Shopping Channels No Longer Global?

[______SecretAgentMan]

I seem to recall a while back that the shopping channels were made global, so that you didn't have to be in a city to use them, right?

Well I've noticed since 13.0 that although you can turn on the shopping channels outside of town, you can't hear globally or be heard globally, but only by the people in your playfield (confirmed in Lush Fields, Galway Shire and Galway Castle).

While in Galway Shire, for example, I was able to only chat with other people in Galway Shire on the OT Shopping 1-50 channel.

At first, I thought it was so quiet because no one was playing, then when I stepped into Rome, my chat box started scrolling rapidly with dozens of shopping channel messages. When I stepped back into Galway Shire, the shopping spam stopped.

[______________Nianna]

Shopping channels in outer regions have never been global. The "global" shopping channel for Omni seems to cover:

Rome Red
Rome Blue
Rome Green
Omni-1 Entertainment
Omni-1 Trade

The one for Clan seems to cover:

Tir
West Athen
Old Athen

[Hamini]

shopping channels stopped being global after beta..

[_______________spydr]

Originally posted by KlngArthur
shopping channels stopped being global after beta..

And started being mostly global (worked except for inside) a few patches ago....

(Do you even play the game?)

[______________reggie]

I'm a clanner and I don't hear the channels when out of the city, altho I have tried "can anyone hear me?" and got answers. They were maybe in the same playfield?

What is strange is when I'm in Athen the channel seems to flow, but when I'm in Newland I hear a few messages, not far from as many as when I'm in Athen.

I understand the need to limit access to these channels a bit, because otherwise they would be too spammed, but quite often conversations break out in these channels (because we don't have any other chat channels) and then it's a little silly knowing that many might hear only what I say and not what the other part of the chat is saying.

"mm... do you really think so?
oh... ok, I didn't realize.
so what your saying is it gives a bonus to MatMet ?
oh ok , I get it.
lol"

(... who is that guy talking to?!)

[_______________Bjond]

They haven't been global since beta. We've pestered Funcom for global chat since then and their response was to add the useless per-zone channels. IIRC, there were a couple of days when there were some chat bugs that permitted broader chat briefly, but there weren't any patches where it could be counted on.

[_______________spydr]

Originally posted by Bjond
They haven't been global since beta.

HELLO?? ANYONE THERE?? Did you even play the game a few patches ago?

The trade channels were virtually global. I should know, I used them when I was far out in the field!

They wern't accesable when inside. Be it a store or a mission, it didn't work inside. It also didn't work in the grid.


/me grumbles about people not paying attention

[______________Krneki]

If anyone wants a definition of global, go check the test server. Now that's global chat.

[______________reggie]

A fully global channel means one that can be heard all over the planet, by players in all 3 factions, clan, neutral and omni.

The trade channels were never global in the wide sense nor within their respective factions (if they were ever global then that must have been before 12.0). They are only being broadcasted to certain playfields. As I clanner I was never able to hear most of the posts in the clan shopping channel when I was in Newland Desert, for example.

Funcom have said that global channels doesn't work because
1) they want to limit communication between players of different factions and 2) they think that the channels would become too spammed.

I don't want neither a global trade channel nor a global chat channel.

We need chat channels that are available only to players within a certain faction, and wherever they are.

And we need several of them.

And FC can remove our access to shopping channels belonging to opposing factions. That is even going against their own statements.