Skype Opens APIs To External Software

Skype Opens APIs To External Software

Might this have some bearing on the voice chat in SL discussion?

-- Gamasutra

Skype opening up their API is interesting, but the hold up on voice chat has not been the technology per se. It has been that LL does not want to implement voice chat without sufficient voice masking. Some services do offer voice masking to a degree (XBOX Live has some voice masking, but it is limited), but I don't think there is yet a voice chat service that offers the level of masking quality and customization that LL is interested in.

Personally, I think that is a bad reason to hold up voice chat, which many people have been asking for, especially those coming from There, which had excellent voice chat capabilities. I can understand the reasoning, I just don't think it is sufficient cause to hold up the feature.

It would definitely be cool if they could add seamless support for Skype voice conferences, the way they do streaming video and audio - for example, each sim would be a voice chat conference that you would automatically join when you enter.

When you say voice masking, you mean remdulating the player's voice so we don't all sound like a bunch of dorks standing around?

:: bump ::

We will ALWAYS be just a bunch of dorks standing around... or dancing LOL

Yes, that. Or more on the point, so that people have the same creativity with their voice chat that they have with their avatars. Dragons that can sound like a dragon ,and such (and I would imagine, guys who can play females without being outed).

He means modulation to protect our real life information. If you hear my real voice, you'll have somehow invaded my privacy and violated my sense of worth. Or whatever. I agree that it's not a reason to hold the feature. We could easily not connect a mic to our workstations and avoid the danger of being invaded by listening ears.

I've wondered about the real reason for not implementing this. It must have something to do with the need to feel that they're carefully guiding our social development. But so far I've not come up with anything that makes any sense at all.

I have always assumed there is only one real reason for wanting effective voice masking as a prerequisite for implementing voice , to let guys play girl roles and a few girls play guy roles. I'm sure there are other reasons one could make up, but my suspicion is that that is the only reason that really matters.

Also, about voice masking, that is something said before the company's path got altered by the 8 million dollar investment, right? That restriction might not hold with all the new folks wanting a return on their investment who may not share the exact views of the company's founders.

How bout somebody taking a look at the Workspace 3D - 3d workgroup software thread I started?

Eventually of course voice chat in SL or a decendant type place will come along -

Leading to some interesting thoughts beyond what were mentioned previously.

Clubs /busy areas
For those who have been in a club during huge spam periods, where the text chat is everyone in the area in one place - Imagine what that would be like in voice? It would like always being in the middle of a crowd, even if your off to the side sittign at a table. I imagine there will be less crowds congregating when you cant hear yourself think.

As for online relationships -
Whereas now people's attractiveness in many cases is based on how engaging they are in a textual manner. I suppose in the voice generation of online gaming attractiveness will be based on what their voice sounds like. I expect a sizable shift in the social popularity of people - many who are considered charming and desireable now wont be- many who arent will be. I imagine the kinky factor of Cybersex and number of polyamorous relationships will go down also -I speculate that these things are easier to do when you are typing than speaking

For married people -
A significant portion of the married people who have online relationships with people who they are not married RL to - will not be able to any more.

For those over say 30 or 35 -
A good portion of the older players will be more hesitant - it is those whom I speak with who are most interested in keeping their First and Second Lives seperate.

Since as has been pointed out Voice chat has been around a while (I voiced chatted back in 1998 i cant remember the application, apachi or something? and of course phones have been around forever) - yet many are still leery to use it, those feelings/tendacies wont change just becuase the technology is moved to be "within Second Life"

OH wow I missed a totally obvious one!


ALTS

will be MUCH harder to hide your alt in voice chat hehe - unless that voice masking as was mentioned exists.

You know, there is a perfectly workable option to allow voice chat with the players that you want to voice chat with.

Teamspeak is available for Windows or Linux flavors.

http://www.goteamspeak.com

P2

Using a system outside of SL to accomplish a function is not the same as having it built into SL.

A voice chat function built into SL might allow voice chat for an SL group, might vary the volume with distance from the speaker in local audio mode, enable the mute player option to mute not only their chat but their voice, enable the annoucing of selected events in audio, thus keeping the screen free of popup and chat clutter, etc.

While this is workable, it is not anywhere close to the same as integrated voice chat capabilities.

As Cris said, There.com does have a wonderful voicing technology built within it. However, I actually disliked having voice. The whole option of not connecting a mic? Doesn't work. For some reason, when there is voice, if someone is voicing, they are not very tolerant of someone typing. I prefer to type, as I type fast and often sound a bit more literate while typing. (not that I sound like an idiot voicing tyvm). However, I heard more than once from more than one person "Why don't you voice Kat? Why do you type? I don't want to read your type?".

And yeah, in There? If you went to a more largely populated area, the voice got freaking ANNOYING. And there were way less people playing There than there are playing Second Life.

I am vehemently opposed to voice within Second Life. If I want to voice with someone, well I'll trade Skype information and call them. If I don't give you the information, I'll keep my voice to myself.

All of the caveats you presented can be avoided simply by not using voice chat. However, those who want to use it should have the option to. Those not wanting it should not deny those who do want it, when it is an opt in feature. All of these arguments were made about voice chat in There, but in the end, those who wanted to use it did, and those who didn't chose not to.

I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of third party options for people who want to voice chat. I have no interest in voice. I'd rather type and read. I can't imagine what it will be like when half the people are speaking and half are typing. My head hurts just thinking about it.

I wasnt arguing against voice chat - I was simply considering what would change.

As I said at the very top of my post I assume voice chat will exist some day in SL or a decendant type place.

Plus, no Mac version.

I know you weren't, sorry, it was more of a general statement.

I agree also.

A couple of points:

- Disliking voice chat and masking the voice, is not always about masking gender identity. How many have been to a club with a live DJ, and seen a "sexy young thing" go up to the booth, only to have the voice of an octogenarian chain-smoker come out over the radio? Especially in a "romantic" situation, even if everyone is the right gender etc., there is often an essential element of mystery lost when you hear their RL voice. All of a sudden the astute listener finds out all sorts of things about the person that they normally would not know.

- The only time I have been in a voice-chat situation in SecondLife (teamspeak) it was awful and awkward. The person requesting it was handicapped, so it was great that it worked for him, but everyone else struggled with the big pauses and the converstation was far, far from normal (or even comfortable), for me.

I would think is certain situations voice-chat a life-saver, but I would not want to see it, without a "Linden" interface myself. Something easy and built into the UI.

my 2 cents...

I tend to multitask, which is hard with voice. I also find I like to be able to re-read and make sure I'm clear on what was said, which is again hard with voice.

Perhaps a problem with voice for LL is monitoring. Monitoring chat logs is fairly basic, monitoring voice streams might get space and time complex.

Personally, I would prefer text to voice, unfortunately the solutions out there, while getting better, are fairly computation expensive and not yet perfect replacements for real voice. Unfortunately, this is not a solution for everyone as not everyone can type quickly.

Introducing voice into the world would be a fundamental, huge change. It should not be something done half-way, but instead weighed, considered, and maybe finally implemented.

I wouldn't mind voice chats if it were a limited thing... if it became a social requirement (as it has a tendency to), I will retreat further into my anti-social shell.

Plus, voice chat doesn't work very well in groups of more than 3, mostly because lag and not knowing when someone wants to speak or not (without being overly cumbersome) makes it weird.

LF

Those are also my biggest reasons for not wanting voice chat. I'm usually trying to do five things at once and without the ability to ignore people and then scroll to catch up I'd get a lot less accomplished. Aside from that, text chat has a rhythm and meter all its own that's quite different than spoken word. It can be an art in itself. Writing is simply a more creative medium than speech and if everyone started abandoning it in favor of voice chat SL would be lesser for it.

Presumably the solution for this will be what LL attempted in the original v1.4 implementation of the audio stream player - try to localize the sound with volume and pan. Avatars that are further away will not be audible, your dance partner will be loudest. Avs to the left will be panned to your left speaker, etc. The stereo spatialization that they attempted in the 1.4 stream player failed miserably. I remember one of my early shows at Clementina Park, where everyone was at the espresso machine or in a tree, because those were the two spots where the music was audible. But maybe with av-centric audio they'd put more effort into it.

I personally enjoy text chat. And, of course, voice chat could really degrade the experience at live music performances (or DJ events for that matter), unless people are really polite and don't talk over the music - something that I doubt will happen, but that's also a problem in RL. Even triggered sound clips ("looking good!" are terribly annoying when coming right in a quiet section of a tune, and those play automatically for a some people. LL has promised (Philip even!) to provide separate system and stream audio volume controls so that you can clearly separate the two, but it hasn't happened yet in over 6 months. But I digress. I'm not crazy about in world voice chat at all.

There's client-side software you could use to remodulate your voice easily.