I still think out current chat is too confusing for new people, so far we have:
- Private message
- Global chat
- Ally Chat
- Crew chat
Staff also have
- Staff chat
- Spy chat
Im already wary this is too confusing for new players, they usually understand global & msg off the bat, everyone can reply to them there too, crew chat takes some learning.
Now our chat plugin does have channels, I have previously in the past mentioned wanting to have channels such as:
- Trade channel
- Event channel
- Help channel
- 1 to 1 channel for staff & helping a single player out
The problem is, what would happen is exactly what you just said, friends would not use them correctly.
This is why we have Discord and Teamspeak, whats nice about teamspeak is you can event overlay in game with http://www.overwolf.com/teamspeak/