Obviously there would be the downside. "Trump 2024" would pop up quite a lot, and there would be a place for trolls to practice their craft. They would have to deal with abuse and all the other downsides of human connection.
As long as they have someone to monitor the chat / process reports from chat / review transcripts of chats in every world at all times, this wouldn't happen for long because the trolls could be IP banned. Discussing politics in the game is verboten (forbidden). See the
Terms and Conditions, article 12.3, item 5:
As User, you will refrain from any action that endangers or disrupts the operation and functionality of the Games and the successful collaboration with other users.
In particular, you are prohibited from [...]
- using, placing or publishing discriminatory content (e.g. hate speeches against groups of persons, in particular based on race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status or sexual orientation), or content that is political, immoral, pornographic, morally reprehensible, offensive, violent, glorifies violence, sexist, right-wing or left-wing or that violates laws, in particular child protection laws and the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors; or linking to corresponding material on a third party website or advertising, offering for sale or otherwise promote offending products contravening the law, in particular child protection laws;
(emphasis added)
So, it might be a problem of logistics not just in server space and coding time and whatnot, but also in hiring live moderators for every language in which the game is available who are somewhat knowledgeable in the political arena of the country which they would be responsible for monitoring as well as the general global political atmosphere. After all, you wouldn't want someone banned for using the word "trump" when they were asking "Don't 2-star archers trump 1-star blossom mages usually? or did I just get a bad dice roll with the rng?"
The issue of VPNs might also be a reason that they haven't turned on a global chat option. Someone posts something in violation of 12.3.5; they get a warning, a temp ban, and a notice that the next time will result in an IP ban; they decide to turn on their VPN and create another account after clearing their cache and cookies. If you pay for your VPN, you can have a viable IP in multiple countries.
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I'm picturing pretty much any successful chat design that has been around over twenty years (aol, yahoo, facebook, etc) and just be a matter of incorporating it into the game.
In referencing turn-of-the-century Yahoo chat, do you mean the situation where you pre-selected a room based on the content of the discussion therein (by its label)? So, like, if I wanted battle advice for beginner players, I would go to Chat > Battle > General > Beginner ? ("General" because I imagine there would be options like "General: for discussions not specific to either the Spire or Tourney [but can include them]", "Spire", and "Tourney" since some players would want advice on world map battling and not just the skewering that comes with Spire/Tourney battling.)
I like that idea. But I'm not sure how it meshes with your idea of having multiple chats open, unless it's something you could pre-select so that you could toggle it.
One can have multiple conversation threads. Anyone could opt out of being part of a thread they were invited to join and OP can kick someone out of thread/group as needed. User controls to opt out from receiving invites or invites out of world.
If you could toggle, would it erase the content of the chat you were in when you toggled? For example, if I'm in FS chat and someone in my FS has a question suited to Battle for Beginners chat but they don't have an invite but I do so I type "brb", toggle to the BfB chat and ask the OP to extend an invite - or, more likely, post the question since if I'm considering sending them there, I don't know the answer - when I toggle back to give my fellow an answer, would the chat window in this scenario erase the prior conversations (the first as I move into BfB chat, the second as I move back into FS chat), or would it simply have a line in my chat window like
<< You have left [FS] chat >>
<< You have entered [BfB] chat >>
*convo*
<< You have left [BfB] chat >>
<< You have entered [FS] chat >>
so I could scroll back up and reference it to make sure there was no misunderstanding?
Also, would there be something added to the panel in the upper left of the player's city screen that would function to allow users to find chats the way you can search for fellowships? I mean, obviously some folks are going to leave theirs to just open join the way that some FS are done.
And in the case of open join, in the event that the room creator is inactive for any period, the reports of any activity in violation of the Terms and Conditions would be sent to the
game moderators, yes? Some websites require the creators of an area to be responsible for its content and will not, under virtually any circumstances, step in to remove content that violates their own Terms of Service. To me, such policies invite abuse that can quickly spiral out of control. I wouldn't want Inno to institute a policy like that.