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ANYONE else have thoughts on Steam Group Voice Chat vs Discord ?
auto-deleting messages makes sense for a chat (and i think it would be better if history was even shorter, like a week): its not meant to be something like a "self-help forum" or for "technical advice forum"; if a particular chat was about that, then the option to save the data should be when a user clicked an option to save locally a copy of that chat, but not the chat itself.
maybe you are mixing the two concepts, and by doing so adding weight to something that needs to be as light as possible (ie a chat)
i know most social networks (including steam) work like spyware, but what makes discord "special" in that sense?
in my case, i use discord mostly for software support groups (linux) and read about modders (would like to learn how to make mods for games) because its faster to get an answer there (vs waiting in a static forum).
steam forums are meant to preserve discussions and that can be useful for support to try to fix problems (ie finding a step by step "how to", which are rare), but it isnt useful when most discussions are about trivial topics which should better be buried, deleted and forgotten in an ephemerous way (ie a bit like discord; im unsure if discord deletes old messages, but messages do get "buried" under new ones and is a "pain-in-di-as" to look the bs others wrote a day ago). it would be absurd to try to dig previous comments in discord for an old and out of context discussion (so is a bit more impersonal, and therefore safer at least vs other users, rather than vs the owners of the company or those with access to the servers).
Our JoinUsInVR Steam Group is all about making it easy for NEW people to find others to play in VR with the VETERANS. This means {1} we need to keep it easy for new people to join and instantly understand how to participate in the group chat. And {2} make it a place people return to to find players and info from before.
I 100% agree with you that a persistent group chat history like discord does serves no "educate the new people" value like a forum can. I think forums should remain as-is, and the place for that. (especially since moderators can edit it to reflect member usage/voting trends and keep it updated, as our group does in the "Top Games" and the "Best Headsets" VR lists)
A persistent group chat history is not at the top of the above (updated) OP list. But it would help attract return visitors to the group chat. It would allow them to scroll back in talks they had days or weeks ago. This would allow them to find something that they recall discussing, but don't remember the specifics on. Things like a person's user name, a link, or the name of some game they were discussing.
The thing is Discord needs a special account, and is confusing for people new to it. For the longest time I didn't know where the direct 1-to-1 messages landed!
Meanwhile, Steam Group Chat requires no new account and is based within the same chat system everyone knows how to use. So in that way, they are very different.
What's your thoughts on the Steam Group Chat feature wish-list at the top of this thread? - Thanks for chiming in!
* This in turn means that the application has infinite customization potential. Colors, font styles and sizes, formatting, keyboard shortcuts, menu design, everything.
* Furthermore, IRC being an open platform means that your access to the platform is not gated by a single entity. Lose your Discord account and you have to make a new account to get back the functionality. On IRC, you don't have a single account; you simply sign on with a chatting name and then identify with each network/server. If you ever need to make your own network/server, you can.
* IRC can run on a shoestring internet connection. It will even run fine on dial-up. Has very low system requirements.
* And because you can choose your application, this means that you can connect to IRC on pretty much even the oldest of machines.
* While it lacks many quality-of-life features of more recent chat platforms, such as Discord's chat history, these can simply be reimplemented via plug-ins or other implementations. For example, a server could keep a chat log which is a plaintext file that can be accessed by users.
* IRC uses plaintext. There is no specialized formatting necessary to view and chat on IRC. Though, you can add emoji on your own end if you want, and you can encourage others to do so.
* Oh, and since chat logs are plaintext, years worth of chat history is merely a few megabytes in size.
(File transfers, which are a popular feature of IRC, are not technically part of the core IRC standard, but were developed later. But they are a thing in case people want to use them.)
Our steam group (click my name) uses Steam Group Chat because everyone in our Steam group, already has it and knows it.
So what from your list do you think we should work into the wish-list for Steam? For example, what's the most important customization aspect you love in IRC, that should be in steam chat?