Is there server wide chat available in guild wars?

I'm new to the game, is there anyway to communicate server wide? like a global chat or something? thanks

Yea, but not available to you.

Hows that???

there is no global chat available in GW. it would be totally unusable anyway even if it exists.

The closest thing would be to join an active alliance and talk in alliance chat. Max 10 guilds, max 100 people per guild, only problem is alliances like that are pve, and when you get that many sensitive pvers in the same chat channel things become very very emotional and neurotic; too touchy for my tastes. If that's your thing then give it a shot, it might be similar to what you're looking for.

Ah, i see.

So i guess the closest thing would be trade chat? How exactly does trade chat work, everyone in the town you're in sees it? or does EVERY town see it?

only the town will see it.

there isn't a chat that anyone in any zone can see. so no, no global chat.

Local Chat is only the actual district of that town in which you are currently situated..
Guild Chat is your guild only.
Team Chat is only your party.
Trade Chat is only your local district except it is also put on the Search Panel for that town.
Alliance Chat is your Alliance only.
Whisper is to one person anywhere in the game.

Please do not use the trade channel to chat. The only people who will see it are the people in the district you're in anyway -same as local chat, only in pink. (and it will not go over well with others) To break it down:

Local chat / Trade chat - only appears in the District of the town you're in. (Some messages typed in these channels (WTB, WTS or LFG, for examples) will automatically be entered into the Party Search window.

Guild Chat: Appears to all guild members anywhere they are in-game

Alliance Chat: Appears to all Allies anywhere they are in-game.

Party Search: (press "P" to bring up) Shows messages entered into the party search window and WTS/WTB/LFG messages from every district of the town you're in on that server.

There probably is one for the dev's that we don't see, not for us to use, so we can assume it doesn't exist. So no, there isn't a server wide chat in GW.

Thanks for the answers guys! Last question would be -- what are the more populated cities in guildwars generally?

Kamadan [in Nightfall campaign] ( start of Nightfall campaign + the main trade hub - the trade channel is flooded, main chat gets lost in trade spam / you won't find more activity than here) , Lion's Arch [ in Prophecies campaign] (lots of routes cross here, the second town as importance after Kamadan, second in trade chat, usually there is more activity in the main chat than everywhere else) Great Temple of Balthazar ( pvp capital - lots of activity . disputes second place with Lion's Arch )



[U][I]Ascalon[ in Prophecies campaign] (quiet these days. together with Kamadan, Lion's Arch, Shing Jea, The Eye of the North and Droknar's Forge is decorated on special occasions ) , Shing Jea Monastery [in Factions campaign] ( start of Factions campaign - strange beings populate the main chat. crowded at times) , The Eye of the North [in Prophecies campaign map - Eye of the north expansion] (very quiet - but not missing people)



Rata Sum [in Prophecies campaign map - Eye of the north expansion] (raptor farmers, slackers, traders, main chat not so busy) , Jade Quarry [in Factions campaign] ( pvp-ers - mostly elementalists, necromancers and monks staring hypnotized at the resetting clock that tells how much more seconds you have to wait to join the fight - all chat is kinda dead except for the occasional guild recruiter and some crazy guys chasing each other)

pre searing Ascalon [ in Prophecies campaign - the place where the story begins ] ( a world in itself - the major town of 4 - taming with wildlife )


For most of activity stay in the American districts / second Europe - English / third Europe - German .

the devs have used global chat before, i remember it when Anet closed the GW servers for 15 minutes during last wintersday.. they announced it in bright green saying in 15 min they would reset the servers to fix the lag in kamadan

no server wide chat exists for players. it would be waaaaaaaay tooooo congested

I'm curious to know for what purpose you're asking, since you seem to be looking to talk to as many people as possible in game

Trade chat normally covers all of that region in a town (IE across all of the districts for American, Euro-English, Asia-Korean, Int) except for when there are festivals on when it is limited to the district you are in

Sadly no...But global chat costs real money on all other MMOs,so if we had it on Gw,It would cost money.
Just imagine the rage and QQ threads on GWguru about it. =/

This right here (but in proper grammar/English).

wow, very well put out. Thanks alot man.

Although no one has pointed out the obvious yet,

The reason there is no server wide chat in Guild Wars is because the game doesn't run on separate servers. Unlike most other MMOs, because of Guild Wars instancing, they are able to run all users concurrently.

Example, WoW has 11 million users, but over 200 servers, so there is ~50,000 players per server.
Guild Wars has about 3 million users, all playing on the same server.

So... if you think about it, it quickly becomes apparent WHY this doesn't exist.