Yes, you read that right. We're adding text chat to public games. We know that many long-time players remember the "golden age" of open chat in the original version of the game, and we hope that by adding text chat, we'll see something of a renaissance of those days -- but with all the improvements of the new version of the game. The best of both worlds!
Text chat in public games will function the same as text chat in private games: unrestricted except for a simple naughty-words filter. It will be available to all players age 13 and up.
To maintain a safe gaming environment for everyone, players who break the rules for multiplayer games will have text chat disabled on their accounts (and for egregious violations, accounts may be disabled entirely). A new "report" function will let players submit abuse reports directly from the game, so we can review and act upon them.
We're aiming to release this update in mid-June. It will have some other cool stuff as well -- watch this space for more news in the coming weeks!