[Jazuela]

I think an analogy previously brought up can be extended.

Mud + OOC chat in client = tabletop RPG
Mud + OOC chat somewhere other than client = live action RPG

When you're playing live action, you're wearing your costume, you're carrying your fake bludgeon of doom, you're holding the polished runestone of death and descruction, and you're not reaching into the fridge for a beer while the kobold swarm is descending.

It's also a psychological seperation between OOC and IC. Just knowing that the game HAS chat channels and I'm not a part of them, causes a blip in my enjoyment level, because I know that these chats are in game. I -know- this. I -know- that it's likely that everyone who isn't responding, is too busy chatting over the chat channel to bother playing their role.

When the chat is done outside the game, I have absolutely no way of knowing what the players are doing. I could assume they're on one of a dozen different chat clients or IMs. I could assume they're writing up their character report. I could assume they're taking the dog for a walk, or making supper, or picking up their toddler who just fell. But the psychological connection will have that divider. I won't know. I won't be *given* the assumption, by the game, that they're all in the game's chat. I won't be given that assumption, because that game doesn't HAVE a chat. I can then freely continue in my ignorance, not really knowing a damned thing about what people are doing when they suddenly ignore a scene.

As Threshold said, he's encountered hundreds of customers who enjoy their chats outside the game, and he even has in-game chats. So he's proven to himself, that people are gonna do that anyway. It doesn't matter if there's in-game chat. People who want to chat outside the game, will. No amount of in-game option is going to change that.