{"id":1722035,"date":"2026-10-17T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pSZ5kCrSja7ToggT9q7t43"},"modified":"2026-10-17T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T17:00:00","slug":"discussion-time-do-you-think-zone-chats-in-mmos-are-forces-for-good-or-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/discussion-time-do-you-think-zone-chats-in-mmos-are-forces-for-good-or-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Discussion time: Do you think zone chats in MMOs are forces for good, or evil?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Terminally Online<\/div>\n
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\"The<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is Terminally Online<\/a>: <\/strong>PC Gamer’s very own MMO column. Every other week, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we’ve all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ah, zone chats in MMOs\u2014trade and general chats, \/shouts and \/yells. Intended as a way to render the social glue that binds these videogames together, they are often instead a tableau for (and I say this somewhat affectionately) absolute lunacy, pock-marked with some of the most vile verbiage you’ll see online.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the time-honoured tradition of “Barrens Chat” in World of Warcraft. Combine a big zone that spans around 10-15 levels along with proximity to a major city, and you get a certain kind of verbal hooliganry that, in my journeys through WoW: Forever, I was actually pretty nostalgic for.<\/p>\n

I mean, sure, the Chuck Norris jokes have gotten a smidge old. But while collecting Zhevra Hoofs, I would find myself possessed to ask Barrens Chat philosophical questions, and while I never received much in the way of wisdom, responses were always entertaining. <\/p>\n

I’m not so fond of trade chat, though, which\u2014at least on the horde side of things\u2014has mostly been dominated by a bot by the name of Margrave Tyrael<\/a>. Who, I kid you not, was literally sitting there for days spitting out the same automated messages, questioning why Blizzard was deleting beta characters.<\/p>\n

I fell for it, at first. Then I started trying to warn people not to fall for it. It didn’t work.<\/p>\n

Things are no less cursed in my other MMO of choice, Final Fantasy 14. I shan’t repeat some of the obscenity I’ve seen in Ul’dah here, but it does always stagger me that the same kind of infectious absurdity can persist, particularly in a videogame whose moderators are altogether far more heavy-handed with banning folks for ill behaviour.<\/p>\n

Which leads me to my question, dear reader: Zone chats. Are they a force for good, or ill?<\/p>\n

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