Voice chat!

Eggy's not saying that Ryen. Did you read the entire thread though? I thought the "If you don't like it don't use it." argument was already shot down pretty hard. Eggy actually brings up another good point that some users aren't in the US and won't have an easy time with voice communications. If it becomes the primarily used form of communications then they're sh1t out of luck as well.

So I still say, don't divide the community with this "feature".

I'd rather see development time go into practically anything else. Like custom ani....oh wait....w00t!

Garod, in 1.0 whenever I saw a linden I would bitch at them for custom animations ,and why couldnt LL implement a form of voice-to-text communication? EX*presses voice chat button, voice-to-text starts recording, releases voice chat button, voice-to-text end"

Please god, no voice chat.

I've been in Yahoo chat before (hey, I'm not proud of it.) No matter what the chat room is, or what the topic of discussion might be, there's always at least one person in love with the sound of their own voice monopolizing the conversation. That is, if there IS conversation, because half the time the mic chatters argue about who gets to talk next.

As for Luddites like me who prefer to type? We might as well be talking to the wind in those places. No one seems to pay attention to what a typer has to say.

I think there are good reasons not to go to voice chat. I have a mic but don't use it, partly because of social anxiety and partly because I feel right stupid talking to a computer screen.

And then there are others who have an avatar that doesn't match their voice. Switching to voice chat would effectively out them. Maybe they ARE a 500-pound trucker named Turk. If they choose to be Frou Frou Fairplay here, that's their business, and that choice shouldn't be taken away.

Please, any Linden listening, don't fix what ain't broke.

Well, voice-to-text translation still sucks pretty bad based on tests someone (James Miller?) was posting here. Text-to-voice is possible, but between adding those two features AND voice chat...crap that's almost a whole new patch just to add one feature that alot of people don't want.

I'd like to see where people draw the line on this topic as far as what feels good to them...


What if a half-feature was added where a land owner could talk into a mic and that sound would be played into the world live? Sort of like Philip's audio town hall, except with the transmitter integrated into SL and separate from the streaming MP3 audio.

With this, the teacher of a class could explain faster, a DJ could do voice-overs on any music stream, and someone who's busy building could join in a conversation while working without bringing up the chat input.


Now, what if the land owner could "voice" other people, letting them do the same? So a club could voice all their DJs, a university could have many teachers, and a group can all talk and hear each other as they coordinate on a project.

Areas like the welcome center would grant voice only to the liasons and mentors. Public Linden land may be open for anyone to talk, or no one. Individual plots will have their own rules set by the owner with a default of no-talking (when the feature comes online), but it can be set so that anyone and everyone can talk there.


Third level, voice IM and voice Group chat... Direct streaming audio connections between individuals and members of a group outside of the 3D world. (This is most similar to what we have now by way of Teamspeak and others.)


Edit: Fourth level, and the one people think of when talking about this feature. Anyone can chat at any time, anywhere, and only people nearby can hear them. (Same 20m range as text chat.) Maybe a new animation to show when someone is "broadcasting", and/or a special sparkle indicator. (Radio arcs coming from their head?)

wow great suggestions Tiger!

I really like the idea of making it plot-based whether or not you have voice capability, and the ability to selectively give permission to specific people, or to all, or to none. Then it's total user choice! w00t!

Artillo

No, Ryen, and next time read my post before replying
I was saying that if you are into discriminating people for something as silly as their will or ability to voice chat, you arent excellent, in fact, you should damn well be kicked out of the game.
Someone who has that little tolerance is probably also a racist or homophobic, or both.
What I have been saying is precisely "if you dont like it dont use it". Waiting for voice masking is silly. People are already using teamspeak and stuff like that, everyone seems to want voice chat, and very little people seem to care about their voice being masked or not.

Well I think the main point is that "voice masking" won't make a difference to most people who just don't want to use it. And I'm sure it'd seriously screw up accents and make them harder to understand. It would still make people who use masking seem like they're hiding something, unless everyone uses it, but that would be silly. And again it's another feature that I'd rather not see resources wasted on personally.

Tiger's suggestion sounds like it'd be okay IF it only let one person talk at a time, otherwise it'd just be used in ways other than he's intending it for. But I'd also worry that once a "one person at a time, only on their land" feature is implemented we'd soon hear the whines of "See, voice chat is already implemented, so it would be easy to make it like There's voice chat."

Just use a public teamspeak server, SL toggles to/runs in windowed mode quite well, it's really not a big hassle to pass off a little server info so you can voice chat with strangers.