If you really want to get people out into the world...

[Dormie]

Let players enable Trade chat outside of major cities. Trade is half the reason I don't want to leave Shrine. People that don't want it in the world can leave the channel. Being out in some zones it can feel too much like your playing a single player game, this would help that IMO.

[Feali]

I was just thinking about this. It would also solve the issue of faction hubs because players can hangout where they want to.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Actually...that's not a bad idea, though it'd defeat the whole point of having cities as the center's of trade in the world.

I prefer MoP's prototype, where services such as class and profession training, VP and Conquest vendors, etc, were spread out across the world away from the Shrines and placed into various areas, requiring people to get out and go there. On Moon Guard, there are 50 different people at the Conquest vendors on Serpent's Spine at any given time. Only the essential services, such as portals, were kept at the capitals. I'd prefer to see WoD expand upon that idea.

[Zorperior]

Oh god. Remember back in the day, I think it was still classic, that Trade, or LookingForGroup was a global channel? Dear god it was insane. Imagine Mal'ganis with a global chat. /shudder

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Oh god. Remember back in the day, I think it was still classic, that Trade, or LookingForGroup was a global channel? Dear god it was insane. Imagine Mal'ganis with a global chat. /shudder

This. Look at Divnity: Original Sin. They just turned off the game's Global Chat this morning because of all the hostility.

[Dormie]

Maybe it shouldn't be global trade but at least a global channel. If anything this might free up trade for it's actual purpose.

[Seefer]

Let players enable Trade chat outside of major cities. Trade is half the reason I don't want to leave Shrine. People that don't want it in the world can leave the channel. Being out in some zones it can feel too much like your playing a single player game, this would help that IMO.

So you are saying spread the toxicity that is trade trolls all over the place? No thanks, I remember when LFG channel was global in Vanilla it was horrid.

[Zorperior]

Maybe it shouldn't be global trade but at least a global channel. If anything this might free up trade for it's actual purpose.

You know you can create your own channels and people can join them right?
Problem is, people are too lazy to do that.

[sweepdeepsPL]

You know what would be an even better idea? Not have zone wide chat channels, and only have the /yell and /say commands be able to transmit specific distances, like 30 yards and 60 yards. That would make trade in a major city a little more interesting.

[Deleted]

I like this idea. However, it would still take a long while to remove the very heavily ingrained habits of people staying within their capital cities.

[Dormie]

So you are saying spread the toxicity that is trade trolls all over the place? No thanks, I remember when LFG channel was global in Vanilla it was horrid.

Don't like it leave. It may relieve the spam in Trade and make the open world feel more populated. It was never that bad, maybe at times. But never any worse than Trade is now.

You know you can create your own channels and people can join them right?
Problem is, people are too lazy to do that.

That's pretty shortsighted. It's not easy to get people to join and stay in those channels.

- - - Updated - - -

I like this idea. However, it would still take a long while to remove the very heavily ingrained habits of people staying within their capital cities.

That's literally the only thing keeping me in the city. Every time I log on I'm sitting on the border of Shrine not wanting to leave cause it instantly gets too quiet. Same sort of feeling I get when I play GTA single player or Skyrim for a while, it's fun but it starts to feel lonely.

[OneSent]

This is something I've also thought about and it seems like it would be very easy to implement. Most people stay in the capital cities because Trade chat is where all the PuG groups are formed, items are sold, and just general banter happens.

Of course, the one main problem with having everyone outside of a major city capable of accessing Trade chat is that it would cause even more spam and nonsense to clutter it. The simple and obvious solution to that would be to limit the ability to talk in Trade chat to the capital cities only, while still allowing players from anywhere in the game world to read it.

That eliminates the possibility of excessive spam, yet solves the problem with people feeling obligated to sit in a major city just to see what groups are forming and who's selling what. The ability to whisper someone from Trade chat would obviously work as it does now.

[Zorperior]

If people don't want to stay in those channels, then the channels didn't serve a purpose to begin with, causing them to leave.
So you want Blizzard to force a channel on people, that they are then required to leave, simply because a select few want this channel, that they can already make themselves, without dragging down resources and time from Blizzard so they can work on other stuff.

[ComputerNerd]

We had it once, it was horrible.
People are not out in the world because it isn't appealing.
The scope of the chat has nothing to do with it, only being a convenient source of interaction or entertainment which is replacing doing something else in the world.

[Myrwyss]

So you want to have Thunderfury spam on global scale? no thank you.

[Tock20]

You really want people out in the world? Shut off the servers! jk. I think this could be good at bad, as stated above by basically everyone

[Potsu]

LFG used to be global in vanilla and that turned sour real fast. It basically turns into a handful of people making a ton of noise all day.

[Daetur]

We've had global channels in the past, and it didn't go well. They were full of even more worthless spam that Trade is now, and moved too fast to be of any use.

However, my major incentive for staying in a city right now is absolutely Trade Chat.

Some possible alternate solutions to just world-wide global chat:

Option 1: Extend Trade Chat to the major city or hub in each zone, such as Karabor, Goldshire, Booty Bay, etc.

Option 2: Make Trade Chat viewable at all times at any location, but not able to be posted in unless in a major city, like the current Trade Forwarder addon. This way, people can still watch for sales and forming groups, but it doesn't allow for the sort of white noise of the fully Global channel.

[Seefer]

Don't like it leave. It may relieve the spam in Trade and make the open world feel more populated. It was never that bad, maybe at times. But never any worse than Trade is now.

Exactly how in the blue hell would it relieve the spam in trade, it multiplies the people in the channel! The only thing that saved LFG channel from being completely horrible in Vanilla was people actually had to care about their actions, now people don't especially with everything being cross server!

[SinAscendant]

There's an addon called TradeForwarder that does this. Doesn't let you reply, ofc, but 99% of the time there's nothing worth replying to anyway