Trolax

We've added a chat system with chat distance etc.
Here's some information:

Talk normally. You'll only be able to clearly hear other players within 25 meters.

Beyond 25 up to 50 meters, chat will break up: letters will randomly drop from your messages, with increasing probability the greater the distance.

To reach someone further away, you can yell. For example: "*help!*" adds 10 m. Multiple exclamation marks will make you yell louder: "*help!!!!*" adds 500 m. Yelling will also make garbled messages clearer. However, yelling comes at the cost of decreasing your food level!

If you want to talk to people very close by but hide your chat from others further away, you can decrease your chat range by whispering, for example: "*(lets go)*". Only players within 10 m will be able to hear your whispering, and only those within 5 m will be able to hear you clearly.

To further increase your chat range, speak while holding a bullhorn (diamond). This will double your range within a conical region in front of you, just like a real bullhorn (or megaphone). Bullhorns can be used in conjunction with yelling. Additionally, players hearing messages from bullhorns will recognize the direction it is coming from. You can use this ability for [acoustic location](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_location) if you get lost.

For stealthily listening in for covert operations, wear an ear trumpet. A precursor from the 1600s to the modern hearing aid, the [ear trumpet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_trumpet) can increase your hearing range significantly, but has no effect on your speaking range, allowing you to eavesdrop on enemy bases from a safe distance while talking casually as normal with your partners in crime. Craft it in the shape of a helmet with a diamond in the center, out of wooden planks (+100 m), leather (+150 m), or iron (+400 m), then wear it on your head as armor for improved hearing. It has the same durability as a Golden Helmet.

For long-range communication, use a walkie talkie (compass). Hold the compass in your *hand* and speak as normal, and your voice will be clearly transmitted through the device up to 1000 meters (and break up beyond 1000 meters, up to 2000 meters) to other players holding a compass anywhere in their *hotbar*. Walkie Talkies are especially useful for keeping in touch with other players while travelling.

For private one-to-one communication, use a smartphone (clock). Hold the clock in your *hand*, and use speak into it the name of a player you want to call. Its high-tech *voice activated calling* capabilities will cause the device to ring up the player, giving them at most 4 times until they pickup by switching to the phone. Once the call is established anything said will also be transferred over the air to the other player. You can hang up the call by moving your hand to another item. (Note that other players can overhear you if they are nearby, just as if you are talking normally, so be sure to go somewhere far away or use whispering if you really want your conversation to be private, but this feature can be disabled if desired, see below). Smartphones are still experimental, please report any problems or suggested enhancements.