There are many diffrent way's to communicate in Everquest. You can shout, tell, and say. There are also several channels that you can speak in. Along with these forms of conversation you can also open chat windows and filter certain types of text into them.
It is essential that everyone get use to how communications works in EQ. During raids and large scale adventures it will be very necissary to filter certain types of conversation into a readbale format so that you do not miss a important announcment.
This guide will cover pretty much every major aspect of communication in EQ and how to adjust the settings. Because this is a extensive guide and there is so much information this guide has been divided into 2 parts.
General Speaking:
There are 3 major types of speaking Out of Character, Shout, and Say. There are also other types of speaking used to target specific groups of people.
'say' is used when you are close to a person and do not want to communicate your message to everyone in the zone. to say something all you have to do is hit enter. This will activate a blinking cursor in the chat window and you can type your message. This message will be heard by anyone in the local vicinity but not in the entire zone.
'/ooc' Out of Character is commonly referred to a ooc. To say something in ooc you have to type the command /ooc with a space and then the text. Example ' /ooc hello all.' Everyone in the zone will receive this message. This is the most common form of public speach.
'/shout' is used only in a important situations. Using shout when it is not necissary can offend alot of people and you will usually hear about it. If you are about to run to a zone and several creatures are chasing you and you want to give a warning then shouting is ok. Do not use it in place of /ooc. Remember shout should only be used when you have to get peoples attention fast.
'/guild' If you are the member of a guild you can use this command to send a message to other members of the guild that are currently online. There is no distance associated with talking in the guild channel. Regardless of the zone the others are in they will receive your message.
'/tell' this is a direct message command. It will send a private message to a single individual. This message cannot be seen by anyone else but you and the individual you send it to. To send a message in tell you must type the command a space then the name. Example '/tell joe hello! '. When somone sends you a tell you can respond to them using the '/r' command. Using this command makes it easier to carry on a conversation with somone without having to type their name everytime. the '/r' command will return a message to the last person that sent you a '/tell' message. In section 2 I will show you how to set up tell windows, this is a new feature in EQ. With tell windows you will not need to use the '/r' command just type your message in the window.
'/g' This command is used to speak in a group. The message is not zone specific so if a member of the group is in another zone they will also get the message. No one outside of your group will see the message.
'/rs' This is the Raid say command. When you are in a raid you can use this command to send a message to everyone that is in your raid. This also is not zone specific, meaning everyone in your raid will receive the message regardless of the zone they are in.
Channels:
Anyone in EQ can set up a special channel to speak in. These are commonly called channels. Only the people that join the channel can receive the messages. To join a channel somone has created you need to type '/join channelname' Now if this channel is password protected you will also need to put in the password this can be done like this '/joinchannelname:password '. Once you have joined the channel you will receive a message in your text window stating how many people are in the channel and it's designation. The designation will look like this channelname=1. So to speak in this channel all you have to do is type '/1' and the text. Example '/1 hello everyone!'. Everyone in this channel will receive the message.
Abuse:
Eventually at some point in time somone will get on your bad side. It happens to all of us eventually. If you want to block all incomming messages from a certain player you can use the '/ignore' command. This is used by typing the command and a space then the characters name '/ignore rudeperson'. Once this is done this person will no longer be able to converse with you in any way.
Talking the Talk:
After a short period of time you will begin to notice there is a whole system of slang in Everquest. A great deal of it is shorthand. This can be very useful when you are in the middle of a fight and don't have time to type a long sentence. Check out the Everquest Terms Glossary to see what these terms mean.
On to Part 2