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  • grriffinn
    grriffinn Member Posts: 134 ✭✭✭
    100 Comments Second Anniversary 25 Likes 5 Answers

    Yeah… no. A chat function was something that Online had for its lobby and in-game matches and it was genuinely awful, the latter just so toxic that the developers had to remove it and replace it with canned phrases.

  • Cricketplayer10
    Cricketplayer10 Member Posts: 29 ✭✭
    10 Comments First Anniversary 5 Agrees 5 Likes

    Completely agree with @TheJeffers this is a company with a large proportion of its customer base being children and just imagine the reputation Pokemon were to gain as they are the current "biggest intellectual property in the world", and people found out that children were being harmed etc. on one of their platforms. It would be catastrophic for TPC/TPCI. Quick chat would be better. For old PTCGO players there was a quick chat but was limited to saying(when playing online with randoms):

    1. Well Played!
    2. You have a good deck
    3. Whew! That was close!
    4. Hello!

    Back on PTCGO I believe there was also a mute button so if someone did spam these quick chats you could mute them for the rest of the game. There is currently no mute button feature in PTCGL when your opponent puts a thumbs up gesture etc. especially when they spam it throughout the game.

    Also you could chat fully when battling with friends which was nice but again you could only chat with people you have on your friends list which was great, but I guess there was/is the scope for accepting requests from randoms but I feel people should be educated enough to only have people on their friends list that they have met in real life or know well. Or if they were playing in an online tournament with randos they could do a 1 time friend battle and then remove that random person from their friends list after the tournament/match.

    Overall, would the game benefit from a chat feature? Yes, but I think it would have to be significantly limited like its predecessor PTCGO to make it anywhere near safe for all its users.

  • GRussek
    GRussek Member Posts: 45
    10 Comments 5 Likes First Answer Name Dropper

    i can see that point. but also it wouldnt be hard to add similar features of only chat with friends list members, options to mute at any time, trigger word censors and all that. i understand they have to protect the younger players and i think adding those walls would stop most of that. yes its a "childrens game" but id be willing to bet that the vast majority of players on the app are adults who grew up with the game and would benefit from in game chat. yes there would be some people who abuse it in some way and talk trash.. thats life lol press the mute button and move on.

  • Cricketplayer10
    Cricketplayer10 Member Posts: 29 ✭✭
    10 Comments First Anniversary 5 Agrees 5 Likes

    @GRussek thats what im saying there is currently no mute button in TCG Live which is absurd. Also the physical TCG attracts many younger players in the junior division. Hence why there is a competitive tier for junior/ younger players. So naturally if a kid is in the competitive scene of the IRL TCG, they are naturally going to want to test and play their decks online for future tournaments. So even by censoring words, children can still be exposed to harmful words/content from older players that they can easily pick up.

    You may be right that alot of adults play the TCGL client, maybe more than children but you have to understand the potential impact adding chat may have on TPCI/TPC as a whole as it is the biggest intellectual property in the world and targets all age ranges across both physical and digital card play.

  • TheJeffers
    TheJeffers Member Posts: 1,413 ✭✭✭✭✭
    500 Agrees 1000 Comments 250 Likes 250 LOLs

    I am honestly surprised that this forum survived the events of last year. When they opened it up to the wider public and it was promoted to the world, in some cases as a Reddit alternative, I was sure the influx of "risqué" and "mature" topics would highlight the potential liability for Pokémon and they would shut it down immediately.

    They did restrict it for a time, and some features never returned. But here we are. They purged the more extreme elements and the forum manages to chug along in a relatively civil manner.

    Nintendo and their partner companies have been very restrictive when it comes to online gaming and spaces in many ways, but in other ways they are oddly permissive. I was surprised things like Miiverse was even allowed. Some compare this forum to Miiverse, so perhaps it is a similar mindset.

    I think its days are numbered. If this forum were to be shut down, I don't think another would replace it.

    My point being, we have seen some examples of what can go wrong with online communication. And in many ways, it can be even worse with one-to-one, private messaging when matched with random people in chat.

    I don't really like the sanitised, soulless void that online gaming has become, where online opponents cannot speak or express themselves in any way, everyone retreats to Discord or group chats and you might as well be playing bots for all the social interaction they give you.

    I met many friends that became IRL friends as randoms online. But that age has all but passed. Unless something changes socially or we develop foolproof ways to protect children while allowing adults open mics, we are not getting open chat in games again for the foreseeable future.