Universal Orb needs to be removed

@Chris new players need access to universal chat. The game has a high learning curve so they need a place to ask questions and get replies . Most people joining dont even know what an universal orb is or that a universal chat even exists . If orb removal is not an option at least create a new player chat accessible to all players but especially to new players joining the game , so they can ask their questions and get answers .

 

I have a better idea for chat all together IMO.

 

I would agree with @Elrond in this regard.
While I understand that our game needs a steady income in order to continue to exist and grow, the $2 charged for the orb won't make that much of a difference in the end - and new players certainly need the means by which to ask questions in game.
Most of them, like Elrond said, have no idea that it even exists and when they do, will probably get the feeling immediately that they are going to be "nickle and dime'd" to death by having to shell out 2 bucks just to ask ingame questions.

 

The small price is the defense against any possible scripted spam attack of account creation and global spam messages.

A comparison is email spam where there is no cost to send a message.

 

There are mods now who can silence anyone trying to spam ...

 

I vote 'nay' to the idea.

Why should we need to go get a third party mod to block spam when the game solves that problem for us already with a simple, very low cost, solution.

Its not as if the orb is difficult to obtain. The store is quite visible. If its unclear to newbs where to find it, then perhaps it could be clarified in a starter quest more.

 

Up until today had no idea universal orb was still a thing . I met a new player tried to help him..1 question to another turned into a 2h marathon him asking questions about the game..me answering . The questions were mainly basic stuff like where can i get some arrows or how to add skill to deck or how to train skills or just situation where he was stuck.... at end i reccomended him to ask in uni chat if he has more issues and he was like whats uni chat ... Looked for an orb in the ingame store to buy him one there were none..looked on store site and they were non tradeable.

I think us as veterans we take many things for granted and dont really understand how hard the game can be in the beginning and how important it is for new players to understand ingame concepts as easy and fast possible...less frustration for them means they get to enjoy the game ..higher player retention .

Like i said in the main post if orb removal is not an option an welcome chat for all new and old players is a must . The game can protect itself against spam ..features that have been added already ..lots of ingame players on different timezones have mod powers and can silence any spammers...a second feature could be a 30 ..60 sec timer before you can post again on new player chat .

First impressions matter most ...interacting with other players easily is extremely important especially in the begining of the game ... without this interaction they are born in a dead world ...and their next natural question is.... is this game dead ? ... we dont need to cut em off from the rest of the world .

 

just make a noob chat =) like in other games! and give the Universal Orb for free if u buy anything or sub to the game

 

That might be better, although as long as they can ask question somewhere I think the problem will be solved.

 

Totally agree with Elrond on this.
Open Universal chat to everyone or start a New Player chat.
i’ve had some players come back in the last few weeks and they have no idea what the universal Orb was or that we even had a Universal and Trade chat.
both returning players had the universal orb in their rewards but didn’t know what it was for.
As for new players, I met 1 the other day who had been stuck in Solace Bridge outskirts for 2 weeks asking all the other newbies to help as he couldn’t ask on universal chat and didn’t know about the orb, cotos, or even the webstore. Elrond is correct in saying this game has a big learning curve, even after playing everyday for 4 years I’m still learning stuff and new players need access to ask questions easily.
Not have to join a discord channel and hope someone is watching the questions flow in.

 

I second this idea. Newbie chat is a feature that has worked well since the age of text MUDs.

 

Agreed - locking chat behind a paywall isn’t NUE friendly - perhaps something similar to network TV / censored chat would work?
- make a new channel available to all:
- 1 message per X seconds limit or some other flood limits
- censorship filter always on despite Options menu

.. ..
Etc etc
.. ..

 

adding a tutorial about the chat window would be helpful as well. given how short the tutorial is and how easy it is to miss the center screen messages, I'd be surprised if even 1% of new players would discover universal chat even if they had the orb.

get rid of the orb and give everyone the ability to ignore someone in universal chats and set some server side limit that if someone is ignored by XX users, they get a 24 hour ban from uni/trade/etc until catnip can review. community moderators are great. But, they need breaks too.

 

Agree with Elrond. Always felt the chat orb was a silly idea as it doesn’t prevent spam imo. It’s just another barrier to drive new players away from the game.

 

I think the noob channel is a great idea. Or call it the Hospitaler channel.

 

No matter what you call it it will still be open for spam if it's free.

Added: How long has the pay orb been out? Hasn't been a problem in the past but now that someone took a few minutes to talk to someone about the game it needs to go free? There were Hospitalers set up for a reason, to help new people. People hang out in starter zones to help people. This game was built on a community that helps people, now you only want to help people over universal chat rather than in person? That way no one is bothered having to leave their PoT?

 

As I started I used the zone and local chat.
Isn't this enough, I asked myself, as the Universal chat came in. Well, now we also have a trader chat ...

What I think is: all those "chatwindows" are very confusing especially for newbies.
May be a good idea to drop the "zone chat"?
Or is there a special reason to have it furthermore?

YES, it seems to be a very good idea to have a Hospitaler chat.
And if so, please set it DEFAULT for new players and Hospitaler flagged players
May be also a good idea to place a Hospitaler (help) button on the top right icon bar to open the Hospitaler chat?

So we could keep the Universal Chat for advanced players who want to have and use it for a very low fee ...

 

Add this Orb to the beginner tutorial quest as a reward. Problem solved.

 

in the old MUD i used to play in - the "Universal Chat" was called the Avatar channel . It was used by players who had graduated from newbie status.

 

The orb should at least be tradeable, then we could hand them out to new players if we wished. I have two for some reason..