Voice modifier

I will not be using voice unless Linden Labs makes something voice work with some decent voice changing software like maybe this:

http://www.screamingbee.com/product/MorphVOXJunior.aspx

I am hoping I will not be alienated if I end up having to refuse to use voice. I use a variety of avatars, none of which would look right using my rl voice. My primary avatar is the opposite gender from who I am in rl. Why? Because part of SL is about exploring other aspects of myself and being different than who I am in rl. I am happy with who I am in rl, but I am that person all week long except when I'm logged into sl. Looking different in sl has been a great introspective and learning experience and part of the escapist aspect of sl. Torley Linden does much the same thing that I do with all his various avs. If forced to use voice to integrate into SL, that will take away that ability for me. It says in the blog that residents who wish to disguise their voice can use software to do so. I'd like more info on this. Will MorphVOX work? How easy will it be to integrate?

i tested morphvox some time ago and like all the voice tweaking tools i know, it is far to be convincing.

Voice on SL is the wrong way to go. If this is the new future of Second Life then its totally and utterly finished for a large proportion of its current users. That could be what the developers want. Same as introducing Police avatars in sims - kills everythin stone dead to become a boring, monotonous, moral crusade.

Voice is basically Second Life defeated by half. The next half being a webcam! Its called development and improvement which will bring a form of Real Life i.e., ones real voice into Second Life and destroy the concept.

Sure it is said you do not HAVE to use the voice inclusion (when it is released) but not using it clearly demonstrates you have something to hide.

Voice is a totally different medium for communicating with. It changes everything
Most importantly it gives greater recognition and immediacy. For a start you think differently but when you type text you have all the time in the world to edit a reply.

If you use voice once you've spoken the words, thats it really, coz to backtrack and say you didnt mean what you said causes all kinds of confusion and distrust. The logical step beyond voice is your webcam and THAT totally defeats any second life whatsover. I'll bet they are even looking at that feature already.

Nope its totally the wrong way forward.

Just imagine all those voices speaking at once, will be confusing to say the least

Certainly SL will continue to be populated by both immemsionists and augmentists. Either might choose to alter his or her self from RL, and the voice, if used, must accomodate such alterations. This is not just true of transgender avatars. For example, I would probably opt for a baritone voice rather than tenor for my AV. And the furries -- think about the vocal modifications that may be desired.

Yet we should not exclude vocal capabilites -- it will be just too useful for many kinds of content presentation.

Here are four suggested implementations, some of which might be used together.

1. Add the vocal capability as an option for an estate or island sim, and not available on the mainlands. Content providers who need it, will enable it. Otherwise, it is not an issue for social contact. On the mainland, this prevents avatars being bullied into revealing his or her real voice.
2. By default, all voices are vocoded -- there will audio communication, but never with the real voice. The vocoder could provide for perhaps eight options: adult female, adult male, robot, streampunk, celestia, growl, purr, deadtone.
3. Build in some well crafted standard vocal filters: up octave, down octave.
4. Provide that the client-viewer have external audio filter/modifier plug-in capability.

This is not directed at you personally but I just imagine how many escort "girls" will be put out of work by voice. It is hard to carry on such a service when your name is Wendy sunshine and you sound like a Pittsburg steel worker.

Exactly my point Tana. Tons of Avatars would have to be redefined and the fascination of living in SL would be lowered to a certain extent. Would have no clue what to do with my second Avatar being a guy...

Even for the real female escorts in SL, I'm willing to bet not all of them sound quite as sexy as they'd want to be imagined as in SL. And that's not counting that they might not want to get that personal with their customers.

(begin humor) Let's hope they don't introduce "Smell-O-Vision"tm) where you can smell the other person. History has shown what happens... "Talkies" put a some movie actors out of work because of there voice. Then color movies relegated all the blue and green colored actors to Sci-fi films. (end humor)

I think Voice and web cams will happen, but just like voice modification, A web cam will animate your avatar.

No matter what LL does, you can always modify your system to use a voice modifier.

Worst case you have to use a separate computer and route the audio to the main computer using a analog cable. (see Line-input and line-output)

And just like in MMORPGs with voice chat, you'll get 'hey! stop using the voicemod' even if you *aren't* using one, because your voice sounds funny to them.

Bleagh.

You know that TV actually tried Smell-O-Vission once? It was deemed a faliure so large that nothing like it will ever be attempted again and the act shunted off to the realms of Urban Legend.

Oh, and if webcams come to SL I'm probably actually really leave. Sure, I don't have one, but no way I'm going to participate in a virtual world where I have to look at a crappy resolution image of the real one at the same time.

Now, I do admit that Snow Crash did have both voice and webcam, but there were reasons for it.
Voice: it makes writing easier
Webcam: for those public access points that cost you $3 a minute to log into the VW and you showed up as a black and white picture of yourself and you were appropriately shunned because you didn't have the money to buy a REAL hookup and avatar.

And god forbid if you ran around looking like Ken or Barbie (i.e. rediculously expensive premade off-the-shelf avatars). It showed you had money, but no brains.

Hmmm smell scripts, This would be a griefers dream and completely inundate SL in flatulence and poop.

More to the point, there are some factors that can be gotten from voice that aren't handled by voice changers (nor by "vocal processors", the pro-audio name for basically the same thing: take a look at http://www.antarestech.com/images/THROAT.jpg (!))

A good example is international residents who maybe don't speak English too well. In the typed system, they have all the time they need to fix up the text in their chat, look up words, etc, before they hit the return key. In voice they'll either appear oddly silent, or be having every "um," stammer or correction broadcast to the world. This will definately drive apart multi-language communities.

And on that topic, regional/national accents are often a big giveaway as to real-life location - and I don't know of any voice changer that can deal with them. If I hear someone's voice I can usually have a good guess at what country they're from. If they're from the UK I can often tell where in the UK they're from, and I imagine most other people can do that with their home countries. Did you want me to have that information just because I walked past your house while you were chatting in SL? Oh, well.

Seems like a good idea for business, public education, and other users who want a more realistic world. Then again, it annoys the crap out of me. I think I may use it from time to time, but with sometimes up to 8 IM windows open at once or having to reply then and there while I'm working on a script or in another converstation... no way.

It may be better for one on one communications, but I think what this will do is give everyone ten or more virtual cell phones yelling at them (if it's enabled like IMs are for instance).

That being said I'm already thinking of dozens of ways to profit off this new feature -- so I can't complain too much.

Well "THERE" has voice and it is great. Really no problems. And for all of you who play different genders, well, hummm guess you are not gonna voice. I will say that once voice is in, you really dont want to have to type. So I know it was much nicer to talk and ppl who didnt have voice or didnt want to use it ....well............................................

Oh an another thing. For guys that play females and dont care that ppl know, it is the most hilarious thing to hear a guys voice come from a female avatar!!!!!!! LOL

I disagree entirely. I am a RL male using a male avatar, so I have "nothing to fear" I guess from voice chat, but it really *is* the death of Second Life to institute it. Second Life was supposed to be about virtual living, not just an extension of your RL self. It was supposed to be about "community" as well.

If you talk to any of the older players or read up on what Philip's "vision" was it's pretty much 90 degrees from what we have now. Ever since the VC money arrived, SL has been de-emphasizing virtual living and community and emphasizing SL as an extension of your RL self and a RL economy. All the social enabling features of the game have been eliminated one by one in favour of a capitalist/griefer free-for all that is trying to compete with idiotic kids games like WOW or social networking spaces like MySpace.

While most of the things that allow us to live as virtual characters in a virtual community have slowly been taken away, they haven't actually thrown up roadblocks until now. The addition of voice-chat is the first new feature that actually works directly against the previously stated goals of SL and "Philip's Dream" as it were.

Aside from the huge amount of SL lesbians that are about to claim they are deaf-mutes, there are thousands of people out there with "ugly" voices and speech problems due to language difficulties.

Also, the fact that you need to type to communicate in SL has always kept out the "regular joes" that know nothing about computers or networks and are just here cause it passes the time waiting for the next welfare check. Without the need to type, the average education level is going to go down and the quality of conversation with it. Instead of being a geeks paradise, SL will become even more of a 3D "MySpace." Yuck.

People are also going to start judging people a whole lot more. Asian people with accents are going to get ridiculed by the Americans. Americans with thick southern accents are going to be ridiculed by the Canadians and Europeans. People who "sound middle eastern" are all of a sudden going to find they have less friends. SL used to be a place where you could avoid all that crap and exist as anything you want. Now it's going to be different. The choice of fantasies, and fantasy lives in SL is going to be radically diminished.

Yay! What a triumph for SL.
The vision is dead. Long live the new vision.

SL History will be revised to indicate that this was the plan all along, but for those who have been around and listened carefully, it's pretty clear that this is the exact *opposite* of what was (originally) planned for SL.

This is an interesting point. I remember my grandmother could tell what part of London people generally lived just from watching them talk on TV.

I dont know how that effects the rest of the world - But some regional dialects you can definitely pick up. New Oreleans , Chicago, Boston, parts of New York.

this is a good post on this topic -

Before when this subject came up , voice chat was always predicated on the condition that Masking would exist to preserve someone's RL identity. Much like the OP's concern.

It was not going to be added if it would make SL a less virtual community friendly place.

It could be they deiceded they werent going to wait on the voice masking technology any more. Or they are spinning their wheels on trying to ipliment other improvements.

Much like any other project you try to complete what you can do first, giving the illusion youve gotten more work done towards the eventual goal than you really have.

Come on, people... It won't work anyway. If you try using a conference call on Skype you will know what I'm talking about. Our computers and bandwidth won't handle it. There will be only one-to-one voice chat, nothing more.

Do you think that a "not suitable voice" will not fit into SL? I don't think so. You may use your voice only for OOC* chats, or if you want to say something really, really fast.

And the last thing. If you don't want to use this function, you don't have to. Don't worry about the "minorities", which someone mentioned at the beginning of this thread. There are so many poeple in SL whose English is not their fist language (I'm one of them) and I'm sure I will only use it with my close friends, who will tolerate my accent

I'm sure that there are many poeple who will use the voice chat just as a bonus, not a requirement. And if some people can't understand it it's their problem, and they are not worth wasting your time on them.


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*) OOC - Out Of Character. A term used in roleplay when a person wants to step outside of their character for a minute and speak as themselves. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ooc)

Here everybody is concerned about their RL genders or whatever commin out...what about other issues? Hey! I am not a 40 y/o beer bellied guy livin in mom n dads basement! I wouldn't use voice chat cause I have family/kids around, tv is usually on. All kinds of background distractions. I am often up n afk for a few minutes. I have nothing to hide...voicechat would just be another distraction n I would miss out on most of the conversations. Least text I can always look back in history. I would hate to constantly be askin the person I am chatting with to repeate themselves cause I missed what they said. How do you report abuse with no chat logs? Ppl harrass or put you or others down enouph in text. In voice chat would be a griefers dream.

Oh n how bout the fact they gonna charge ppl to use it. Well hey if I wanna voice chat with someone I will use one of many programs that work just fine along with SL.

So is this even about the community? Simply 'No'. It is about lindens trying to sneek more money outta your pocket. If anything lindens done any more was about the community they would be fixing all the current bugs adding simple features that ppl request that have been overlooked for years. Not adding something most of the community is unconfortable with or simply don't think it should be a priority.

Lindens need money? Dump the free accnts n do as you had done b4. Charge ppl 9bucks to creat a lifetime free accnt. That at least verifies age n puts the kiddies back on the teen grid where they belong.

I think Lindens should be concentrating on all issues that cause lag n crashes for so many ppl. Adding small easy features often seen in the voting forum to keep ppl happy. Adding somethin that few ppl will prolly use seems silly. Only place I see voice chat in a game being usefull is in fast pace action MMORPGs.

those other issues are being discussed on the other three threads. This thread was specifically related to the voice modifier since it was the OP's concern.

General voice chat is by far the worst idea I have ever heard by lindens, in ages. They could try to start a new grid with voice instead of text and wonder why never a community will build up there. Jeremy got very good point, but it is even more then that.

Foreign speech? Yes, but even worse: I did voice chat with others in english before and always hated it very much. And if it was common to a game or a community, it was my main reason to leave. Multiple people speaking in a foreign language, foreign for some of them too.. You would not understand a single word. And, even worse, you have no chance at all to check out unknown words, simply because you don't know how they are written. In SL chat I use translating tools a lot which will become completely useless, because I can no longer copy/paste the word into the translator. I could not even type them into it anymore. Try to translate "Hogghcrouse", because that's all you understand if you do not know that word already. That is why I consider the voice feature discriminating people to a very high degree! That is the opposite of the idea of a global multiverse.

The chat history, real life issues, short afk's, family being around or wants to sleep in the next room while you are forced to speak loudly. Plus this would force me to shut off my beloved speakers and wear headphones all the time, because voice chat is horribly annoying to others. Not to mention how extremely annoying I experience it myself. Blah Blah Blah Blah all around instead of listening to silent music while chatting? Awful! So I'd have to shut off all sound? "Great" feature, really! Or will this be shut off separately? Better that being forced to hear twenty voices while going shopping, but of course you would be considered being rude and ignoring when you won't react to the voices.

Oh, i used voice chat on other games too, but in my own language. And did I like it? NO! No way!! Not a singe time! Whenever TS came up, it was the definite end of ANY working roleplay. All conversation went OOC, and in the few cases, the people tried to stay IC, it was just silly and a parody of their roles, No roleplayed emoting is possible anymore either, because no one would read anymore. And the voices... horrible! Not because they were that ugly, but because they simply never ever fit to the avatar, not just a single one. As soon as voice came into a group, all illusions that I had about their avatars and roles were ended, no they were harshly destroyed and stomped into the dust! No more serious roleplay was possible anymore. Just silly gameplay. Some might like that, for me it was the reason to guit those games and to start a second life.

And how much more this nightmare is about to destroy second lifes that became more then only silly roles that are played in a game! Those lifes will be degraded to parodies too, the second life will become a second game.

This feature, if becoming common or, even worse, be usable in IM, would be the death of secondlife, yes! Because it definitely ends every serious lived second life on the grid. If it does not, those lifes are not the second ones. It is no second life if you are forced into living a first live in an extended chat environment. It completely kills the idea of a second life and simply is extremely silly. But ok, it surely is heaven for some of the residents, that never came to SL to live a second life or to seriously roleplay. But for those that came to the grid, following the original idea of a second life, it terminates their second lifes and their experiences in very many cases,

Really "great"! And for people that do not understand sarcasm: This feature is a nightmare! Why does everything that is good has to be destroyed so soon after industry finds it to be useful for them?

I will stay in SL and see how it develops, just because I do not want to drop my second life that soon, But my plans on buying main land died the very day Lindens announced this horrible feature, telling me they do not care anything anymore about people living second lifes. It feels like a sellout to the communities. Well, at least they did it right in time, at least for me, to prevent me investing too much money into a dieing world that might never be the same again. A great idea is about to be killed, SL is about to be reduced to a meeting platform, instead of a platform to live in. It is sad to see a good idea being killed because of such unnecessary and silly things.


BUT!!!


On the other hand, the grid has already started it's own live, and all that Linden is going to do is to loose more of the control. Mainland might loose much of it's value as soon as this shit is activated there by default. Whenever I see polls about this voice-crap, a clear majority is against it. Not just not liking it, no, clearly standing against it. And this means the one big chance, the landlords might just have been waiting for! In the very near future, "voice disabled", might become an seal of approval for estates and private sims.

I hate to have to wait to see if own land still is of value for me, but I will, until the landlords policies became clear on who is going to protect their residents from this cancer and who are not! This might part SL up into two grids, but if we have to go through this development, then it shall be! Maybe parts of the grid cure them selfs.

A limited selection of "themed" modifiers or "character" voices would be the only acceptable way for me because it would become far too stigmatized to be practical if it was only optional.
Even this way it would be awkward at best, so I am generally skeptical of the whole idea.

I started a Community Vote on the subject, Its Proposal 2954 which you enter at
http://secondlife.com/vote/ then look for FETCH Prop# I dunno if there are any other similar proposals but anyway I did one for it (if SL is to retain its unique position as pure escapism) So far Jeremy Benders write up in this thread is the best yet on the matter.
~~~emikins uk