Do we want "tells" in the game?

Those of us who have played IRE muds (Imperian, Aetolia, Achaea, etc.) and probably also Avalon may remember "tells" which are a huge part of those games. They allow for direct and (usually) private communications between two players. I'm against having them in the game for now and I'll explain why, but I'm writing this because I want to get people's opinions on this issue as it's not set in stone.

Regarding Achaea et al. The games were much more social in the early days, before clans and when the population was smaller. Everyone knew each other although tells were in the game. After clans were invented and people got more used to each other and formed cliques, eventually most communication and social interaction switched into clan channels and tells.

There were even rules in many cities sometimes that you weren't supposed to use the city channel for casual communication. To me that sounded crazy. It's like new players join the game, there's players around but they aren't allowed to talk to them and get ignored if they do?

For better or worse, I would like it if things like city channels were normally used for communication. And if you want to have a private conversation with someone, you can tell them you want to over a relevant public channel first, or send them a letter or maybe use some kind of notification skill. for example, Crow's Crown might have a skill that gives them a pet crow or raven, but it's usage would be limited to spying and utility. So the pet crow can carry a very rudimentary message that would be used to say, come meet me here and we'll discuss this thing in person, crows could also hear says in the room and hide themselves. Basically, very little in the game would be guaranteed to be private unless precautions are taken.

As much as I like my own argument, I do realize that tells are a huge part of the game in other MUDs and I probably want to implement clans at some point, although it's not a requirement. If people find the banter annoying there's skills to join and leave (mute) channels so it doesn't seem so bad. But what do you guys think about this issue?

I personally love the idea of tells in game. As well as whispering. And shouting/yelling!

In IRE tells are completely private, as far as I remember. Which is nice, but so are MSGs.

In Avalon, your tells can be heard, if people had what is called a bug rune. I think doing something similar to this would be cool, as it would allow players to talk to each other in game from long distances and in real time, but they also risk being heard by others, so it would also force interaction.

For whispering, in Avalon, a bug rune also allowed you to see what people were saying when they were whispering. We could possibly do something similar to this as well. Or just do it the way IRE does it, but I do think that'd be less fun. If players want a more private discussion, letters could be used. Or to be 100% private, they could use a MSG.

Obviously letters would be more private and secure than tells, and MSG's would be 100% private.