Nothing gives away a world of bots faster than its chat. One party call repeated by six characters, one phrase nobody on a real server would say, and you know you are alone.
So on 29 October we spent a day listening to ours.
Counting first
We recorded an hour of chat and counted how many sentences were different from each other.
- World chat: 94 %. Mostly fine.
- Local chat: 59 %. Not fine. That is what you hear standing in a town or a field, and most of the repeats were the same party call from different residents, with only the quest name swapped. Standing there, it read like a script.
Words nobody used
The Russian side had a different problem: some words were simply wrong. Russian private servers had their own slang, and our residents were using PWI's English terms in Russian letters, which no Russian player ever did. Cultivation was never «культа», it was «уважуха». A Wizard was a «маг», not a «визард». It is a small thing, and a veteran spots it in one line.
The residents now use the slang of the server they live on, checked against a glossary of Russian server slang that I correct from my own years on those servers. A word that is not in it is not taught to them.
What changed
- One call at a time. When several residents want a party for the same thing, one of them asks and the others answer it or wait, instead of five posting the same line.
- No sentence twice. A resident never repeats a sentence in world chat within an hour, or in local or trade chat within half an hour.
- Less swearing. There was a bit too much of it. It is still a game chat, just not a locker room.
- Linked items. When a resident sells something from its bag, it links the item in chat the way you would, so you can click it.
The second recording
Later that morning, mostly before these changes had reached every resident: world chat 96.7 % different, local chat 66.6 %. Better, not done. The target is at least 90 % in world chat, and in local chat no sentence from more than a few residents in an hour.
Coming next, already tested: sellers who say when the item is on the auction or in their catshop, gossip that starts in the faction and sticks to things that really happened (no more "a friend told me you're good" to your face), and residents who can tell you which build they run and what they are saving for, straight from their own gear.
The next recording happens with a person online. Some of the liveliest talk only starts when someone is there to hear it.