sevtron

I may not have been quite clear on the optional aspect of which I was trying to get at. I think it should be optional, on the client side of the game. IE, us. And I'd rather not have to resort to taking time from game, to log into the forums, start hunting around the Survivor threads, posting my own, etc, all to find people that I would rather have an in-game chat to talk to. Do you see the problem with that solution? And the thing is, I totally agree with your message; I occasionally have a low tolerance for that kind of chat exchange. It's frustrating, I know. But that's the price I had to pay to also have some really insightful, or interesting, or otherwise rewarding chats, with various people, bandits and survivor alike. I would like to see the chat bar/system be a toggle-able on/off, by the player, so that they have the individual choice as to whether or not they want to participate in chat or not, whenever they want. If you are about to raid a town, and want to up the immersion and get a better situational awareness for safety concerns: Turn chat off for the duration. If you are about to raid a town, and have been having chat off all the while, for immersion, but you want to get on chat really fast to say friendly before entering the town, or you want to give fair warning to others that you'll shoot to kill: Turn on chat to give your message, turn chat off after delivering. The scenarios are endless.

I don't quite understand the calls for removing side chat from everyone, while touting the line of it as immersion breaking, when so many people use vent, teamspeak, and other programs to voice-chat with their crew or in their particular server. Isn't that like saying you won't eat an apple because you hate fruit, but you'll eat an orange because it's not an apple? Also, people have to keep in mind that some players actually prefer text communication to voice. Sure, voice is easier for handling some aspects, but some of us A) don't have microphones, or B) just aren't really that into voice communication in video games. I would love to see side-chat be a setting you could disable or enable client-side. I don't know if that's a legitimate possibility (As I am pretty much a layman when it comes to code programming, and the capabilities of the Arma engine), but I think allowing some players the capability of socializing on an OOC in-game channel is something that can only serve to strengthen the community as a whole. Sure, you will have to wade through some of the dumb clutter-talk to get to some of the more interesting conversations I've seen in-game, but if that's not for you, just turn it off. Let the others have their avenue. But right now, as it stands, I really don't understand the need to silence side chat for anyone, when it is on the same hand totally acceptable to meta-game via outside chat programs / etc. All this will do, in my opinion, is strengthen the positions of those who are well organized via outside sources of the game, while it further removes the capabilities of those who just kind of want to play and enjoy the game only via in-game. If that makes sense. Likewise, I really think the idea of setting up a system of radios or something in-game in a future patch, would be a -really- awesome thing. But at the same time, would that really do much? The people who are organized and speak are already speaking, and it's not even through the game. :) Also, and lastly, before I ramble on any more -- I will really hope that any future communications system (lootable radios, or whatever it may be) will allow for both a distance voice chat, but also the capability of a fill-in "text" voice chat. For those who cannot, or simply do not want to, actually talk. I appreciate all of those who had the mettle to read through this whole little rant that it turned into, lol. Just my two cents on the matter.