Persistent Global Chat Channel

I think a major improvement to the Global Chat system would be to make the channel your character joins more persistent.

Currently, it seems that every single time you change zones your client checks for the lowest load global (and trade I assume?) chat channel to join.

This makes sense for load balancing purposes, but I think it is a bit too aggressive and can be improved drastically by making it more persistent.

I think chat channels should only be load balanced when a player logged in to their selected character instead of every time they change zones.

This would still load balance very well, every time you relog it would check for the chat channels with the lowest load (or whatever the formula is) and put you in that. But then the server should remember what chat channel you are in, and it SHOULD NOT change when you go between loading screens.


The only time chat channels should change is when you log out then log back in. With the current system, it is very difficult to hold a conversation in the chat channels without standing in a single zone until the conversation is over. The above change would make it possible to hold a conversation in Global over as many load screens as you want, allowing you to continue playing while talking with people on Global.

I think it would be a huge improvement for those of us who are social enough to use the chat channels to not drop out of or jump into the middle of conversations with others just because we want to continue playing.

From my own (limited) development experience and what I know about load balancing, this would work just the same, as people would still be load balanced into a chat channel until that channel was full......but it would cut down on frustrations of feeling you have to stay in a specific area if you want to continue talking with the people in the same chat channel as you.


I would like to hear some Dev thoughts on this, is there any specific reason for load balancing the chat channels every time a person hits a load screen rather than when someone logs in/at or is it just how it was designed from the ground up?

Jumping into different conversations, almost randomly, when you change areas is incredibly frustrating. Almost defeats the purpose of having a global channel. A lot of aspects of this game seem to force you to be social, and play in parties, makes it extremely hard to find people to play with if you're talking to a new group of people every 8 sentences.