Idea - A Chat Room would be nice!

[KingdomheartsXIII]

To the players of the Pokemon TCG and whomever this concerns,

I joined this website a few months ago to pursue my trading conquest. Now, I want to play the game.

When I played the TCG irl, the match was usually between me and myself. There was no one to play against and local hobby stores are extremely far away. I did some research and found Redshark and just yesterday, playTCG.

How many of you have tried to find a match and was instead trapped in the eternal abyss of "No Reply"? I certainly have. I know that a forum serves the same purpose as a chat room but this is absolutely ridiculous. The lack of an IM system makes it difficult for everyone to try and find a match. Another interesting nuisance I also found was that Hamachi Networks are rarely vacant or are just simply full. If you try to create a network, it takes several days for people to actually join only to find that you are in a different time zone than they are.

I was a Yugioh TCG player and have used YVD (Yugioh Virtual Desktop). Just like Redshark, the gameplay is manual with a bit more detail and ease of use such as implemented card images and hotkeys. They also have a built in and updated list of currently banned/limited cards which I, to this day, do not even understand how " format rotation" works in the Pokemon TCG. But that wasn't really my point. My point is that YVD has a chat room.

Over 100 people visit YVD chat daily and finding a duel was relatively easy. A simple "Advance Format-Duel Me!" on main chat can gather several challengers in a matter of seconds, whereas Redshark requires a minimum of 30 minutes (exaggeration? I think not!) to find a match on the unresponsive forum threads.

I know I'm not a veteran to this site and I know that I'm probably ignoring some complications, but please, it would be a great advancement if this idea is taken into account and into action.

Sincerely,
A frustrated but willing member

 

[jumpluff82]

It would need constant moderation, but I'm in full support for this. It would be awesome just to hop on and get a game going really quickly. RedShark seems kinda "clunky" because of the need to download Hamachi, and an official chatroom would be a great addition to the site.

 

[bulbasnore]

Used to be on the old Pojo ladder chat. What a pit. Sure, there were people on 24x7, but surprisingly, most didn't want to play (Apprentice). They were busy trying out their vocabulary words and playing tricks on newbs. Oh, the mods were there 24x7, too, but weren't that useful for keeping people from being abusive/dumb.

Not saying some kind of "let's get a game now" system wouldn't be possible, but chat is likely not it, for lack of people power and the high cost to benefit ratio (effort not $, free chat is well, free).

 

[KingdomheartsXIII]

bulbasnore, I completely agree with you about the abuse/trolling. While chat does require maximum effort to maintain, there still must be some sort of... official system that allows easy collaboration. A chat would be great but even just a simple pair-up program would be good too. Pokemon Online, being a chat, utilizes pair-ups that encourages people to battle rather than talk. Even without a chat, I think that sort of system would work and be quite convenient at the same time.