Roll20 chat room?

ps. not posted in suggestions as i'm not really suggesting this feature get implemented but merely advertising my hack version In the interests of cutting down on threads and essentially boosting the community aspect of the site has there ever been any plans to implement a chat room style feature for the site? I can think of several good reasons why not but it would be interesting to have them officially outlined. In the meantime I have set up a campaign that can be used as a sort of chat room... it's very basic right now but naturally it can be whatever people who use it want it to be. I'd be more than happy to send out the link to any of the more active members of this forum to begin with and if it takes off then it could be a handy place to get those little but annoying questions answered quickly without having to waste everyones time with a 3 post thread: How do I do this? Like that... Thanks! And so on. So what'dya think roll20ers... wanna get together to discuss the topics of the day or at least make fun of them?

Hi Ziechael. There use to be a live chat room a few years ago but it was shut down due to abuse from the members. There was lots of pirated material being linked back and forth while there was cyber bullies hanging out and chasing people away. There was not enough mods or devs to handle it and there is still not enough of us to monitor a public chat room like it needs to be done so personally, I don't see that happening any time soon. There are several clubs that uses their campaigns to chat and setup one shots or impromptu games. You will have to look around on the LFG to see if you can find them. They usually have a few hundred members or more and list many different systems. The forums are here for those 3 post questions and other questions. It is a community driven forum and it is not annoying to have 15 people asking the same or similar question and give the same answer as those 15 people are probably new and need help. Most questions asked here are answered as soon as possible by us mods, very talented and helpful site members, and the devs. There are a few questions that require more time to answer but that is because of the complexity of the question, the need for more information, or the need to research the answer first.

I like the idea of a chat room as a community thing even if it's unofficial. Personally I'd be in favour of something like IRC, can more easily hang around in there and it would be easy enough to throw a web client up somewhere to make it easily accessible. Actually connecting to and sitting in a 'game' just feels like a lot of overhead for chat room functionality. However, I'm easy going so I'll use whatever is available :).

The nice thing about having the questions asked on the forums as opposed to a chat room or privately elsewhere is that other folk can read the answers also. I've learned a lot by reading threads where others have asked and answered questions.

All very valid points, and as i stated in my OP i expected there to be several reasons against... although i have to admit i had totally overlooked the value of those entry level questions being documented and searchable, and i have to admit i like the easy questions because even I can help answer them ;) In the meantime i'll be looking for those 'clubs' it would be great to have like minded people to chat with. I totally get the mod thing too Pat, i'm a mod on another gaming site (football/soccer, not VTT) and i know how it can be lol. Thanks for the opinions, was just putting feelers out there :)

No problem. Glad I could give you some of the answers to your questions. Personally, as a member not a mod, I would enjoy a chat room. I hang in one all night long while at work already on another site (won't mention it due to competing game site), chatting with people dropping in. I just don't see an official roll20 chat room coming into being anytime soon. As a mod you said it yourself that you know how it goes and what the demands are. Good luck on those clubs.

Thanks for the official line on it Pat, if i get enough interest from the members of the community i've had most interaction with... and those i've seen to be most active in the forums i'll create the roll20 super user club ;)

The Gm Academy has Monday night sessions using Teamspeak. Just a bunch of GMs jawing about how they do things, problems they have run into, sometimes little demos of various features, sometimes bitching about players in their games. The moderators have a very light hand on keeping things rolling and on topic.