Hey there,
I've given this some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the gain on our side outweighs the pain on your side for implementing this. (I have not made this decision light-heartedly!)
Basically, I would love user-defined chat channels like they had them in WOW:
Any user could "/join channelName" at any time and leave the channel again with "/part channelName".
This is how it used to behave:
- If the channel did not exist, it would be created when the first user joined
- The channels were global
- The channel would be destroyed as soon as the last denizen left it, not requiring any maintenance server-side.
- The channel names served as unique keys
What I want it for:
- An AddOn control channel:
We could create a channel per add-on, so that we could send data between our users! Of course that would only work if our AddOns could automatically post to a certain chat channel, so another flag would be in order, but still - I could, for example, listen for certain text strings in that channel and have my AddOn react accordingly! It would be like AddOn-specific events!
- Single-purpose channels:
Likeminded individuals could gather up and have conversations about whatever topic sparks their interest without bothering anyone else. Examples:- Trade
- LFG
- Lore discussions outside of /z
- Minority roleplayers staying in touch despite the latest attempt at creating a single-topic RP guild going haywire again
This would be incredibly convenient for us AddOn-devs and take some of the spam load off the zone chats.