Voice Chat

Do try to be a bit more sensitive to the human issues, Gwydeon.

Explain how you mean that? That could be in relation to many things, from many different view points.

Give me a direction and I can elaborate. But fair means FAIR not fair for some.

I believe it was particularly meant in relation to your statement:



That's pretty inflammatory there. And I'm pretty disappointed that you're choosing to take this attitude, but it's your choice.

Actually, historically people seem to do well as long as ways are found to broaden the audience for whatever advance is made. At some point, voice chat as a general medium of communication may actually become feasible. However, I don't believe that its time is now, simply because too many people other than you have commented on the problems that they would have with voice chat.

If everyone had a sweet box to run SL on, and we had reliable voice-to-text and back translation, I'd happily withdraw my objection. We don't. There are still people on dialup on old Pentiums, even if it seems like the vast majority have cutting edge boxes.

Your attitude would ensure that only the elite few/early adopters/whatever got a slice of any pie, with no room for broadening the audience. While it's good to have early adopters who're willing to work out the bugs, you also need to balance that with making it accessible to the majority out there.



The definition of "fair" depends on which end of the gun you're looking at, as the duck hunter said.

Aah, but the ones of us that do play SL do have fairly decent boxes... you're not going to see many people running SL on a pentium 200. Nor are you going to be catering to dialup users for SL... broadband is strictly required. Sure, you can get by on 56k, but why?

Voice chat is simply another option to use. If you don't want to use it, then don't use it.

Everyone's getting pretty mad about voice chat, saying they don't like it for a myriad of reasons... mostly because they "cant" or "wont" use it, for various reasons.

Well, what about the people that can most likely communicate better via voice? What about the henpeckers that type at a blazing fast 3 words a minute?

What about the souls with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, who can't type very well, without feeling pain?

There's two sides to every issue.

Lordfly

[/SIZE]

So your saying we should rip out all accessable bathroom stalls, accessable elevators, and make people pay huge amounts of money so people with disibilitys can learn in classrooms, in favor of having two bathroom stalls in the same area, two small elevators or cheep stairwells, and more disabled people begging for money out in the streets (Im sorry, I see too much of this as a pedestrian in Chicago's downtown area, I had to comment)

There are several problems with your argument, one, simply refusing to use the system, for recieving voice chat or sending it, would SEVERELY limit people who communicate in SL... I thought SL was a way to break away from RL... voice chat crosses the line majorly for me. I would refuse to recieve voice chat because of the myrad bias I would subconciously label on that person.

Well, everyone can learn to type, cant they? Would they be using SL or even a computer, if they couldnt type?

Carpal tunnel.. I think you might have an argument thera, Ive never had the disease myself, but aren't there specialized keyboards/mice that these people probobly already have to help alleviate this pain?

I completely agree.

(Sorry about the number of consecutive posts)

It is always interesting when a post suddenly turns ugly. I don't disagree with Gwydeon's post in spirit. It is true - I do not think voice chat should be passed over as an option in SL because this person or that person does not want it because they are shy, have a quiet voice, or whatever myriad reasons they come up with why they don't want it. And as far as the post about older computers - SL has very specific system requirements.

Should Linden Labs have limited what SL can do because not everyone has broadband available, or a cutting edge video card? SL has always been an envelope pushing game, and voice chat is a very techologically sophisticated feature that is a natural fit for an advanced online game. I am all for adding it with controls for those who do not want to use it.

After the intiial newness of voice chat wore off in There, people seemed to have found a balance between typing and voice chat, and I don't think There suffered for it - if anything, it made the environment richer in my opinion. SL already has a cold, impersonal feeling to it at times - I think that voice chat could help to dispel some of that impression.

With the exception of the controls on sounds in the current client, LL seems to have gone to great lengths to allow users to control their own experience. I can't imagine their implementation of voice chat would disregard that philosophy. People are railing against this feature without even seeing it implemented in a test version, which to me just seems short sighted. I hope LL does consider offering voice chat at some point in the future.

Now that were all schocked into thinking on a bit higher level lets 'broaden' our scope of handicap and see how the level our playing feild stays without bounds on EITHER side.

Parapolegic.

Partial hands.

Inability to type (as previously stated) at decent conversational speeds.

What about these people. Why do they not get to participate? If we are working to cater to as many people as possible ALL forms of handicap must be accepted or you are being hypocritical.



So... Since a bunch of people are too shy the technology is not viable? Bull pucky. That and dial up pentium 200 users arent supposed to be ABLE to play SL so this just dosn't fly. Thow it is a good example of the fact that, people need to advance with the technology instead of trying to make the technology wait for them.... the oil companys have been trying to do that for years.

Chris - There are keyboards that help PREVENT carple tunnel but that dosn't help those whom already have it that much. Again, its not fair to say one set of handicaps are more important than another.

Also did I ever say I wanted to remove the available facilites or not help to make things accessable as possible? NO. I said don't LIMIT things to those who don't have problems. There is a differance.

PS; I just used my VERY limited sign language to help out an individual at the store who was having some major trouble with customer service at a store she was visiting. I learned the skill for just such a reason. I like to help people, heck im a technical support agent for crying out loud.

In short: There are just as many handicaps that make NOT having voice a major problem for them in regards to SL & everyone HAS to have a decent system to run SL anyhow.

Personally, I have no interest in using voice chat. I prefer text and I would continue to use it even if SL did have voice chat. There are also people who like voice better, at least at times, so if it is technically pratical, it should be available for them. But, to be honest, if SL does ever have voice chat, I hope it never becomes very popular.

Gwydeon,

Ok, as I said in my last post, I agree with your point in spirit, but I am curious why with each post about this, you are making it more inflammatory. You can get your point across without evoking as personal of a topic as handicaps (a reality I am sure many SL residents deal with and probably take offense to being used as an argument). This whole voice chat topic is divisive enough (for some odd reason) without making it worse. Perhaps you should throw race into the mix as well, I don't think you have made it controversial enough

Cristiano

If you will look back *I* did not add them to this conversation, others did.

But that dosn't change the point, what about people who have trouble communicating via Keyboard?

Like all things voice chat has its pros and cons.

Pro - It allows people easier and better communication. There are alot of lazy people who often don't like to type.

Con - If done poorly it can sound staticy, alot of voice chat quality relies on the persons microphone, and my experience has been that not many have good mics so you get alot of hours trying to figure out why one persons mic chirps. People often talk over eachother, I find this very anoying as you're trying to listen to one person and another answers them but cuts them off. And sometimes if someone doesn't have voice, and they come to a group that is heavily voice chat, they will be outcast as "the one who doesn't have voice", I've seen this happen in other enviornments that have voice and I don't like it.

I think voice chat should definitly be an option, but only if its done right, and that takes alot of work, as stated it would be best if there was a voice to chat translation for those who don't want to listen to voice so they can still participate in the conversation. There will most likely be alot that can't or won't have voice enabled so I would say that voice to text is a very needed feature, and even some of the best software that specializes in that doesn't do it right.

Counterstrike has not suffered because of voice chat capability. It has enriched the game for many... you can use more complex tactics in-game if you can just bark out an order while you're under enemy fire.

Likewise, communications options are EXPANDED with voice chat that just are NOT possible with keyboards and mice.

CS players do not look down on you for not having a mic... and they're a picky and exclusive bunch (they'll knock you down a few pegs for using a Radeon over a Gefroce, for instance).

this thread is becoming way too personal to really get a valid point/discussion across.

LF

I've changed my mind since my previous post. Assuming any technical problems can be overcome, I would like to have both voice to text and text to voice translation available. That would allow each person to choose either text or voice and still be able to communicate with anyone else.

I used TeamSpeak (Im Sean Rutherford for info he has it set up nicely) for the first time when Sean was helping me with a new house. It made it easyer for him to tell me what keys to hit with out me stopping to ask what to do next. I missed keys stokes going back and forth untell I installed TeamSpeak. Also it would be great in classes if you are trying to take notes. I would not want to use it at a large group or party in SL but is is easy to turn off and on. Also there are a few of us who use it now and I do not see anymore lag then before.

I have spoken up several times in the course of this thread. The emergence of the Teamspeak server for SL users shows that there is a demand for this feature. I do hope that Linden Labs does give the feature some consideration. I am not a big fan of one big massive voice chat room (like the teamspeak thing) but I am a fan of one on one voice chatting.

* Deleted double post *

Team Speak (TS) offers more than one giant voice chat room. The main thing i like about TS is that we can control it to fit our independant desired usage.

So if you want a private one-on-one conversation, you can do that.

If you want a group conversation where only two speakers can speak to a large mass of people, you can do that too.

If you want to use a different codec (sound processing algorithym) so as to minimize bandwidth or increase sound quality, you can do that.

The built in voice over IP (VOIP) functionality for most games is simply not as flexible to the end user as say a third party application. Planetside for one offers VOIP as an MMOG, however only a micro handful use it, most use thirdparty systems for better quality and control.

Now it would be awesome to be able to speak to people directly by walking by them, I hope the Lindens can do this someday. The thing we need to log in the back of our heads is the abuse and control aspect. They would need to build in that management capability as well, or at least all of the control to pass on to us. How much control would be passed ot us? What is the cost and time for that? Who pays for it? Who administers it? Something to ponder...^_^

Quality, flexibility, cost & control. That is what I want from in game voice communications. Oh...and high usage from the community so that it is even more effective and experience enhancing. Shoot, while I'm at it, I want a new car too....Black...Lambo...yeah that's it.

^_^

-sean
http://www.axceron.com/sl

Biggest problem with voice chat - its half-duplex. Meaning, you aren't going to be able to speak with other people talking, and unless it is tightly integrated with SL, such as an icon or something to indicate they are trying to talk, having a conversation with a group of people isn't going to be too easy.

Also, it opens up other issues:

No archival features - I can't catch up if I'm late or distracted.

Abuse - verbal sludge is harder to deal with than ignoring text. (Different technical issues for ignoring/reporting).

Support - Now linden has to deal with other issues related to ISPs, routing and the like. Can it be done, sure, but now you have this additional sphere of troubleshooting to worry about.

Voice has its benefits, but the latest push to make voip a 'hammer' and everything else a 'nail' bothers me. Team FPS games, it makes sense, small groups (say, less than 5 people) it makes sense. Anything else doesn't seem like a good fit.

Think its hard to read the scroll in trivia? At least you have a history function to look at it. Imagine the chaos with verbal-based event - you'd hear the question, but what about a roomful of people shouting the answer - good luck figuring out who was 'first' in a blurt-out style trivia game.

Eh, I'm lukewarm on the voip thing, and this is coming from someone who used to run a streaming media show and is considered to have a decent voice.

Now I can't wait to hear Maxx's voice...hurry and connect to our server Maxx!!!!

As for Voice enabled events like Trivia or Battle of the Sexes, with Team Speak it is possible to NOT enable the speaking feature for all participants except those you wish to speak. In a Moderated Channel you have FULL control, so answers cannot be blurted out. Currently I do not know of a way to control the SL Text Chat to that level, people can simply type away if they so choose. What this offers is the ability to keep the background noise and chatter to a minimum, since the text thing actually breaks the absolute control of keeping the audience from giving answers.

I have thought about Voice Enable Events at length before launching the server for open access. Myself and others have come up with many ways to combine both Text Chat and Voice into a great Event especially for the Trivia type events. If you host Events of this nature and would like to know more, please IM me or shoot me an email, as I would love to share ideas and offer any assistance.

To address having more than 5 people in communications, this is very feasable. Before coming to SL I played PlanetSide primarily. We would have anywhere from 10 to 100 people working together on voice coms very effectively. The average channel would host 2 to 20 people together although we prefferred 10 to a channel. The game style required MUCH more verbal interaction than SL does and we rarely had issues. When time permits I will put up a Best Practices and TS Etiquette document on the SLTC website. This will assist us all in using the service effectively when MANY people are in the same channel.

It all comes down to the participants and their willingness to utilize the application in a manner that is effective. In my experience its about 1 in 100 that are totally obnoxious and disrespectful of others, however that is what the BAN feature is for and I am more than happy to use it if ever required. Happy Voice users is the goal. ^_^

I hope some of the above sheds more light on the benefits of VOIP interaction. If anyone has specific questions or concerns please holler at me and I will answer as best I can, I am by no means an expert in this area, just a user who is exploring the potential.

^_^

Have fun and I will see you all in world Tuesday.

-sean
[email]sltc@axceron.com[/email]

Having just installed the teamspeak software yesterday, this idea of sliders for voice makes a lot of sense for me. I was hesitant about the use of voice chat, especially since I'm fairly deaf, but it occurred to me that there are always going to be situations in which it is a preferred option. If I am building, for instance, or someone is maybe adventuring in Dark Life, typing is not only inconvenient, it may be a real hindrance. The teamspeak setup certainly has its flaws, but it also seems to work pretty well - well enough that I think an encorporated voice chat might work very well.
One of the things I noticed yesterday on the teamspeak channels is that several people sound as if they are not truly old enough to be with us in SL. I'm not making any acusations or judgements, just an observation, but in a situation like that, or if you are playing another gender or species, or if you just hate the sound of your own voice it would be a great feature to be able to alter its characteristics.

^ The above post....OMGosh that would be SOOO Cool!

^_^

-sean

Not only am I utterly opposed to voice chat, for a number of reasons others have voiced here.

I would go further. I think it is one of those few special questions where a minority who feel it would be damaging for them, even a smallish minority, should be able to overule the majority, and prevent it happening.

This relates to a point Cubey has touched on. There are people for whom it will mean loss of their present equality and the relative freedom from being prejudged and discriminated against.

Do I need to list the things a voice reveals ? Nationality, race, education, disability, age, gender, class, sexual preference... shall I go on? I simply don't believe voice masking will be able to mask these things for years to come.

Currently we have no need to reveal any of these things unless we wish, and the place is better and more equal because of it. Every community will possess those who will deride and persecute, and everyone of us has difficulty totally eradicating biases and prejudgements (perhaps from childhood) of which we may be almost completely unaware.

Limiting communications to text is not perfect (education shows unfortunately, and the use of english discriminates against half the world - though equally in voice) but it kills 90% of it stone dead.

Don't say "well, they don't have to use it if they don't want". As Cubey said, that itself will raise suspicion, and cause discrimination. "What has this person to hide, that they refuse to speak ?"

So don't do it. Respect the minority it will badly harm, perhaps even drive away.

It's not as though there is no other solution when voice is needed. When building with a friend, for instance, we use "Skype". It's crossplatform, full duplex, and superb. To use such a facility there is absolutely no need for it to be integrated with the SL client.

I vote NO. Except that with this severely defective voting system, I can't.

Its a very old thread, but its a very live voting proposition.

With currently 215 votes, it needs some reconsideraton, both ways.