i am endlessly fascinated by the fuckin things even though they are all just too frontloaded for me to cope with. i want chat rooms that have interconnected nodes instead of channels.
what if you designed a chat program with borrowed theory from whatever exists at this point for landscape design in mmos. level design meets architecture in a new way when you have to design a functional virtual space for dozens and hundreds. not a game, just the pretense of one, slightly, to justify enough friction to encourage people to settle down in "regions" but still be able to form neighborly relationships with people further away and with people who travel a lot. gimme that snow crash shit but text based. force everyone to deal with a slight dusting of "haha youre a fantasy wizard in a game" theming in the functionality so that there is a maximum amount of serious you can be about situations where someone leaves a chat in a huff by hearthing out with an automatic description of vanishing and reappearing in a swirl of sparkling pink hearts.
i know people still use irc and shit but nobody i talk to does.