Currently, the in-game chat is kinda tricky.

If you type anything into the chat, it is sended as chat message to the server, unless:

• It starts with a slash
• It statts and ends with an ASCII quotation mark
• It starts and ends with an ASCII apostrophe
• It starts and ends with a dash

Especially the last three ones can lead to confusion.

Also, there is a key for team chat, but this just opens the chat dialog with “/team ” already written. And this key is just the confirm key reused, there is no dedicated key.

My suggestion to clean up that whole chat mess would be this:

• Reserve the chat field *only* for chat. No additional features are allowed. All characters typed into the chat are interpreted as chat messages, no exceptions
• Introduce a completely seperate input field which is reserved for commands. Everything in here is interpreted as commands, which must follow a strict syntax. Failure to follow this syntax results in a syntax error, maybe an error message and nothing is actually done.
• As for the hog speech bubbles, those should be reworked as well. Those too could be moved into the command menu
• Add a dedicated key for team chat. This key also should open a independent chat menu without all this command weirdness
• Add a dedicated key for opening the command input field
• For completeness' sake, add the “/say” command. This is basically normal chat, but in command form. This is not really needed, only to make the commands more “symmetric”.

Perhaps the syntax of speech bubble commands and “/” commands does not even have to change at all, the only thing which changes is the fact that they only work when typed into the command input field.