Is Voice Chat the end of Role Play in SL?

It's different.
When RPing for table top you have to describe what your doing, in SL we have a nice feature called /me as well as features for actually doing the action instead of describing it.
Typically in TTRPGs you say things to the effect of "I'm trying to convince him that..." and roll a die.

LARPing is different, there there is no description of action, it's all do--except in the case of impossible in real life actions (or ones that require the actor to do something normally taboo in real society, such as LARPing sex, which could get interesting), which having never LARPed I can't say exactly how it's done (and the LARP sex things I've heard about are the main reason I'll never LARP, though it's explained to me that it's basically a share halucination and that there is no Out Of Character things--Werewolf takes place in the real world and interactions with the real world are part of the LARP, there's just the "we're all werewolves" fantasy element).

Text base role play works more like colaborative fiction writing. Books are written much more differently than stageplays.

Not to mention that role playing in text I can get up and walk away for two minutes and no one notices, or stop and forumate a well worded reply, one that is poetic or fantastically well described. With speach a 2 second delay is too long.

You know... I built a Dalek avatar on the main grid and used just an off the shelf, non custom Dalek on the beta grid. I also took a screw driver and a soldering iron to a stereo amplifier and made a Dalek voice modulator for my microphone. Then I ran around on the beta grid sounding exactly like a Dalek (albeit a female Dalek with an American accent, but still sounding just like a Dalek with the proper inflection. Just slightly higher pitched and not Welsh) and people have found it immensely funny. One person actually told me to stop it because they fell out of their chair from laughing so hard.

I have made a dozen different voice modulators in the past, still have every one of them. Used to use them on Onlive! Traveler way back in the day. I used a Cylon voice modulator that I constructed (which was the first one I ever made... all others are actually variants on that one) on Uru Live while wearing a Maintainer Suit to sound like a robot. People were just in awe.

At any rate. I have very little problem sounding like any character I put together on Second Life. It pains me to think that all the effort I put into entertaining people might be ruined by people who have preconceptions that my voice and avatar will not sound alike when in reality I sound amazingly close to whatever avatar I wear... Granted I can't pass for a guy in voice... Not even in text really. But I don't care. I'm not here to deceive people, I'm here to entertain.

Props to you, now what about those of us who want to sound like an imortal flying reptile?
Death from Discworld (who SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS)?
Wolf?
Lion?

No one even knows what those are supposed to sound like, much less get any voice modulation software to dupicate it (as they are meant for human voices).

Well, that's part of the point. There *will* be a very limited number of people who can sound like their role-played avatars - whether that's just because they happen to have a natural voice that sounds that way, or because they have a rare skill in electronics or programming, isn't really relevant.

The problem is that the presence of these people will threaten to destroy the RP of everyone else who can't compare. It's great that you had the idea of making a dalek voice modulator but would you want to be the only dalek on SL?

Of course SL has always generally avoided the Harrison Bergeron issue, but saying that you can't be an architect in SL because you're RL bad at designing houses is a rather far cry from saying that you can't be a Dalek, or anything other than yourself, in SL because you're not an RL audio engineer.

(And one of the slight problems with modulators, or voice changers, is that SL doesn't have a "monitor test" mode. In other words, you will never know 100% that SL is broadcatisg the output from your voice changer instead of the raw microphone, especially since SL isn't clear about how it connects to the audio interface.)

I'm not using software, I'm using hardware.

If no one knows what they sound like then make something up. It seems to me people are just being nay sayers because they're afraid of change. Sure there will be some people who would be "outed" as being a different gender for their avatar, but unless their goal is deception, there really shouldn't be much problem. I've seen female avatars with male voices on the beta grid. After a few moments of silence when they speak for the first time, the conversation continues and everyone ignores the real world gender.

I agree that it would be awkward to describe actions in voice as opposed to text. But this isn't a text venue, it never was. IRC is a text venue. Use your avatar to describe your actions. Do they not say that "actions speak louder than words"?

I've worked up a way of producing a similar effect with EAX enabled sound cards and am willing to explain how to do various effects from "booming voice of an all powerful god", chipmunk, classic cylon, Dalek, 9th/10th Doctor version of Cybermen, and many others. There's even pitch shifting for raising your pitch. With a little bit of practice any guy could learn to use a female inflection and sound like a female even when not using a pitch shifter.

It's really not that hard to use EAX to disguise your voice. And with a little tweaking you can make it so it only disguises your voice, not the voice of those around you. By setting the effects on "Wave" to 0%, leaving only the original sound for wave.

I'm also more than willing to put together hardware modulators for people at what it costs me to build them... It's not that expensive.

Well, when you're roleplaying, and then suddenly something happens in the RP that comes as a surprise, and your avatar wants to respond for it...

Then if you are a miracle Poser artist, who can create an animation for this action that you had no way of knowing in advance that you would need and upload it in 5 seconds; or your friends don't mind you breaking off from whatever you're doing to go animation shopping and come back; then you can describe your actions with your avatar.

Without text, SL has no spontaneity.

Again, you still have the problem that SL doesn't let you choose what audio input it uses, so there's no way of making sure that only the "wet" (ie, post-processed) audio is going out onto the grid. And there didn't seem to be a monitor option either, so your audio path could have failed today while it worked yesterday, and you would never know. I actually believe that both of these were deliberate choices by LL to impede the use of voice changers.

On Windows, you tell it the built in Windows recording controls (you can get there by double clicking the speaker in your system tray, going to Options, Properties, and select the recording setting.) to record from "What You Hear" this means that you'll end up echoing back what others if you leave your mic open or talk while they're talking, but that's just rude.

All Second Life does is use whatever Windows is set up to use. If it let you choose, it would tell Windows what to use. What you record from is NOT application side, it's driver side.

If you have a hardware solution like I have, it's even easier because it goes between the computer and the microphone.

You don't have to be an electronics engineer to get a hardware modulator. You just need to be an electronics engineer to tear apart broken electronics to make a modulator. Commercially made ones usually sell for like $20 USD on the market and are easily modified. And I'm willing to explain how to modify commercially produced ones to people with the patience to try it.

"What You Hear" loopback is an option that's only present on some higher-end audio cards (so is EAX, for that matter).

Even on systems that do have it, the issue that your software could have failed at any time and you would never know still remains. I remember when I was trying to help a friend set up a microphone and Windows essentially set the recording settings to random values every boot.

"It seems to me people are just being nay sayers because they're afraid of change. Sure there will be some people who would be "outed" as being a different gender for their avatar, but unless their goal is deception, there really shouldn't be much problem."

with all due respect, that not my experience at all. I was a betatester in There.com. Arguements became very heated because real life talking was happening not just typed words you can backspace. Men constantly sleezed on my avatar in game when they heard me speak. i became a target for every pervert online. When people hear your real life voice they assume a familiarity with you, while remaining completely anonymous. I think its great you enjoy entertaining people in sl. Good for you. Thats brilliant. And i can see voice being very useful in that regard. But id be willing to bet alot of people dont have those skills. The "outed" people you refer to are not the only ones that have reservations about voice.

$25 is higher end? I got my video card for $25 brand new and it has that option. "What You Hear" is present on the vast majority of PCI sound cards. It's also often found on most onboard audio these days. It's not always called "What Your Hear" sometimes it's called "Analog Mix". EAX sound cards are not high end. Only EAX4 and EAXHD soundcards are high end. You can pick up an old original SB Live for a few dollars these days. I'm sorry but 10 year old sound cards are not... repeat NOT high end.

Google Shopping (formerly Froogle) lists SB Live cards for $12. That's with support for 7.1 surround sound. Which is hilarious because I paid $25 for my SB Audigy (original Audigy) and it only supports 5.1 surround sound.

Oh wait, there's an SB Live for $5 on Google

And you're again casually assuming that everyone can do electronic engineering (dismantling their PC to install a card)

They can ask someone else to install it for them, but then it's not $12 any more...

(And, btw, I'm not sure you're quite accurate. My motherboard has an onboard SB Live and it doesn't offer What You Hear nor input monitoring.)

HAHAHAHA engineering? Oh please, they call that "field circus". They've actually idiot proofed the instalation of cards. All you need is a screw driver and one good eye, or at least one eye that can be vision corrected to at least make out a small amount of details.

You can find free guides on doing it on the internet. This is just so lame. I'm sorry that you think it's an arcane science Yumi, but I remember when they made things that COULD be plugged in backwards, and when all sockets were the same color. I also remember when different sockets could have the exact same shape and appearance and have entirely different functions that if you plug something into the wrong one you fry everything.

It's not like that anymore. You cannot fry anything by plugging it in wrong these days. It's just not possible. They've idiot proofed it because even the best of us sometimes screw up. Like this one time I fried an Amiga 1200 by accidently plugging a hardrive in upside down. But you can't do that these days.

What does it have? It's possible that your sound card isn't using drivers from Creative Labs. Microsoft provided drivers don't have all the features. They go for minimal support and move on.

I know that it isn't very difficult, because I can install cards myself. But the fact that I have also done it for several non-technical friends shows that non-technical users aren't keen on doing it, no matter how easy it is.

Again, you're not allowing for the fact that you're obviously really skilled at this. For some of us our hearts are on our sleeves when we have to exert slightly higher than usual force on an edge connector. Um, yes, ok *blush*

Plus, of course, there's always the risk of an error or catastrophic failure. On an older computer I found that the machine would just randomly freeze solid. One time it froze in the middle of saving some data and the data was lost. It was because of the sound card. Any time you ask someone to make any change to their PC configuration you're risking a maverick failure of that kind - it's why I can't stand programs that insist on installing device drivers.

I agree that some configurations can be bad. Usually things don't go wrong unless the motherboard's manufacturer is a cheapskate. Such as Shuttle boards. Shuttle owns Gigabyte, so Gigabyte boards are just as crappy. I once bought a Gigabyte board thinking "HAHA! I fooled you Shuttle!" but no, they had the last laugh.

The only reason you would have to install cards for others is because they are too afraid to open it up and try it theirselves. They are so used to "leave it to the professionals" mentality. Do it Yourself is becoming easier and easier by the day, but fewer and fewer people bother. Why is that exactly? I'll never understand why the easier it gets to do something the fewer people actually try doing it.

I've never played in a tabletop RP game where anyone had the least pretense of attempting to "be" their character. The characters were just 'things' you pushed around on the table, like Gods directing the actions of petty mortals. We were never trying to say "I am a dwarf", or "I am a dragon". It was "My 5th level dwarf fighter attempts to hack off your dragon's head...." *rolls dice* "... and misses, then runs away, screaming, as fast as he can." You could already see that the dragon was being played by the nerdy kid from down the street, and that the burly orc was your little brother. There was no attempt at creating an illusion of a fully fleshed-out character. You played the characters in thrid person, for the most part. There was no illusion that the characters are in any way "real".

I've also done live-action roleplay. That is entirely different. You only attempted roles you could convincingly portray. Your abilities and actions were limited by what you could do, or by stories you might tell about what was being done but which could not be seen (like a fearsome escape from a ship full of pirates, before you entered the tavern.). But you wouldn't see a scrawny 16 year old girl portraying a mature, muscular, 7 foot tall Persian prince. Your roles were limited in much the same way as a stage actor or actress. You are using your real voice from the beginning, so there is no comparison.

In SL RP, or in text based RP forums, you never saw the other players. Your ability to portray your characters rested entirely on your skill with the written word and your ability to describe appearances and actions in a compelling way. You actually could play in "first person"... You could be ANYONE OR ANYTHING, provided you were a good enough author and were quick with an appropriate reply. Adding voice chat to THAT scene is like lifting the curtain to show the Wizard of Oz is just a tattered old man with a fancy machine, and not the God-like wizard that he was portraying himself as. Or like running up on stage and tearing the wigs and costumes off the actors, leaving them in their underwear and revealing that the aging Asian wizard is really a 20-something white actor from The Bronx. It destroys the illusion.

It's because they've learned that things that look easy usually aren't. It may seem really easy to put a card into a PC, but no guide will clearly tell you how to avoid accidentally nudging the little 2-pin wire connector that comes loose and turns off power to your case fan so your PC overheats.

Anyway, this is all getting off the topic - my point is that the fact that you, and specifically you, found a way to play a few specific roles in the presence of voice does not in any way make this universal or mean that it won't have a major effect on others.

(Oh, and by the way, it turns out I *did* have a "What U Hear" but it was buried in a properties menu - thanks )

Somehow I think that doesn't require less knowhow and skills....

I see lots of post sermising the end of roleplay just because voice is added.

As a roleplayer who routinely cross-plays (Roleplaying the opposite gender.) in other mediums and uses Ventrillo, a stand alone client/server voice chat system, to talk to my guild out of character. I do not see voice having a huge impact on roleplaying, the whole point of roleplay is to emerse yourself through your imagination to the point where you "Become" your character and only see the other characters. Using voice among my Guild Wars guild has not hampered roleplay for any of my characters, I still get comments like "Awww, Dway is so cute.", Dway being a 10 year old female monkling character I play, my youngest character among seven I roleplay on Guild Wars depending on what other characters are at a location, current plot archs, ect. Comments like these tell me I am doing things right and dispite them knowing I am actually a guy I can suspend there disbelief and have them believe the character is real.

In many ways it has brought us as a group closer together and enhanced our passion for roleplaying. It also allows us to discuss possible plot archs in real time with or without logging into Guild Wars, one advantage using a stand alone system has over using a built in system.

Bottem line though, LL is not taking away our keyboards or demending that people use voice to roleplay. There is nothing to say that roleplayers can't talk with each other over voice and roleplay via text at the same time. Reguardless of hearing some ones voice you can tell when some one is not entirely in there role and they themselves do not entirely suspend your disbelief.

Just my take on the whole "Voice will destroy roleplay.".

That would be very nice. Can I use your method under Linux?

The way I see it, Voice will NOT kill off anything.

It will have uses, just like Flexi-Prims. Are we ALL forced to wear Flexi-Prim items?? I dont think so.

I can see uses & mis-uses of voice. Just like anything else- its a tool.
I use Yahoo IM and only on occassion use voice.

I'll most likely be using it to talk to friends. Cant say much about RP stuff, cuz really, anymore after 20+yrs of it I'm bored with it. My life is bizarre enough as is!!

yep, but explaining that to some people in voice makes them dissolve into a litany of swearwords in the middle of a PG infohub

After that, you can bet I won't have voice on in any commercial space I own, just to prevent my customers from being abused in that way.

SL was never meant to be either a text or a voice medium. It was meant to model the real world, and create a shared space. Voice is just another option. One that can be enabled or disabled - by the land owner. Thank goodness for that, because my experiences with voice - the griefing and general stupidity has outweighed the good ones. We need voice added to group controls, where you can give rights to individuals to use it or not.

The virtual equivalent of "shut up when you are supposed to" yes, in REAL LIFE you can't always talk when you want - why should it be different in the virtual one? If I scream at people in a shop, the shop owner can throw me out. As it should be. Libraries can tell you to be quiet - orchestra concerts can tell you to be quiet - SL parcel owners can tell you to be quiet, too. And they should have the ability to decide who should talk and who shouldn't - its necessary for many kinds of events to keep full immersion.

But ... one ... conversation, ehm, a certain someone needs to get their overgrown sense of entitlement straightened out, and soon

I think it is wonderful! I dont like to type much either and since I am not into any kind of roleplaying (which I think is childish), the voice will help us, those who really want to have a nice chat with nice people. I could say, get over your fears, this is a game.