Alternative Chat Channels

[grg0r]

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@codecat @sephirothx @flok Do you guys like the idea of having alternative chat servers?

The idea:

• allowing starter access players to write to the chat
• open source chat server (I can write it)
• public standard server and if someone like to use it, he can setup a privat server
• servers can be set in the settings
• player from non offical servers will be marked as "unofficial" in some way.

[codecat]

~~Allowing starter access is definitely out of the question~~, but I think some kind of global chat could be a cool addition to the plugin. (Edit: Starter access players can chat now!)

To accomplish this, the biggest thing to solve would be figuring out how the UI for this would look, so that it doesn't get in the user's way doesn't impose additional unnecessary resource usage.

Something that comes to mind immediately is the chat in most MMO games. The only difference being that these generally don't have to appear on giant full screen menus.

The backend is relatively easy to do since a bunch of those problems were solved some time ago already. (Authentication being the big hurdle there)

Once we can come up with a good concept for the design, this could be implemented.