Integrated voice is coming next month?

This will definitely be occuring, no doubt about it.



If someone does not want to voice it should be respected and the subject dropped.

Hmm they need to be very careful how they implement this already seen in other MMO's where teams it is great for a group of friends unless someone doesn't have it, but also you find you tend to ignore others in the world up to the point you find other AV's jumping up and down in front of your screen because you are accidently ignoring their texts.

-I know of one case where someone Rolepays so well 2 different characters that one has been banned from a sim, whilst the person doing the banning has no idea one of her best workers is the alt of this banned person. Voice could make this an interesting situation to hide.

Yes, if we gender benders choose to Role Play the opposite sex it would be damn harder to do the illusion, but we aren't necessarily crossdressers or gay because of it (not that's there's anything wrong with that either), but then again I expect voice morphers to be available pretty quick. Many women play guys too to avoid being hassled by guys.

Deaf people, mute people & others with speech impediments will suddenly find themselves treated as in RL, where here thay can be treated as they wish.

In short we might have to use our real faces & bodies for AV's next too.

This is Second Life not First Life,
I for one am here not to be me, the friends here are friends of my AV, 99% sure we will never meet in RL or talk voice or even email, and others who push for my RL persona are made fully aware I am not a big blue Superhero with limited Lucidity in RL or and have no interest in them being involved in my RL

But for many it will be a good thing for meetings inworld etc

But in Short LL needs to be very careful about how they do it, so as not to divide the community or, somehow divide the community deliberatly like 2 split server systems, talk and non-talking.

But seeing they have committed themselves to a release date it is more likely to just be dumped on us regardless of the beta testing results, which of course will be comprised 99% by people who want voice

Hey we can have mobile phones in here next, where can I get "The Crazy Frog" Ringtone for my Virtual Mobile (Cell) Phone?

So I'm sorta for it if done right, but doubt that will happen so against it till it's thoroughly researched & thought about.

I think it will depend on what actually means, and whether the majority chooses to be voice-enabled or not. The worst they could do is make the indicator visual and in-world (seems to be the most likely option though), making it rather stigmatizing because whoever isn't voice-enabled now looks different from those who are.

I also have to wonder how this will impact land ratings. It doesn't make sense to have land where there are restrictions on what can be typed (expletives, obscenities), but everyone is free to "voice" it because there is no way to report it.

My first thought is that I'll go hide under my alt more to get anything done and will generally lead me to be less social overall. If I'm building or working on something, I do hate IMs, but I can see voice being even more of a distraction because voice conversations tend to be immediate (noone balks at having to wait a minute for a typed response, but a minute long silence is unnatural) and at other times I also can't handle 5 of those at the same time and still shop, or explore all at the same time, or even listen to music anymore.

Personally, I think it's a *good thing*. The blog is now posted so there QAs happening

CHOICE
More choice in communication should hopefully mean better communication. In RL we *don't* have the option of written IMing - and it would be useful! In my work as a journalist (SL) IM/chat is essential since I can simply copy/paste the material and no-one can dispute it. That can't happen with voice (so easily). My interviews will therefore continue to be in text.

PERFs & LAG
Don't think it'll make stuff worse. Already you need high-end kit to run SL so client-side should be ok. Bandwidth will always be an issue - it's the nature of the internet. The service is coming through 3rd party servers so SL server side should be ok too.

BUT

GRIEF
It'll be worse than "poo-heads". In fact, I envisage only having group or 1:1 voice, since the "conversation environment" is likely to be hell (though that could be interesting ...).

PAYMENTS
Not only will olders sims have to pay to upgrade, but check this from the blog:
"There will be no additional charge for using voice for residents or land-owners during the both of these beta trial periods."
So that means that out of beta there WILL be an extra charge? Uh-uh ... I pay enough already, and use skype for voice.
Increasing subscription or tier for this will likely kill it for most purposes. If I want to voice chat with someone on my land or off it I'll just skype 'em.

_______
Anyway this discussion is now on the blog comments too ...

xxTiger

Colette...you seem to be seeking confrontation and I am not. I am well aware of how language can be misinterpreted. In many cases, you simply cannot know what the speaker means because his or her way of thinking may deviate from the rules taught in lexicons. Referring to my use of the word "excuses" again, for hopefully, the last time. I used the word in a neutral way. It can be seen as neutral because the intention behind it was not to agitate, ridicule etc. If you choose to not believe my stated intention, then there is little I can do to convince you - unless you and I continue this back and forth exchange and write a few books in this forum. If you really want to call out the word police on me, why don't we look at your use of words.

For example... You spoke of me being "oblivious"...

Here, I could easily have jumped to the conclusion that you were aiming to insult. And as the general tone of your writing is, at least in my mind, somewhat aggressive and confrontational, I may have been somewhat justified in jumping to such a conclusion.

My statement about the dictionary was also misinterpreted by you. I wasn't saying "Hey idiot, go look at a freakin dictionary." LOL ; ) I was simply making the point that my use of the word "excuses" didn't have to necessarily imply the desire to agitate.

After so many exchanges of text-based conversations with you and our seemingly inability to understand each other's words, one could ironically claim that we have just made a pretty good promotional argument for the use of audio in SL. Go figure... Text-based communication leaves open many doors to misinterpretation by the leader. I don't think you will disagree with me on this. But it's certainly okay if you do.

Please have a nice day. If I ever offended you by my use of the word "excuses", please excuse me.

You see, even these last words...please excuse me. ...can be interpreted in a multuitude of ways. You might think I'm saying, please excuuuuussseee ME!... I can assure you that I am not, but you'll simply have to trust my word.

We have left the initial topic far behind us (use of audio in SL). I'd be more than glad to continue chatting about this particular topic, but I doubt this forum is the ideal one for our semi-philosophical ramblings about language usage.

Thanks for your dialogue, by the way. It has taught me a few things about language communication in forums.

Gee, Tiger, you should read your own employer's website... www.metaversemessenger.com

We had this story out at 4:45am SLT yesterday.

P2

Well, if LL wanted to remove most of the porn from SL, they've just figured out how to do it

To everyone who complain about potential lack of anonymity and/or splitting of communities into ‘typers’ and ‘talkers’:

VOICE CAN BE ALTERED VERY EASILY. I’M SURE SL WILL INTEGRATE SOME SORT OF VOICE ALTERING MECHANISM FOR THOSE WISHING TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.

You can sound like a woman even if you’re a man or viceversa. You can sound older, younger, stronger, weaker, weirder whatever.

For god sake stop complaining and enjoy it.

If you don’t wanna use it, nobody’s gonna force you into it.

This is nuts. My mainland parcel is free for me to use voice. But the island I pay $195 USD a month for is not. And free accounts on the mainland can voice for free all they want.

There were to be no additional costs for old server island - but I see them coming in disguise.

There will be additional costs, and as was stated in the LL blog:

Clinton Oddfellow Says:
February 27th, 2007 at 7:55 PM PST In my opinion, although voice is optional, it’ll wind up creating rifts in SL. For those who play SL as a true fantasy world, it’ll be difficult. Their characters may be a different age, gender, or ethnicity from who they are in real life, and will have to opt out of voice to preserve their second identity. People will question who they are because they choose not to use the voice features. There will be a whole “I won’t believe you are who you are unless you talk to me” mentality going on, which will have the inevitable effect of creating rifts between people in SL. Those who will talk, and those who won’t.

CCC


I think this is a valid point, I mean I am who I say I am so now I have to prove that? Although it might be a very cool addition for educational purposes, I'm not gonna use it. I'm mostly on my notebook without microphone anyway plus I'm not gonna pay anymore then I already do.

Just my 2 cents.

Mandy C

People will certainly try.

Considering they already pressure others into using voice now.

Most of my "complaints" were directly related to people thinking that no one will pressure others.

LL have said, on the FAQ in the blog entry, that they won't integrate any voice alteration mechanism because they aren't sufficient quality yet.

If you've heard the ghastly voice overs in certain independant anime-themed games you realise they're right

maybe its just me but there are some specific people whose voice i dont want to hear one reason why i havent been on a specific TS server in a while... now the thought of this person being able to find me and start talking around me, causes me to shutter in pain. hopefully there will be an option that will let you just mute the voice of a specific person, but not their typing. This persons voice is like... down right torture. to the point to where i want to punch babies. yet i still might have to interact with this person on a small scale, so i'd still need to comunicate with them... via Text :}

And eat baby seals? Whole and alive?

I think it should be the other way around. the indicator should pop up if you *are* voice-enabled, like it does in "There".

No, they have said they won't. Why? Because they don't work very well.

I wonder what affect this will have on griefing?

Either a) griefing will increase because much of what is said will no longer be a matter of record (chatlogs are often our only evidence of wrong-doing, and now those will be impossible), or b) griefing will go down because if the kids open their mouths everyone will immediately know that they're underage and they're not even supposed to be on the grid they've been using as a WoW substitute (because mommy won't pay for the service on their behalf).

*** Well, this certainly is FANTASTIC news, all of the students and teachers at my island have been asking for solutions to the voice issue, skypecasting, and others just didnt seam to work that well... ***

And you're confident it will work better if the Lindens implement it? Wow. You've actually logged into SL, right?