Hadn’t caught this before, but I ran across the chat interface thread in the answered questions section (by Mats Persson):
-There will be no global chat or channel.
-There will be guild-chat channels, once you have the appropriate “collective conscious”-upgrade for your guild-stone. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, as every other third-party communication-program will give you the same.
-There will be messaging (like sending a message to your friend to arrange a meeting) by sending a pigeon, but the pigeon will have a delay, making it worthless in battle or when quick communication is needed.
-There will be /whisper/tell to people nearby. But /whispers/tells may be overheard by people with good hearing skill or lip-reading skill.
He goes on to say that the pigeons are not actually in-game as this could be taken advantage of by sending messages to enemies or etc.
Also in the same thread, a bit about MO and appealing to the niche market by requiring a bit of intelligence on the part of the player:
I’m afraid you’ve got this wrong. MO has never been intended for the casual market. We’re targeting a niche area in the MMORPG genre that we feel is empty. Not because it hasn’t been successful, but because it simply hasn’t been explored or exploited since early UO. It’s a hardcore area, but not necessarily because it’s violent or promotes full loot – it’s hardcore because it demands something from you as a player. Some like the idea of a hardcore game because it would allow for more roleplay. Some like it because its.. more difficult, and therefore more rewarding. Some like it because they feel it’s more immersive. Other think it’s more mature, or that it will attract more mature players. I personally hope for all of the above.
If this leaves little room for the casual players, I couldn’t care less. There are a hundred other games for them. But you’re right, if we counted on even 1/10th of the number of WoW’s player base, of course we wouldn’t “make it”. But we don’t. We don’t even count on 1/100th of it. We make a game we feel is missing on the market, and I’m very happy to see that this forum proves we’re not alone in thinking so. And who knows, maybe the increasing number of carbon-copy casual MMO games out there have actually helped, by nurturing a small but increasing number of players that want something else?