If you have not read the patch notes or tried out the new 3.7 PTU patch, you may not have noticed this new feature.
Within the chat system there has always been the ability to create custom channels, but now you can create custom groups.
What this does is create a persistent list of players that have been invited to a group. It offers a private voice and text channel for us to use as OTG.
I was speaking with one of the devs, Calix, last night about it and the idea is to expand on this more in coming updates.
This is our first hint of the Organization features to come in SC.
So, when this patch goes live I will be creating an OTG group and inviting anyone who logs in and lets me know they want an invitation.
As an added feature, you can also invite an entire party to the group. That means if we have a bunch of OTG on (for the first time in ages) we can have them in multiple parties and do party invites to the group to make it faster and easier to get all of us in the Group channel.
Then you can quickly and easily see who is online from OTG, use that to chat across servers (text only because voice is still proximity based) and communicate in game.
After testing this out last night, I am impressed with what we have already and excited about what is to come in the next few patches.
This sounds similar to the chat system in Everquest, but EQ didn’t offer VOIP. Being able to make custom channels is very nice and something that AcheAge should have done, especially after limiting the size of guilds.
Do you know if the proximity VOIP will be all channels or will private channels assume you’re using radios to chat? Or maybe offer whoever created the channel the option?
The in game chat actually works across servers. So if anything, as long as you get added to the chat channel - the guild can talk to each other. It counts for more than you think even if you’re not playing together.
I spoke with Calix about this in a Discord chat.
He was asking for suggestions to make the chat system better (voice and text).
One of the big complaints was not being able to hand off management of the channel. Right now only the creator can add or remove people.
Another discussion was about range of comms. The idea that was being considered and tossed around was that each suit has a range, say 2km. Then each size of coms unit within a ship would have a range. For instance (made up numbers in the discussion, not by design) a small might go 20km, a medium 200km and a large 2mil km or something on that scale. Relay Com stations would reach out to the edge of the system they are in, and RR stations could extend that if possible depending on location.
This way coms within a system might be possible and also could be interrupted.
Like I said though, this was all spitballs on the whiteboard talk and not at all anything that is locked in as a design.
The point being, they are aware that the limitations right now are not practical and want to do something about it.