Chat range extension beyond 20m

[Don Smith]

Hello All!

I have asked Ilan about what it would take to increase the 20m chat range. He wants to know how much this idea is wanted by the community. I would like to ask you all to place your thoughts, comments, and discussions about the idea of Having server changes to increase the base chat range beyond 20m. How far is desired? Do you want or not want it changed and why?
Examples of pro's and con's:
Pro's for change: 1) At some events people are spread out further then 20m, 2) This 20m limited range is also an issue for live performers.
Con's against change: 1) Some scripts only check for the current 20m range and may need to have changes done. 2) You may not feel it needs to be changed.

PLEASE reply to this post and include as many pro's and con's as possible!

Thank You!
Don Smith
< I am strongly in favor of increasing it from 20m to 30m+ >

[Ravyn Stormchyld]

I personally think this would be a great idea, I know in the club when i was DJing i had no choice but to stand on the dance floor to talk to poeple as the DJ booth was just out of range. I could see where this could be a big issue for live performers and such. It would also make a great change to the way we can RP as well on the sims.

[Caribia Zsun]

Yep I think this would be good to have

[Freda Frostbite]

Yes, absolutely. 20 m is not far enough for chat range for any sort of performance. The performers themselves are usually streamed, but they *need* to be able to "hear" what the audience is saying to them. It really makes a difference in a performance to be able to interact with the audience. 20 m. is too restrictive. It is workable for spoken word events sometimes, rarely for live music, and never for live theater.

[Dot Matrix]

Here's another vote for an extension to 30 m.

[Selby Evans]

I vote in favor of extension also.

[Ada Radius]

I vote in favor of extension too. Though Avatar Repertory Theater has dealt with the restrictions successfully for years now, after much testing, in the way we construct our theaters. Shallower, with the backstage actors able to get within 20m of audience, and keeping audience seating close. Vivox Talk starts to fall off at about 20 meters and is gone by 30 meters (with the default viewer settings), so we have to take that into consideration as well. The smaller stage also makes it easier for video recording of the live shows - less panning to the actor speaking. We prefer it now - a more intimate live theater experience.

I vote in favor of extension also.

[Freda Frostbite]

Personally, I wish this were an option that could be set on our land pages or from the control page on Kitely website. I would like to be able to make some areas have 50 m or more of chat range and keep others to 10. I imagine this would be a complicated matter, but have to ask-- is it possible?

[Graham Mills]

I agree with Freda (and Don) that 30 m would be good, e.g. in a lecture hall, but sometimes you would want to revert to 20 m to reduce chat overlap between groups. Having the option to flip between the two on the web control panel would be awesome.

[Kurtis Anatine]

Hi everyone! I'm going to be that one guy who thinks its not a good idea haha but I have reasons!

This is mainly from a scripters perspective but changing away from set standards can cause a lot of things to not work how they are supposed to. I mean I'm not saying it will be Armageddon if we give everyone an extra 10 meters of chat distance, but more if you change out of the standard funky things can happen if people don't account for it (which you don't most of the time by the way!). I've always seen changing anything from the back end as a last resort when it comes to large deployments like opensim/kitely.

With that I will do the arbitrary "if in doubt lsl/ossl it out!" spiel. This can totally be done with a script pretty easy. Be it in a HUD to extend only your messages or in an extender system for a dance floor or something else. This would give you the same ability without having to edit the viewer itself to toggle range or editing the simulator to force the chat range to be larger. More than happy to make these available for everyone too I've already shown Don a very basic dance floor relay that I'm going to make into something more and I can modify it and make a super neat HUD that can do the same thing for individuals as well

But that's my input! The abridged version would be "we can totally do this with a script please don't touch the servers!".