Increase the chat range of welcome areas/give private-owned newbie areas that option
Toothless Draegonne
As a new user, the concept of "chat range" is probably entirely alien. This often results in new accounts going way outside the normal 20m range and yammering away with nobody to hear them.
I propose that the normal chat range for linden-owned welcome areas is increased to full region, and that privately-owned welcome areas (FS Social Island for instance) be given the necessary region debug controls to set their own chat ranges. This may improve the new user experience by making things a little more easy, both for the mentors and users alike, to communicate in local chat.
I know this is something that is possible with an event-class region and not all private-owned welcome areas are event-class, but they are providing a service to the platform, and having some extra options should really be given for gratis in return for that.
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Rinaldo Debevec
I agree that there needs to be more options for chat range. This has bugged me for 18 years! LOL really! Having a 20m chat range is too small, at least for us. We have to run prims with chat relay scripts so that we can pull in chat from outside the 20m and 100m range. Ideally, the chat range should be set at the region level, to whatever the owner wants it to be. Now I understand there could be performance issues on some sims if the range is set very high. But our regions are not so busy that it would be a problem. Anyone with a high-usage region can set their chat range at the current 20m/100m limits.
AlettaMondragon Resident
This reminds me at some point I began believing that the shout range was 110m. Originally I was fully aware that it's 100m. And at some point I was corrected when I said 110. And I had to think about it, and how I had shouted at people from 108m and never got a response, and it suddenly made sense.
My point is, the chat range concept is not a problem for new users, the actual limits are not intuitive, though. I wouldn't change how local/nearby chat works, however, because THAT would cause a huge confusion.
Indeed a "local" chat channel in games is usually map-wide, if instanced it would only work within the instance whereas a Zone or Server channel would work through all instances of the same map or everywhere on the same server, respectively. So a newbie here might think "nearby chat", especially when everyone calls it "local", might have a fairly wide coverage, but it is really nearby only.
I think what would really help is a separate "region" channel. Essentially llRegionSay in the viewer. This way we wouldn't have to use scripted objects, often very complex, to make this work, and when parcel settings are set up correctly, this wouldn't interfere with other private parcels either. This means it could have parcel-level controls too, whether region-wide local chat is enabled or disabled on the land, and each user could also select on the Conversations panel whether they want their local chat messages sent to the whole region or nearby range only.
Annie Lit
Actually, I think that is a very dangerous idea (having a full region of chat for new users). Helpers who are at the area won't be able to see who is asking for help and there will be a LOT more chatter as private conversations from far away will be mixed in with local chat of the helper and someone asking for help. I wouldn't mind expanding chat range a bit.. say 30 instead of 20M.. but regionwide would confuse the heck out of new people and clutter nearby chat with far-away conversations unrelated to what is going on near the new resident.
However, as a private region owner, I personally would LOVE to see the ability for private region owners to define default chat range for their region. I dont think region-wide is appropriate for new user areas, but there are many other types of environments where that might be useful... esp. at large clubs and large shopping events.
Toothless Draegonne
Annie Lit
Well another option could be to make all chat on channel 0 region wide everywhere, and allow viewers to filter by range depending on whether it's a whisper, normal, or shouted chat. I'm just erring on the side of less dev time involved, you could say.
Nyx Onyx
Why not give this option to all region owners? Including an option for Estate Managers to allow parcel owners set "parcel wide range". I do think that when you enter a parcel you should in one way or another be notified about the chat range.
Toothless Draegonne
Nyx Onyx Yeah I'd certainly like it, but AFAIK that's only for event regions currently, and I don't see the Lab expanding that out to just any Bob Joe Estate Manager. But you never know.
Just figure that the people who are currently doing the Lab a service might appreciate a freebie tool. I see too many mentors chasing new users around or hoping they know how to use IMs.