911 emergency communication: in-game vs discord

[DarkHorizon]

Note: The 911 channel has been moved. It can be accessed by clicking EMERGENCY in the upper right corner of the screen. After going through the disclaimer, you will be sent to our discord where our dispatchers will be present.

 

 

Hi everybody,

 

For those unaware, I head the organization Eyes & Ears - Search And Rescue. Without going into too much detail, we refuel stranded players, pick up the lost, repair people who crashed. All in all, we’re a good guy group of volunteers that just likes to help others out of a tight spot.

 

With 135 documented rescues throughout Alphas 1 - 3, this need has already proven itself, and its a niche we intend to fill in Dual Universe.

 

As a part of our work, we instituted and publicized the use of a ‘911’ emergency channel through the tests chat feature as the primary way of contacting us outside of entering our discord server, knowing a member directly, or asking for help and our members just chancing upon you.

 

While the 911 channel has proven its usefulness over time, there is still room for improvements to be made. While there have been changes that are encouraging and showing NQ is listening to our feedback,  it’s not enough to make us remain within this current system of in-game communication. Here are some of the most significant cons:

 

• The need for online and real-time in-game monitoring (this means a computer or cloud service able to meet the games hardware requirements)
• Limited visibility of new messages
• No identifier for general activity/online status; victims don’t know if there is a rescuer online and vice-versa unless they are communicating
• Having to handle multiple requests can require opening separate private chat channels for each individual.
• Access for all players

 

Moving things over to Discord highlighted some notable benefits:

 

• You don’t need to be in-game to view requests. Dispatchers can respond anywhere at any time, even on mobile.
• New messages are readily apparent and can send notifications to mobile devices and desktops.
• Online indicator readily viewable
• Able to handle multiple emergency requests at a time in automatically created separate channels assigned by a bot
• Quicker assignment delegation
• Active record-keeping / paper trail 

 

On Thursday, I released a meeting agenda and asked for feedback from the rest of the team. Of the feedback I gathered in the past couple of days so far, one problem that was on my mind appeared to be a shared concern.

 

Moving our communication from in-game to Discord would cut off the population that doesn’t have/want to join Discord. Now, this has me in a bit of a puzzle.

 

On the one hand, I’d like to implement a new feature on the organizations website that allows visitors to submit a request and for it to pop up in our server without them ever needing to join. I’ve looked into webhooks for Discord, and it seems like something doable, although I’ll admit to being challenged when it comes to the coding aspect. If you’d like to help me help the community, feel free to PM me here or on Discord (DH #2530).

 

As this is a community thing, what are your thoughts? Should we reign things into Discord, or should we remain in-game and hope for the best? Feel free to share what’s on your mind. I’m eager to hear it.
 

[Ilyndrathyl]

DarkHorizon

 

What an awesome idea and service you provide. Maybe your org should be called 'Thunderbirds" International Rescue after the 1960's puppet show series LoL. Seriously its a great idea and I would love to join and offer the service as a part time participant. I am a member of an org already but this does not detract from that. Maybe you could pm me and let me know if you need members to add to your orgs effectiveness and coverage. 

 

Can you have 2 communication channels? One in discord and one out? The international Aviation distress frequency is 121.5 MHz whilst Military aviation distress is 243.0 MHz maybe 2 channels named 121.5 and 243, one for discord and one for non discord comms. It will be a challenge as the game progresses to work without discord I think. Anyway, I am just spitballing. Good luck and a great idea/service.

[Biglulu]

I'd say the vast majority of gamers use discord. Although having a proper ingame channel to communicate in would be nice, if it takes so much effort that it's not worth it, so be it.

[Deaders]

Hey Dark,

I have some thoughts on making this more accessible and would love to discuss these in more detail with you directly when you have time.

A few are:

• Using a website interface with hooks into discord like you suggested.
• Using a web IRC client as an interface with discord bot that would speak for the victim in your discord and vice versa.
• Or simpler: Using the website as a "catch point" which would then instruct the victim in "who" and "how" to private message the correct person ingame etc.

You know where to find me

[Iorail]

On 8/16/2020 at 12:26 AM, DarkHorizon said:

 

 

Hi everybody,

 

For those unaware, I head the organization Eyes & Ears - Search And Rescue. Without going into too much detail, we refuel stranded players, pick up the lost, repair people who crashed. All in all, we’re a good guy group of volunteers that just likes to help others out of a tight spot.

 

With 135 documented rescues throughout Alphas 1 - 3, this need has already proven itself, and its a niche we intend to fill in Dual Universe.

 

As a part of our work, we instituted and publicized the use of a ‘911’ emergency channel through the tests chat feature as the primary way of contacting us outside of entering our discord server, knowing a member directly, or asking for help and our members just chancing upon you.

 

While the 911 channel has proven its usefulness over time, there is still room for improvements to be made. While there have been changes that are encouraging and showing NQ is listening to our feedback,  it’s not enough to make us remain within this current system of in-game communication. Here are some of the most significant cons:

 

• The need for online and real-time in-game monitoring (this means a computer or cloud service able to meet the games hardware requirements)
• Limited visibility of new messages
• No identifier for general activity/online status; victims don’t know if there is a rescuer online and vice-versa unless they are communicating
• Having to handle multiple requests can require opening separate private chat channels for each individual.
• Access for all players

 

Moving things over to Discord highlighted some notable benefits:

 

• You don’t need to be in-game to view requests. Dispatchers can respond anywhere at any time, even on mobile.
• New messages are readily apparent and can send notifications to mobile devices and desktops.
• Online indicator readily viewable
• Able to handle multiple emergency requests at a time in automatically created separate channels assigned by a bot
• Quicker assignment delegation
• Active record-keeping / paper trail 

 

On Thursday, I released a meeting agenda and asked for feedback from the rest of the team. Of the feedback I gathered in the past couple of days so far, one problem that was on my mind appeared to be a shared concern.

 

Moving our communication from in-game to Discord would cut off the population that doesn’t have/want to join Discord. Now, this has me in a bit of a puzzle.

 

On the one hand, I’d like to implement a new feature on the organizations website that allows visitors to submit a request and for it to pop up in our server without them ever needing to join. I’ve looked into webhooks for Discord, and it seems like something doable, although I’ll admit to being challenged when it comes to the coding aspect. If you’d like to help me help the community, feel free to PM me here or on Discord (DH #2530).

 

As this is a community thing, what are your thoughts? Should we reign things into Discord, or should we remain in-game and hope for the best? Feel free to share what’s on your mind. I’m eager to hear it.
 

I just saw this and I would love to say it’s amazing, great to see people doing great things. I hope you get far and maybe one day, just to say thank you, I will design a rescue ship just for you guys. Good Luck on everything you do in the future.

[Police]

Discord certainly has become the norm. having a channel in there for that seems like it would settle everything. And in a fairly short period of time word of mouth should be sufficient that the bulk of the populace knows it is the "go to"

 

best of luck, praying I dont need you.