No one else considers this a game breaking thing but you.
Frodo's not the only one who hates general chat. I think the rest of us have just given up on seeing it removed or even policed. Talking about it or most other gripes/concerns people have with UO these days is almost pointless, as I don't think the dev team really cares at this point or has the ability to do much about things even if they do.
As for me, I'll tell you that on most shards, I can't stand listening to general chat. The notable exceptions are Sonoma, Siege, and the Asian shards. There are a few other shards where the general chat isn't all about buying and selling or PvP trash talking. However, some days it gets tiresome on those other shards to leave general chat on because certain people seem to think that everyone "out there" is interested in listening to their chatter that really is better suited to alliance or guild chat (e.g., someone can't find something in their own house or a guild house or is making arrangements with a guild or alliance mate to meet up with them for a spot of fishing). These same folks who seem so chatty all freeze up or give the cold shoulder to someone whose name they don't recognize when that person attempts to join a conversation about some mundane topic, e.g., someone asking for tips on how to do something. You make a comment while you're on a new character you're playing and you're just completely ignored.
Or worse yet, if you make the mistake of saying something in general chat on an unrecognized character on a day when there is going to be an EM event, you are subjected to snotty, snide comments about "off-sharders."
And sometimes, when you happen to try to join in a conversation while on an unrecognized character, the local busy-body will give you their version of the inquisition (including WHERE IS YOUR HOUSE LOCATED AND WHO OWNS IT). You end up feeling as if the only reason anyone even wants to talk to you for a few minutes is to determine how much stuff you'll have and whether it will be worth waiting on if and when your house starts to collapse. On some shards, if you give the impression that you're planning to just slowly work on your characters and aren't going to be spending millions or billions buying up stuff, then you aren't worth talking to. I know this isn't true of all shards, but I've run into it on a couple of shards and I have no doubt that others have to. It's not quite as bad as hearing, "Go away noob, we don't want you on our shard" (yes, I've heard people say that in chat), but it still leaves me feeling like there are some people playing UO who really aren't interested in seeing new people come to their precious little shard to stay for the long-term, but rather just long enough to fill up a house, lose interest in UO, and let the house collapse.
I don't know what the solution is. I just know that I'm really not that impressed with general chat. There are a lot of times that I think it's done the game more harm than good. I think that in many ways it's made joining a guild less important and also made people less dependent on other tools, such as forums like Stratics or guild and alliance forums, for communicating. Maybe "chat" provides some kind of instant gratification of sorts for the people who are using it. But does it really help build a community, especially when there's no history for it, no reporting, no record that can be accessed by other people who might have been interested in the conversations but just weren't around at the time? Is it just a coincidence that shard populations and the shard forums here on Stratics all seemed to fall into a real nose dive about the time general chat became so enmeshed into our game play, or is it possibly a direct result of some of the less desirable aspects of the in-game chat feature?
I just read title of OP and I'm immature. But hm. Personally, I never use general chat except for EM events. I'm not quite sure how people care to use it otherwise.
