I'm going to re-examine DarK's example, but throw a few big monkey wrenches into it - here's what's wrong with it. Sorry DarK - it
isn't as simple as you've made it out to be.
DarK's Buddy List (changed from DarK's example)
EnyTwo
Evr Three
EnyTwo's Buddy List
DarK
Not Here
Really Not Here
WowGone
SomeOne
Step 1. EnyTwo spams their entire buddy list, and everyone on that list gets the message. DarK has EnyTwo on his buddy list, so he receives the message.
Step 2. DarK wants to make a witty reply. However,
DarK cannot reply to the same group that received EnyTwo's message because most of those people aren't on his buddies list. He can either reply to his own buddies, which causes Evr Three (assuming he has DarK on
his buddies list) to receive DarK's reply without having seen the original message, or, DarK can reply directly to EnyTwo only, and none of the other people who received the original message will be in on the discussion.
Not a shining example of elegant and intuitive design.
I will also point out that Alahmnat mentioned above how he had specific experience as a ResEng, and under that system, the "buddy chat" approach fails miserably.
ResEngs do not have the luxury of setting "receive chat only from buddies". If they do that, they won't receive messages from people they don't know, who may be paging them for help. So, they are at the mercy of people who've added them to their BUDDIES and are spamming their buddies. And before anyone suggests it - ResEngs also cannot /ignore persons that do that, however annoying they may be - because those persons might also later page them for help.
The right solution is a chat channel system that is wholly opt-in. Buddy lists can still exist, but only individual names would be selectable, for one-on-one chat. This isn't complicated at all...
and this is how other MMOs do it! I know some people are attached to how buddy lists worked in Uru, but sometimes, you have to realize:
http://site.despair.com/blog/2007/10/18 ... tradition/
The music is reversible, but time is not.