This is just a brainstorm, something that just came to me. Where the Forum Updates are (or in a similar prominent place), have a live chat stream where all can see (from the main page) and all (forum members) can participate in. No specific topic, just anything goes. Useful for spontaneous conversations, and bringing out more of community. Many times, really useful conversations can arise from that sort of thing that otherwise would never have happened. Obviously the conversations that would arise would essentially be in the context of FPSCR, game creation, the forum topics here.



This is more informal and allows for more spontaneity and hence creativity.



There could also be from time to time, particular topics scheduled (not always, just here and there). For example, a live conversation between the programmers and the other forum-folk to discuss a particular feature. This way there could be group collaborations between designers, programmers, and users - as well just more open two-way feedback.



P.S. A chat feature like this would be more useful for a smaller group such as is present now. Not as much once masses more of people come flooding in after the first public release. But at that time, perhaps the chat could evolve to include topics, selectable from a drop-down menu - to keep each topic more reasonable with the numbers. I think that have such a drop-down chat-topic selection now though would serve more to dilute the value rather than to focus it.

Hmm while I see that this could be potentially interesting/entertaining, I can see it as something which would either be abused by endless 'trolling', or rarely used as you intend.

I'm not sure if you mean it to be at the top of every page, or just the home page, but I think it could just end up as clutter taking up valuable screen space, which if having to constantly refresh could also kill page loading times, which seem to suffer blackouts every now and then as it is!


I'm inclined to think there won't be any focus at all, just another task for the moderators... Could be wrong but my experience of large chat systems usually ends up with 2 to 5 people really sticking to topic, 5 to 10 pointlessly trolling, and usually at least 1 who feels undervalued and the need to add abuse to their heated comments

The only way this sort of system seems to have worked in the past is where the chat is invite only, and I'm thinking that would kindof defy the point of your initial suggestion. Also considering a billion dollar company such as Facebook can't even get their chat reliable, I can't imagine a big group chat on here staying up for very long

I may be too harsh, but that's my take! Sorry!

I see you're not a moderator in this forum. Do you know something about this forum that I don't? What you describe is other forums and sites, not this one (at least from what I can see).



I am aware of how anti-value chat systems can be in ~large~ groups of random members. But with the current number of active people here, and the quality of the posts I see, for this group - while still in beta, I believe it could be a great addition to the site. And yes I did say just on the main page, that is - the page where all the categories are displayed.



The chat would be for forum members who can already post freely, who've already passed through the initial pre-screening probationary phase (or whatever they call it).

No I don't know anything you don't, and I know at the moment I mainly describe other forums, but even over at the other TGC forums there seem to be a few who's comments are less than constructive.


Yeah on the one hand I understand, however on the other hand, if the chat was always on topic it serves little more than the general forum sections, and if off topic then there is the general off topic section, (which I notice is rarely used). Based purely on the fact the current PM system requires a page refresh (for me at least) for it to update it would **imply** a live system would hard to reliably implement and **possibly** distract The Next from other forum work, e.g.: the mobile version, etc.

Sorry I missed that I thought you might mean where the general notice seems to sometimes appear above all pages.

Again I agree with you on concept, but if there was a chat with more than about 10 people involved for people who just want to read a bit of it its a hell of a lot of back-scrolling. Also it's not going to keep useful tips etc., how they are easy to refer back to like they can be in threads.

Basically I understand where your coming from, but I'm not sure the implementation would be very effective, I don't know the stats but there must be a lot of users by now, and I could see it being used as a lazy person's help request channel (hence why I said before it would en up an extra job for the Mod's).

I happy to be proven wrong, and since supply and demand dictates if others see more value than I can then thats fine by me
I'd be happy to use such a system, but as user-base grows as you yourself note it may not be much use when there are too many users, so whether its a viable time investment I don't know. Unless theres a quick way of embedding something like Google Hangouts, so it a case of turning it off and on? I'm not really sure on the technical side.

Yeah that's true, it can't practically store a history. But that's what the threads are for



The idea of chat, the benefit that is not present in threads, is the spontaneity and conversation that can spontaneously develop. A lot more free-flowing creativity comes out in that environment than in a message board environment. The conversation is more real (including during the live scheduled two-way chats between the designers/programmers and users).



In general, if it does end up being "too much" for people (too many/frequent updates to keep up with, etc), then the chat could be "online" only during certain hours (the slow hours when the forum has the fewest users online). But I don't think that would be a huge issue in this forum as it is, though.



As you point out though, adding a chat this late in the game - the question is would the time investment to do so, considering it's probable short-termness, be worthwhile? Hopefully there's some code or a script that they could just drop in there to make that a 'yes'.



But ultimately, I just had the idea and put it out there as a brainstorm.

Well nothing wrong with ideas
We could always have a reloaded Google Plus group or something though, not too sure how groups works on GP, however the group chat seems to be far more reliable than that found on Facebook. So far as forum code goes, I haven't the foggiest idea.

I would be interested to hear some other people's views on your idea though (I'm always a little disappointed when some interesting threads seem overlooked)