The channel system is actually handled by a seperate server process from the rest of EQ, so if anything it is reducing the load on the servers. The number of channels a player is on is somewhat irrelevant to bandwidth usage, the limit of 10 is somewhat arbitrary.
A far more serious issue is the number of people on a given channel. If there are 100 people on a channel, every message typed gets sent to 100 people...that adds up fast. The channel-server can easily support thousands per channel, but we currently have it configured to only allow 150 players/channel. If you get more than that on a channel, then the text tends to be scrolling by so fast from people spamming that there isn't much point to it anyways.
I've noticed a highly requested feature is the ability to list all the channels. The reason we do not allow this is it would create a situation where there were lots of very full channels, which would have bandwidth implications. There is a ;listall command already that does this, but it is currently a GM only feature. We are considering allowing a GM to mark certain channels as 'public' such that they would appear to ordinary players on a ;listall command. These would generally be gm-moderated channels for newbie help and things like that.
The channel-server supports other functionality that we currently don't have turned on (like cross-world channels), but we want to wait a few weeks and see what the bandwidth implications are once everybody gets accustomed to using them before we determine how much we can/should open up the system.
We do pay attention to the message boards and your ideas do not fall on deaf ears.
Jeff Petersen
Programmer/SOE
New Chat Channels
With the advent of the new chat channels, several sources are attempting to start up universal channels that would be uniform to all the servers. Seemed like a good idea to me, so I figured I would post up the ones that have been suggested. Feel free to add other suggestions in the comments. I have a feeling that eventually there will be a series of 24 hour unofficial channels going.
The ones I have seen suggested so far are:
/join Tradeskills -- When you want to buy tradeskill made items, swap supplies, or check a current price or recipe.
/join Auction -- When you are looking to buy or sell items, this channel theoretically can give you access to players in every zone. Also a place to go for a price check. You will still have to go to the buyer or seller though, so it would be prudent to be near a portal where you can move through Nexus, or have a friendly wizard or druid handy.
/join Guild -- Guild leaders looking to recruit members and players looking for a guild to join can duke it out for members on a single channel.
/join OOC -- A suggested universal OOC chat channel you can join when you are soloing, in some downtime and looking for some way to keep entertained without playing gems.
/join Roleplay -- A suggested universal roleplay channel.
/join Help -- The thought on this is that experienced players can monitor this channel and answer questions by newbies and those with less experience.
/join port -- join here to look for a wizard or druid willing to port you.
