SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:

In a chatroom, isn't the vast majority of dialogue spoken in quick sentences and phrases, much like actual, real-world dialogue? It's meant to be a conversation area, not a forum for meaningful treatises (that's what forums are for!)

Sometimes what you have to say will go on longer than normal. That does happen, and users shouldn't be slapped across the face when it does.

Besides, a chat room that limits itself to only clipped dialogue is likely to have no meaningful dialogue at all.

In fact, the above quoted paragraph feels a bit too lengthy for a chatroom, and it still didn't break 200 characters...

It was a pretty short paragraph, but what if for example you wanted to tell a quick story about something that happened to you? Something like that would be fairly annoying broken up over many lines, yet could easily surpass the limit. I've had that happen often and seen it happen to others. This also comes up a lot more if the discussion turns technical.

The bottom line is, I've seen low limits in action and they get annoying wicked fast. There's no excuse for them because long-line spam goes way, way beyond this. Better to give players freedom of expression within much more reasonable limits than draw the line too close. Spam of that sort never comes near that low a limit.

Lummox JR

SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:

Lummox JR wrote:

Sometimes what you have to say will go on longer than normal. That does happen, and users shouldn't be slapped across the face when it does.

I guess room does have to be made for the occasional lengthy output, but I believe these are more an exception than the norm...

They are indeed, but they're hardly rare. Besides, there's no point being draconian on the limits if spam is going to vastly surpass them.

Besides, a chat room that limits itself to only clipped dialogue is likely to have no meaningful dialogue at all.

I'd argue that chatrooms really aren't meant for meaningful dialogue, just casual conversation (at least, public chat of the sort that goes on in a BYOND game via the ubiquitous "OOC" command; not necessarily in a dedicated chatroom program)

I guess it all depends on what sort of IQ level you're hoping to foster there. If you limit it to text-messaging lengths, you're going to be disappointed by the quality of chat. Anything technical, or just plain detailed, is cut off by a low limit. This also encourages users to type newlines constantly, like how in some cases you see someone putting every few words on a new line. So in attempting to control spam too rigidly you can very easily end up creating a more pervasive problem with unintentional spam.

Lummox JR

I'm just going to add that a message length limit should be about equal to a moderately large paragraph:

200 characters:

ec ecccfcbdfe d edebbabcbaa bbafb feedceebdf aadabfccabbcfacffaecafbdfdcdcfeecdafaff b cafabcac fbbaef efffff bfd efcdebbaaadc fcef dbeb f edcf dbafaed eeedd ebabda fccbefbcccafc aadba cfdac dfce fef

300 characters:

ecd ecfdedacedd afbeeabdfbfdfaccfabcffbde a ffbaba feedbf fe db dba affddde aefb b d b dfddfcebdeafde dfe fbbbabeeba ffefdb affbfddedafbaeaeffacccdeed accfcccdfccfbacf faf fadceb fbaccf d bfeda dffdbddeecbab bcabae eefdfdacadcf efbee ccceadad adfcaf ecafaafbdf fcacdd dccb dd de fbccddf decbacbcf

600 characters:

fcd f efee ecfeeeaf ffedbbfe dffcf cefe a baba dbd fabcfdeaabceadb cbaff edfbcdabdbccbcbbfe eeaef cedbeacfdfdbcfdbacd edc fcdacbdccbecccfdcedace faebdbdf aec be ab d dbcace edce d eaeceebbcccaffecee abefcbafabd cadffccecaeaafaeeeafc cbc cfafcbeb bf bebabcfebefccffd ac dee ebbbadab e babbcbbeafccc abffafcfbe deadcea edadaecbcebd fbabacfadfe ffeeeff b c fafdacf bcbcefde c feae fcaaafedbddeaec fdbdfcbdfbfc bccb eeef b daabb cbbbda bcffaeedbfceedfbeae fbeebcacef cee cfcbeaedbbd feeaeeafcef c fda a ca dcafdaaaebafaaedfbefeecbddddf c afcceefafafacedcc aebbdcafbcafca edfadb b e fccc deee

...

Since you see plenty of paragraphs that are about larger than 300 but smaller than 600, I'm going to say 600 probably IS a good limit.

I dont know. I know there is a limit to key/email. Maybe if BYOND didn't allow a lot of those "10 minute email" adresses, it'd slow it down, at the least. Though a determined troll would still do it none-the-less, the more trouble they have to go through the faster they eventually go away.

Of course, spam blockers are definitely the best way to go.

There is an extremely easy way for Byond to handle this if Byond wanted and a simplified version a game dev can employ, though knowledge of it negates its effectiveness

Educated discussion is discouraged from your games? Nice to know so I can avoid them in the future.

Well, in any RPG (which is all I play), some levels of role play is required. Thus, it wouldn't be "chit chat" but rather fulfilling the definition of the game.
Also, the reason online games are played over single-player games is due in part to the community. If, what you refer to as "chit chat" is discouraged, how would that community flourish?

I have several things on the back burner, you don't know about most of them, so shut up. There are a few projects where the main goal is for a role playing atmospheres. But when you get right down to it, there are very few people who really role play anymore.

Hedge's game is a good example of a fine online game that was a great place for role playing, the whole game was pretty much centered around it. Regardless of how good I thought it was, it had very little attention besides a few hardcore role players in the community.

World of Warcraft has several servers all set up, two different kinds are designed for role playing. Yet you still get idiots with names like "CuppyCakes" and "TacoBell". You will find people who absolutely refuse to role play.

Even when I hosted normal D20 role playing games, I only had a few die hard role players, and they would usually drop out half way through any campaigns I designed, because everyone else was acted like idiots.

I never ever indented for the public world channels I designed in my last game for BYOND to be designed for role playing or idle chatting. It was for people who needed to find a quick group or had a question or something. If people wanted to hold conversations, they could do it privately in "say" or "tell", without any limitations and without clogging up the world chat screen.

I know I am not the only person here, who doesn't want to see a bunch of role playing on the screen when I am no where near the location or involved in it. If I wanted to watch their little act, then I would have found the location they were role playing in and watched them.

Fortunately I have been getting smarter about how I handle in game chat as a whole and have been designing newer versions of my games with chat options that are like a normal chat room with multiple channels you can shut off or turn on as well as make your own channels.

A variant on this is to increase the limit for older players who play by the rules. So very new players might have a draconian 300 cap. After a week, it gets raised to 600. After a month, it lets you go to 1200. Newer players who show promise might be given a bigger cap, etc.