problem but still, I'm wondering what is the point of blocking them. Is there concern that people may start giving out their phone numbers?
People might give out phone numbers, ages, addresses, zip codes, credit card numbers, etc. Tara
As I write this, I know many people will say it’s a horrid idea, and I’m going to suggest it anyhow. With all the chat abuse that goes on in public, I feel it’s time to change how the chat system works. Here’s my plan:
From now on, when you type in chat, only your friends will be able to see it. If you want everybody to see it you need to use Menu chat (and that’s the ONLY option regardless of membership, age, etc).
If you’re on the person’s friend’s list, you can use the text Chat option and they’ll see it just fine
If you’re a True Friend with that person, then you can use the Open Chat option.
Why do this? Because if you’re somebody’s friend, you’re likely to allow a greater flexibility in word choice. You can still report them, but you’d be able to see more of what they say and this would stop people from using a lot of the bad chatting that we KNOW goes on. What else does this do? ELIMINATE bad chatters from being able to thrive. Since KI only programs certain phrases, it’s guaranteed to be the best filter for public chatting there is! I saw a screen shot of a few players talking about bedroom talk by getting around the filters. What’s worse is I understood everything they were saying. The person who took the screen shot reported them all, but if it was Menu Chat only in public, that would NEVER have happened
Im sorry, but the abusers are making this a much needed option.
If this option were introduced, we should be able to reset what age our characters are (once only). I KNOW KI has said they can't do it, but they USED to be able to do it, which makes me believe it is still possible. Since changing the age wouldnt affect public chatting anymore, I feel we should be able to ONE TIME reset the age of the account. Think about it, who would it affect? Only the small number of people on your friends list and not the millions of players in the game who USED to be subjected to public chat harassment/adult talk.
Well I think this is a good idea, because there are trolls and people don't want to hear them. But i think you should be able to turn this mode on and off.
Interesting idea, but what I really want to see are players being able to use numbers. I just don't get why the option is blocked. Can't used things like second or twenty and you can't use numerals. It's just weird. People have found ways around the problem but still, I'm wondering what is the point of blocking them. Is there concern that people may start giving out their phone numbers?
Yes, it is a concern that children might give away personal information, like their phone number or address. Really, some don't know better, and this is supposed to be a family friendly and family safe game, so no numbers. I know, it's tough, but yeah, no numbers.
When there are problems, there are different levels of solutions:
Bad solutions make you bend over backward to get a simple reward that isn't worth it.
Mediocre solutions make you waste time and irritate you, but you can make it work.
Good solutions address the problem without requiring you to do very much at all.
Excellent solutionseliminate the problems so that you never know they existed.
So with that said... Dayerider, way to think out of the box! I can tell that what you're aiming for is something at the excellent level, that actually undercuts the social problems we experience in Wizard101 to the level of making them non-problems. At the same time, what you have suggested introduces a many challenges, and I am reading the discussion with interest.
I agree with you, menu chat makes a good standard compared to the current chat. Menu chat is standard and clean, and although you can't say everything you need to be able to say (yet), it is pretty thorough. The alternative, text chat, is a bomb that repeatedly detonates every single day, hurting feelings, hurting the KI brand, and hurting revenues. You don't even have to sit in commons very long before you see someone bypassing the swear filter or bullying someone. PvP chatting is a nightmare and has caused many parents to deactivate their accounts. These points raise serious questions about whether people can be trusted to play nice on the Wizard101 platform. I also like your "True friends" option, which could be age-locked.
Here's the biggest issue I see: chat limitations amplify the annoying things people do. People who communicate in ways that we find annoying will become even more annoying because you will only learn about their agenda after adding them. Specifically,
"need a boy"/"need a girl"
gift-begging (ie "do you have crowns?")
There are also YouTubers making help videos who like to self-narrate with their avatars.
Lots of bugs to work out with this, but the core idea is worth thinking about.
I personally don't really like this idea, just because talking to people on Wizard101 is something I like to do alot when I'm not doing quests or PvP. Yes, people getting around the filters is a huge problem and I find it all really annoying. But, you can easily report them or ignore them. I don't really want to be punished just because other players cannot follow the rules. Alot of my friends in real life don't play this game, so I like making online friends and this would take away that ability.
I think it would be an excellent idea, but then chatting would go down by a lot. I agree with you on some parts, but you have to look at the cons with the pros.
Melissa Daydreamer, Level 51 