Obviously MF is a roleplay server, but far different to the rest, it is more of a game, beautifully crafted by players for players. But since it started roleplaying has needed to be fair to work. The most popular are the two main rules. Meta-gaming - By having a character, comes realism (obviously). And meta-gaming will keep it realistic, for example you are messaging your friend on skype saying where you are or your co-ordinates and they come over to you, well that is meta-gaming, your character wouldn't know his/her characters location in game. We do aim to make it not as hardcore roleplaying as that, since things like telling your friend on skype for example where you are is not that bad, and even justifiable as breaking the meta-gaming rule. But seeing someone accidentally gave away there location in the global chat. You went there and killed them. That would be meta-gaming as your CHARACTER would not know this in reality. Power-Gaming - Now I am not entirely sure how roleplay fighting will work in MF but from my experience you would use actions such as /me or /a. For example '/a swings for Ralph' which would appear in chat as "Peter: swings for Ralph" Peter is the player playing, and Ralph is another player. Power gaming would be "Peter: swings his sword at Ralph chopping off his head killing his" Power-gaming would be the fact he did not give Ralph a chance to retaliate, killing him, which is unfair. The fact he swung in the first text gives Ralph a chance to block it for example. In a real Minecraft fight with actually hitting the other player with a sword that doesn't matter. These 2 rules are the most serious offences server wise (not in game like putting a player in jail, that would be something in game through characters, not an actual offence that could get you banned). Another issue is global chat, chats here would be called OOC (Out Of Character) which means anything can be said in this chat and anyone can see it (global chat). Local chat, whisper, shout and action would in IC (In Character) chat channels meaning anything said here would be character based and saying something OOC in here could potentially be meta or power gaming.
Tbh, in my experiences, I dont really like the chat channels that much also it is too tiring to constantly change channels just for you to fit the said chat. Like a Rp channel with 40blocks radius etc.. It'll be better if it is much closer to reality. Like a RP channel should only have a 5-10 block radius which in real life makes it feels like you are talking to the person face to face. And I would also suggest that making the Rp channel as an official chat in the server. The other things mentioned above is a must, the rules and the chat. OOC should also be added and should be a global chat Whisper with only 3 blocks radius Shout with 30 blocks All of this should be used via command; /s for shout etc... Only the rp channel is not since it is the official chat in the server. There is a plugin called Roleplay Chat which can provide this and works perfectly in 1.8 however it'll be better if it is improved, i just dont know if it is a open source
Say 20 for Local chat, like you could hear someones conversation. And yeah I agree, for full roleplay immersion global should be a secondary channel. I agree but we should make our own chat plugin if that is not too much hassle
Almost all our systems are developed by our team. So it would be unlikely we would out source to third party plugins. However, we can always use ideas from other existing plugins and change it to how we need.