Updated 3rd party server chat

The Hammer · Mar 20, 2018

Recently returned and couldnt help notice UOR and the ole outdated and crusty IRC. Ever attempted to check out a different 3rd party chat program besides IRC? I have issues logging into IRC sometimes using Modzilla, I bet it shuns away alot of new players as well when they get adobe flash error. You download it via the link in the IRC link and it still fails. Would it be so hard to switch to DISCORD chat? Moderating discord is really easy, you can prevent people from linking pictures etc..I know UOR is unique from other shards, but not just all UO shards are with discord but i play other online games that use the system. Thought for TOT.. what are your thoughts?

Merlin · Mar 20, 2018

http://uorforum.com/threads/its-2017-uor-should-have-an-official-discord.27429/
http://uorforum.com/threads/admins-what-do-you-think-about-setting-up-a-discord-channel.15019/

wylwrk · Mar 20, 2018

The Hammer said: ↑

Recently returned and couldnt help notice UOR and the ole outdated and crusty IRC. Ever attempted to check out a different 3rd party chat program besides IRC? I have issues logging into IRC sometimes using Modzilla, I bet it shuns away alot of new players as well when they get adobe flash error. You download it via the link in the IRC link and it still fails. Would it be so hard to switch to DISCORD chat? Moderating discord is really easy, you can prevent people from linking pictures etc..I know UOR is unique from other shards, but not just all UO shards are with discord but i play other online games that use the system. Thought for TOT.. what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

start one
manage it yourself

or f off with this subject

Ahirman · Mar 20, 2018

Chris said: ↑

We ran a test last year of this and ultimately decided against it. While the tech is amazing it is more of an application for people to build gaming communities. It is not well designed to build a community around a game. Within a week of testing we had push back from players who were sitting in the discord channels of multiple UO servers and indicated that we could not/should not enforce any moderation on their desire to ask people to come play with them. This was evident for both UO and other games very quickly.

The moderation issues for a moderator of a community of this size would be immense. If you are banned for vulgarity, no problem, just make a new account and rejoin. Unless you restrict new people from accessing the channel for xx amount of time it is hard to stop that. Unlike the hostmasks we have on IRC there is little to no information available to confirm someones identity on Discord.

There are other issues but one of the most concerning is that you do not own your channel. If players make a sufficient fuss about the staff, moderation, or conduct of players in the channel they can go above your heads to Discord themselves and have your channel closed. If the staff is asleep and someone comes in Larping as a Nazi at 4am and we have not developed the auto moderation tools to stop this your channel could be reported and closed by the discord staff. While the chances of something like this happening are very slim we had a similar problem when we tried to do official streaming on twitch. One bad actor took it on himself to mass report every Twitch UO channel (official and private) and this resulted in some being closed permanently (ours) and some of our players being closed for up to 6 months. NO explanation was ever given to the people affected but the general feeling was the channels were mass reported.

Now could our opinion on this change. Possibly. However I have been following servers that endorse discord and I have noticed a clear downward trend in activity once they make the switch. I visited a server the other day with 69 players online, and yet 110 people in discord. I was unable to find a staff member, or really any conversation going on. Most of the people in the channel were off playing other games.

So our official stance on discord is that it is great for guilds or players looking to build a community with their friends to play UO, other games or just hang out. However for the server itself it is not a resource that we need, nor have the time to properly manage. IRC, even with its limitations, serves our needs very well and allows us to communicate with new players who have questions. Our opinion may change in the future, but for the moment we are sticking with IRC.
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The Hammer · Mar 21, 2018

Awesome Ahirman those are some good points, Thanks for that post.

Wylwrk no thanks, I wouldn't want to manage the drama that unfolds time to time in these chats

One · Feb 3, 2023

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Updated 3rd party server chat

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Updated 3rd party server chat

The Hammer Active Member UO:R Subscriber

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