5/2007 TH Question: Will Voice Be Mandatory?

in the next incarnation of second life, will voice be mandatory?

i realize that *using* voice will be optional. but what about hearing it?

specifically, will there be an option to turn off INCOMING voice altogether? to entirely disable it. to hear NO ONE speaking, whether they are using voice or not.

or will the only way to kill voice chat be to turn off all sound (the same way it is presently impossible to "mute" one wav file or one avatar's wav emissions without muting all sl sound)?


thank you!

My guess is that since it's provided by a third party, the sting in the tail will be having to pay more to HAVE it, rather than being given it and forced to use it.

I can't see a third party providing the service and part of the bandwidth for nothing, and with LL's current record I can't see them wanting to buy the service for us all without passing on the costs.

heyas;

guessing is good, wildcat. but....

i mean, look at gestures (with sounds). there's NO WAY for me to mute those annoying wav files coming out of gesturing avatars. not without turning off all sound altogether. (which i in fact did do one day, it was that bad.)

therefore, i live in fear that voice will be the same way. so i guess i will have to stalk some lindens to ask, since the town hall didn't cover it.

Oh God I wish you could mute those sounds.

It's all guessing for now, isn't it? I would like an answer to this also.

I have a nice enough voice, but I don't like to use voice, or listen to it, online. I like the quiet clickety click of keys and my own imagination.

But, the use of voice will probably be mandatory to hear, because otherwise it's too 'risky' to use; you wouldn't know who could hear you and who couldn't. Frankly, what I will be doing if this is the case, is turning down my SL sound altogether and listening to a nice streamed radio from elsewhere. If people want to talk to me out loud, I won't be listening. I cannot stand the chatter noise from real life following me into this world.

I don't know if there will be options to shut it off or not use it.. I would hope so.. I didn't ask for this feature.. I still believe stability should be the main priority right now.. But I am speaking on deaf ears I guess when I speak of such things...

Now you know why I run with my sound off all together. Voice will be no different to me.
Except that I might turn on my mike just to annoy the crap out of people who insist that I turn it on.

Well lets face it. Whats the point? The whole idea behind second life is one of fantasy. You can fly, you can change sex, you can be a pussy cat or a wolf.... whatever you feel like being. Voice takes all that away and leaves you with one thing.... A.S.L.

You can mute the voicers in your vacinity, but then you are totally unable to follow the conversation.

Voice will be done as per parcel setting. If you are on a parcel and its voice enabled.. mute it

You just go into the "Voice Chat" preferences and uncheck "Enable voice-chat". Geez, it's in the current beta, if you have concerns with a new feature then at least try it! That's what the beta is for, and the more people on it the better, as more bugs can be squashed that way.

Haravikk pretty much summed it up. There's a BETA TEST GRID for this! Try it out before you pass judgment based on speculation. Sheesh.

my hubbie an i use skype to talk on for past yr every day ! we wont be useing sl voice but its voice for us is useful due to i work from home an i can do my rl work an still be in sl (multi tasking ) lol