Voice Chat

I have never played any other vrl game but SL, but from what I am getting, it would be nice to have the same voice feature that There has. I like that you can shut off voice if you are hearing impaired or have sound issues with your pc and others have to text message with you.

I however, really like the text part of the game and will keep prolly stick with it. It benefits me by increasing my typing speed and accuracy.

After all I see typed in SL I really don't care to HEAR it too.

I'd be all for it if each user could turn OFF the other voices.. I have enough voices in my head.

Right now to talk voice I use Skype and Gizmo Project... works fine when SL is running and no crazy newbie yelling "OMG I need $100 now! Lend it to me or I'll shoot you!"

Here's what you do to make everyone happy:

Land owners set a flag to where voice is active or not, or do it by an entire Sim for better continuity. You let the people decide where they want to be for what reasons - you just have more options. This option becomes a part of search criteria when finding things similar to the Mature flag. People using voice is inevitable, and to let it grow outside the context of the game is to invite communities which are difficult to find/be a part of and thus segregates the SL communitiy in a manner worse than if voice was simply to be added as an option.

Pros:
* People who want voice can have it without tedious private ventrilo/TS info exchanges and it's possible to hear it within ranges.
* People who don't want voice can go to socialize in text only sims without being discriminated against for not having voice.
* BLIND people could play SL (for you ppl complaining that the deaf couldn't play SL..)
* People who type one word per minute can more easily communicate.

Cons:
??
I guess people who want to fool people that they are the opposite sex or different age range than they claim to be IRL won't be able to as easily lie to people THAT DON'T WANT to be lied to about such details.

..oh wait, well in my case that's another Pro.

The solution to that would be for them to make an icon that appears over ones Head or in the chat lines when your transmitting voice. A) this would tell you who is talking B) it would tell those who have hearing loss that a voice chat is going on so they can (if they choose) tell peoeple they cant hear voice.

You could also have a land option to alllow or disallow voice chatting'

To have voice in SL, I think you'd need a few related technologies:

- Modulation control. Not all of us sound like our avatar. The most sophisticated way would be for SL to adjust pitch/speed/whatever of your voice sample, and convert your real voice on the fly. (Option B would be a text to speech engine, but these generally result in accent-free voices, and converting for various languages (never mind accents within languages) is a non-trivial task.)
- Moderator control. Land owners should be able to set voice-enabled rights, with similar functionality to the ban list.
- "not interested" flags. There should be a marker active when you have someone in your vicinity who isn't able/willing to use voice.
- Voice history. Not necessarily for the end-user, but it nees to be recorded to verify any abuse reports.

I'd like to vote for voice but preferably with modulation control (my natural voice scares people)

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