Please consider opening cross-faction communication (RPers look here!)

[Nicain]

As long as they don't open it up on any PVP server I don't care what you guys do on blue servers.

[exceedinglyrare]

Definitely think this is a good idea, especially with an opt-in checkbox. Heck, I'd even be fine if just custom emotes could be seen cross-faction. Any harassment that can happen through custom emotes can also happen through /say, so having one but not the other is kind of silly and limiting.

 

With regards to the idea of this bringing along more griefers/harassers, I highly doubt it. People who want to be jerks will be jerks regardless of what options there are for cross-faction communication.

 

The OP outlined a pretty smooth and simple solution that definitely doesn't allow for a lot of griefing. I hope that BioWare takes notice and implements something like this in the future.

[Darby_]

A simple solution to this is to give players the ability to toggle cross-faction communication on and off. If you don't want to hear 12 year olds trash talking, you can just turn it off.

[Zin-Zin]

Custom emotes should be visible to both factions. I'm so effing sick and tired of features being shut off because the PVP crowd can't handle wiping their collective rear ends without getting poop on their hands. Seriously, make it in opt-in feature if you must but for crying out loud, just ban the morons that can't handle not acting like a 4 year old who just dropped his ice cream cone. You can call it the "Grow the Fack Up" clause and add it to the EULA.

[Yuuj]

... Long Post Asking For Stuff

 

This is just another case of people never being satisfied with what they have.

[Kayll]

Have to agree.

 

They should have cross faction chat at least on RP flagged servers, and/or friends list. That's just annoying. Just add a friend request accept feature.

 

The only games I've seen with no cross faction communication are:

- World of Warcraft

 

They only other that came close was Pirates of the Burning Sea, but you could get an ability to cross chat.

 

Every other MMORPG I've played has left it to the mature discretion of the player, rather than restricting it. It's just hard to feel adult when you're not allowed to talk to someone.

 

As for in character lore, the two factions are not at war they've signed a peace treaty.

[Thrun-Zato]

I agree that chat should be open to all. Also, trade should be -- what good smuggler doesn't trade with half of the galaxy?

 

QFS

 

Smuggler's gotta smuggle. How about a faction-neutral node generated by a class-ability that opens a market/trade window when clicked on by second parties? Credits go in. Epics come out!

 

Or scrap the joke of a two faction system and base PvP off of LS/DS while the Grays loot the corpses and sell to the highest bidder.

 

Barring those pipe dreams:

 

Cross-faction chat in it's own (optional and ignorable) channel wouldn't hurt a thing. I don't watch /pvp despite being on a PvP server. Why should it bother anyone to not watch the /rp channel?

 

Griefers on /rp interrupting the three-paragraph-long description of your jawa-sith-cyborg-toenail-fetish-ist? '/ignore' and spread the word. A troll is only as good as the tears you feed it.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Thrun-Zato

[ShinzarDurile]

I support the idea of have Cross faction communication allowed in player-created chat channels. I'd like chat bubbles to be tied to this, but only visible to those in the channel. This type of communication is vital to RP, as well as staying in OOC contacts with guildmates who are on alts that are part of the opposite faction.

[Jorven_Mkoll]

I fully support this thread, and agree with everything said by the OP.

[AJediKnight]

I support the OP big time. In the least, we need chat bubbles viewable by both sides.

[Kaphik]

Use /say, use outside forums, and voice chat programs. No need for BioWare to devote any resources to fixing a non-issue. Yes, I play on a RP server and have already had plenty of cross-faction interactions.

[J-Sheridan]

If the person is on your friends list then the should be able to talk to one another and get a notification your online.

 

Otherwise, no.

 

Too much smacktalk erupts between opposite sides that can freely communicate with one another and its going to be monumentally stupid to have two factions using the same chat system spam for groups.

[Thrage]

Which server has all the roleplayers on it, anyway? I'm on a roleplaying server and haven't seen one yet.

[Darby_]

Lord Adraas, the Progenitor and Trask all have decent roleplay communities. Not sure what it's like on other servers.

 

swtor-rp.com is always a good resource if you're looking for roleplayers.

 

This is just another case of people never being satisfied with what they have.

 

If you think that SWTOR is absolutely perfect then you must be the only one who does. Even Bioware employees no doubt think that there's room for improvement.

[Mightymoog]

I'm also in favor of /emote being cross-factional. It doesn't make much sense it not being.

 

Cross-faction and global (applied to all your characters on that server, to clarify) /friend is also a good idea.

 

Cross-factional player created channels, I can see the age old (out-dated) arguments against them. However on today's internet, if I really wanted to cross-realm, I'd use Ventrilo or Mumble or something.

 

As an aside, cross-faction global channels work perfectly well in EVE. Probably because you can go and pod the heck out of someone that annoys you. Heh. That's almost an argument for cross-faction channels to be put on (RP-)PvP servers only.

[Ganden]

I'm in favour of opening up cross-faction chat completely on all channels. Having it as it is now makes things very difficult.

[Grinstone]

I'm very much in favor of at least being able to create global channels to which you can invite people, regardless of faction (or, in the case of City of Heroes, regardless of server).

[RJMazz]

Yes, but please make it a user preference. I.e. a check-box in the game settings that says something like "Allow cross faction tells" and "Allow joining cross faction custom chat channels." That would be very very cool, and it would ensure that if you didn't want harassment that might come from it, you could opt out.

 

 

 

READ THE QUOTE ABOVE

 

 

THIS BIG PRETTY PHRASE

 

 

 

Options, dude, options!! That's what players like, man! Options! Add them! The more the better!

 

Completely endorsed! No, I'm not trolling, I'm just enthusiastic, leave me be!!

Edited January 1, 2012 by RJMazz

[WarlordThuran]

Absolutely agree!

 

More than anything, the ability to speak with the enemy faction has so far not resulted in any flaming or harassing in my experience so far, but rather instead led to some very interesting roleplaying options, and being able to organise roleplay without having to physically near each other would be a huge boon. It's silly that we can talk to each other in say, but cant whisper, especially when trying to find each other for shady meetings and the like :S

[masterneo]

..At least for Roleplaying servers.

 

Since the conflict between Empire and Republic is an integral element of Star Wars, it makes sense to perpetuate this conflict in roleplay and in character interaction. However, in its current state TOR limits communication between the factions very strictly, only allowing /say and premade listed emotes. This is downright crippling to roleplay between factions and forces us to resort to awkward and unsatisfying workarounds.

 

On the behalf of the large roleplaying community I would kindly ask to enable /emote commands to be visible without faction restrictions. This can already be circumvented by simply typing the emote into /say, but it adds an unnecessary complication. There is no logical reason to keep it disabled that can't be worked around using /say.

 

In addition, many roleplayers have expressed a desire to create custom userchannels that can be accessed by both sides. Out-of-character communication and planning is an important part of roleplay in order to bring players to the same place and facilitate roleplay, lessening the need to rely on completely random encounters and decreasing overall frustration. Many of us have friends playing both sides and would like having an ingame method of being in contact with them to prepare for conflict-based or neutral roleplay. The current limitations force us to communicate outside of the game and cause more harm than benefit.

Userchannels are a discreet enough method that would largely dodge any reason for worrying about harrassment.

 

Cross-faction /tells and friends listing would also improve the game experience for this significant part of the playerbase. Since I understand harrassment and tactics on non-RP PVE and PVP servers can be an issue, I'm only proposing the implementation of these on RP tagged servers. Mail or trading between factions is not necessary for this purpose. My proposition is for purely social roleplaying reasons.

 

For clarification:

I'm not advocating opening public channels like General or Trade. Only private user-made channels that you need to go out of your way to join. This would already limit the scope.

Allowing /Emote would not increase harassment any more than /say does either. It's, however, a core tool in roleplay and having it restricted is damaging more than beneficial.

/Tell harassment could be dodged by requiring both people to be friendslisted before being able to communicate. This way you couldn't send or receive any unsolicited /tells from the opposite side. Both would need to give their consent to the communication that way and people could opt out of it as easily as not doing anything.

 

Please voice your support for opening up these features, and thank you for your time!

 

I was talking to a sith the other day. in /s worked fine he talked back.

[twistedtime]

Many a good moments in Rift when two different factions got into arguements/conversations out in the world. I've been a part of 30v30 arguement that was one of the funniest things to ever happen to me in a mmo.

[sosolidshoe]

This is just another case of people never being satisfied with what they have.

 

Bioware isn't a charitable organisation, they are a business selling a product/service, and we are their customers. That is the extent of the relationship. Gratitude is irrelevant, patience is irrelevant, and as long as objections, complaints, or requests are presented legibly and calmly, then it's our bloody right to be dissatisfied.

[Mirura]

..... Edited February 13, 2018 by Mirura

[Mhora]

I support this for adding /em to the cross faction communication as its about as harmful as /say & adding to ingame private channels to be cross faction, as -your- having to make the effort to join it and can leave it just as easily

 

I also support the idea of opening it up so all communication is cross-faction but get that some people are too bone-headed to use their ignore function if someone says something they dont like & will just bring it up with GM's for no reason so I wouldnt go asking for it.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Mhora

[Jordalx]

I did read it, but there will still be harassment and will then cause more issues that in-game GMs will need to deal with.

 

Besides, if you give it to one server type, there will be uproar from the others that they also want it.

 

I agree with you on emote however, though if they open it up, it needs to be on ALL servers.

 

There will be harassment regardless. Do you people realize there is an ignore function? There is a profanity filter? Evidently not? Have you even played the game? Its a poor excuse is all it is. If someone wants to harass someone from pvp, they can roll a level 1 toon and harass the person, its not that damn hard. Grow a backbone.

 

All for cross faction channels, tells, anything.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Jordalx