Voice usage

Ok my take

Yes I have my white dot. Yes I do voice.. But with people I know. So if you see a white dot on me and I dont know you then well no I dont accept the add in so to speak.

B

Do men like voice more than women?
Do men like webcams more than women?
Apart from those women who may be men (and good luck to them, I say; teh more women we have on our side teh better), I think women are less inclined to make a breach of that private space that sl offers in this world of silence and relative anonymity. It's an age-old argument which won't be solved here BUT I can "think" voice rather than hear a squeaky gnome when I see a hulk. It's that simple. No, I wont risk a breach of the security wall SL kindly provides for me with silence and restricted media input/output.

I did voice on beta at Lusk. What turned me against it was the fact as soon as guys would hear a girl's voice it was like a feeding frenzy. It's better to just let everyone assume you might be a guy dressing like a girl than to "voice verify" and get every horny guy on a sim wanting to talk to you while they wank off.

Actually I do have a question about voice. One of my family members in game has cerebral palsy which makes typing difficult for her. She speaks perfectly fine however (in fact shes a professional speach therapist by trade).

Can anyone point me to concise directions for how to set up voice on the Mac?

THis would be a much better solution for her I think.

This sounds more like a reason to be ARd than a "game", however "wild".

Pep (This side of the Atlantic you have to ask permission to record people)

Tried it did not like it spoit SL for me, sort of made it half real.
Avatars in general look 25, but the voices being all ages not fit.
Found more than one person talked at once, some leave mic open when not talking.
SL male friend has girls voice.
No I stick with type I not worried what who behind the avatar, I just take what I see and read and enjoy SL.
Remember SL is not RL, its a game, a roleplay, its for enjoyment etc.
Love
June

I keep voice on all the time, but typically only use voice with family and friends. Though I must also say it is incredibly useful when trying to talk someone through something, or when you and/or another party are near one another but building things. Allows you to respond to conversation while still micro tweaking your prims to make those pesky seams disappear.

Some things to remember:

People won't always understand how the push to talk works, and might leave their mic open. Just let them know (politely) how to disable the toggle in preferences and also how not to use the little lock feature on the button. Middle mouse works very well.

People won't always know they're causing feedback or echo for other users. Politely inform them how to fix this, by either isolating the microphone from their speakers or by using a headset.

If your mic is a cardioid type, you can point it away from constant sources of noise like computer fans and yappy dogs.

Sing with your own voice and play your own instruments when appropriate; playing prerecorded music over voice is lazy and really, REALLY annoying for other people. If it's that important to share a sixteen-minute song, use a YouTube link.

Smile. People can discern the pleasant change in your voice when you're happy.

Nehehe... Yeah... The main guy that does it sees himself getting hour long vacations quite often. He has enough alts to cover it though. (^_^)y

To be precise, you're agreeing with me.

The client is sending the messages to the sim. The sim is sending them to the other clients.

Adding ONE MORE MESSAGE, ONE BYTE LONG, when the agent enters the sim or enables or disables voice that says "this agent is voice enabled" or "this agent is not voice enabled" is not going to "drag down" the bloody sim.

This whole "the sim isn't involved, there's no way to do it without dragging down the sim" argument is sheer horse exhaust, and I'm bleeding tired of having people repeat it as if it was anything but a rationalization. It doesn't even qualify as an excuse.

There is no bloody excuse for not implementing this feature.

Period.

Voice is distracting to me. I turned it on once, was exploring a sim with a little group using voice. And Oh.My.God. shut up...just shut up!

But my biggest peeve with voice are the hard pro or anti voice crowd. People use it, or not, for a lot of valid reasons.

I have a friend who is deaf (and mentions it in her profile). She gets asked why she isn't using voice all the time. C'mon people!

I'd love a copy too.

I don't use it.. I did once or twice.. Don't see all the hype.. Everyone talking over each other yada yada yada.. I gets annoying to say the least.

If we're just talking about voice and webcam as communication tools, I don't think there's a gender bias, Jig. I've heard several gaggles of girls chattering away, and I know one couple who both love their webcams.

But...I *do* think that a lot of guys like voice and webcams because their own insecurity compels them to look for "proof". In this case, we're not talking about using the tools for communication, though, but as a kind of security blanket.

I'm slowly losing my bias against voice. It'll never be my favorite way of communicating, but sometimes it IS faster. My problem is that I can't do computer stuff and talk at the same time...a voice tutorial with me sounds sort of like this:

"Now, open your inventory. The button's on the bottom right of your screen"
"OK"
"Open the Library folder and scroll down to..um...
"Yes?"
"Um, Clothing. Then open...uh........." (soft humming and keyboard sounds).
"Open what? Hello? Hello??"

Oh yes. This is almost a straight transcript. No, I'm not kidding:

Voice User: Argent, turn voice on.
Argent Stonecutter: I don't do voice.
Voice User: Are you some kind of alt?
Argent Stonecutter: Well, I guess, Argent David was my first character, but I liked this name better.
You have been ejected from parcel "Voice User's Home" by Voice User.
Voice User shouts: Come back when you're man enough to voice.

How Lame can one get.. Hell maybe you have a baby sleeping next to you..

I voice, but usually keep it to a private voice conference. A lot of people you see without white dots might be in private voice calls with someone.

I am sure voice has its value (but on a limited scale). I have heard very convincing points against voice in this thread. First, that it removes a great deal of teh mystique of sl when a human voice (gnarled and grating, perhaps) interrupts teh fantasy world. Second that for many people, voice simply isnt possible. The may have family members in close proximity or be in circumstance where talking to a computer seems isnt private enough.
I live alone, quite literally in the "middle of nowhere" so m voice in the wilderness wouldnt matter, but destroying the ambience of sl is certainly a factor. Pep also mentioned that in one country it is illegal to record a voice without permission; yes, it is but there are NO guarantees that you aren't being recorded in one format or another. Stay clear of voice or webcame unless you are totally comfortable with the situation you are in. I will never use voice, never use webcam and only use a personal email site for my sl partner for emergencies such as sl blackouts, travel itineries in real, or garden/house letters.

No, as soon as you activate Voice, that white dot appears, even if you aren't talking to anyone. Even if you don't HAVE a microphone connected... A person doing a "private voice IM" will still show a white dot. They just won't show the green (or red) "volume indicator" when speaking, like they would if using Voice in open chat.

Ok, that is where I would come back a few minutes later, and type "OK, I'll Voice with you. But my voice is kinda soft and hard to hear, so turn your volume up. Now, listen closely, hon..." and then turn on Voice (with no mic or headset and Voice chat muted...) and play a very loud pre-recorded sound of a police whistle being blown as hard as you can... Or a dog barking at 110 decibels...

A jerk like that isn't worth communicating with in a civil manner.

I tried voice but ended up turning it off.

For me SL is all about creating the image that people want to be, and to be honest I really would rather imagine how some people talk than to actually hear them.

I would like to have a way to be able to listen to voice without actually having the dot above my head. That way I could still take part in conversations without people offering to buy me a mic....

Um, no - they won't. Private Voice IMs shut down the local voice channel. I know, I actually use voice. I've watched as the voice dots of those around me vanish when we move OUT of local.

Yeh, and I'm a guy with a male avatar. I hate to think what it's like if you're female. I don't think voice is intentionally a scheme to drive shy people out of SL, but sheesh...

Unless you know of some way to cross your sound card's output into the Voice Channel on a modern computer - good luck playing ANY sound not present in SL over Voice without the use of a Mic.

Over the past months I changed my opinion completely and went from a strong anti-voice standpoint to a very positive one. IMHO voicing is a matter of self-confidence. When it was introduced I was afraid of people making fun of my accent or that they won't understand me, or that guys would constantly harrass me. Both things are just not true. It's all about confidence!

I started using voice with close friends only but soon moved on to using it whenever I can. Especially when explaining something to a newbie it is faster and easier to speak. Meetings with friends and group members are more efficient when most people are talking instead of typing. Another advantage: You can build while talking to other builders at the same time. Typing and building don't go well together.

Do more guys use voice than women? Probably. There are 2 reasons I think: Many women feel uncomfortable with voice because they fear to be harrassed (that's BS, get over it, don't let other people control what you do in SL). Second, around a fifth of all female avatars are in fact guys who of course refuse to voice for obvious reasons.