WWWest-Online Development Blog

In any multi-player environment, it stands to reason that talking to each other should play an important role. ‘Talking’ in a computer game can take on many forms – it could be actual real-time conversation (voice chat) using software like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, or with some in-game functionality provided by the devs; or it could be written chat (which is what most games support and provide), or even a more off-line conversation using an in-game mailing system, or even official/unofficial forums.In WWWest Online, we’ll probably have in-game chat. It’s simply not a voice chat kind of game (most, if not all, browser-based games I’ve seen aren’t, while we’re on the subject) – that’s usually reserved for fast-paced games like FPS games, or for activities that require a high degree of coordination, like raids in WoW. But I don’t want to go the other way, either. Most browser-based games I’ve seen either have a chat that opens in another window, or only have forums.

As mentioned before, we believe that talking to the other players, though not the “point” of the game as it were, is still one of the most enjoyable aspects of a multi-player environment. The problem with separate chat windows is that they’re just that – separate. Players should be able to chat to each other while playing the game – they shouldn’t have to flip to another window. So we’ll have a chat pane in the game window itself, though we could probably add an option to open it in a new window if it’s asked for (what do you think? Comment ). If you want to see what that looks like, Kingdom of Loathing is a good example.

Since we think the chat is important, and since it’s rather stand-alone (that is, it doesn’t depend much, if at all, on the game engine and mechanics), that’s one thing that Scopti’s already coding and is almost ready to go. In addition to the actual in-game chat we’re planning on having an in-game mailing system (yes, it’ll probably be called the Pony Express or something like that ) and official forums (with separate forums for alliances, or guilds, or whatever we’ll call them – we’re still undecided on that point).

That’s it for now, though there will be another post on the topic, to tell you a bit about the functionality of it all (chat commands, etc.). As always, your comments are welcome.

Kraz