The Voice Rush - it has caught on amazingly quickly hasn't it?

Well, like Miss Saltair, I am a tenant of Desmond's, spend probably too much time on grid in his sims, and am completely surprised by this post. I know perhaps two "vocal" voice proponents in Caledon, but more than a few in the solidly anti crowd. Most of the rest I know plan to use it only for one on ones, and rarely if ever as default mode at a ball or such.

If voice IS being used heavily, it bodes well for those of us like myself who strongly dislike it. No, really. Consider that I haven't even the new voice client and have never so much as listened (before I get a "how do you know you dislike it, then?" comment, I've seen/listened to the demos and got a bad case of hives from them. Also, I hate headsets).

And yet, I haven't even noticed that people are prattling on their conference calls about me. I haven't felt excluded from super secret conversations--to the contrary, I haven't even noticed that conversation had slowed down.

So, *if* these observations are real, and not just a few advocates trying to befuddle our dear, innocent Guv'neh, then truthfully, voice is a non-issue in sims which place a high value on etiquette. I suspect that some of the more bellicose "pro-voice" posters on this forum would find such environs uncomfortably foreign to them, and as such we need not worry about people with their loutish ways inflicting themselves upon our society.

Usagi. Glade we amuse you. To bad everyone wasn’t born with your technical prowess…lol…grrrr! Maybe if you read the groups charter you would see that we’re about more then just helping people figure out what buttons to push. And maybe you and I could count the “help I can’t get voice to work” threads together.
Back to the OP… there are still lots of people who are not using voice. But… I’m not at all surprised at the number of people who are. Maybe some of you should spend less time in the Forums and more time in world. There are countless people contacting me wanting to know where they can go to talk to others. Most of the clubs I visit are voice enabled except for the dance areas. All the welcome areas along with HiP and OI are voice enabled. Many businesses and shopping areas are also voice enabled. And I will say with confidence that there are many times more then 300 people who are actively using voice.
And though Desmond’s observations are encouraging, calling this thread a pro-voice plant only shows the lengths people will go to discredit any validation of voices success.

I have no guarantees, but I am confident that most of the people in these forums are probably those who spend the most time in world as well. Desmond himself is one of the busiest people I know in SL and yet I see him posting in the forums.



I have stopped by the welcome areas and my experience was that most of the newbies were most focused on learning how to get voice to work. I found this disheartening since so many don't spend enough time learning the basics already. I'm sure they must also find it frustrating when they get out in the world and find few people are using voice.

I've turned my voice on and traveled about out of curiosity. My experienced validated what I believe, the vast majority don't even have voice turned on.



The posts that I saw regarding Desmond being a plant appeared to be tongue in cheek. At least that was my interpretation. I certainly don't think he is. His experience is just vastly different than my own.

As for me, I am in no way against voice. I just don't care much one way or another. I am just calling it as I see it. Until it becomes more common in world, I just don't care enough about it to turn it on.

This whole "I hate/love voice" thing reminds me of a conversation I recently had with the Fiancee at her new apartment.

We got to talking about how Un-Neighborly people are compared to the old days when you'd move to a new place (in RL) and the neighbors would come over & introduce themselves, and so on.

Seems people are somewhat 'afraid' of new people anymore. Whether its good or bad. Just seems a shame. Says alot about the human race as a whole and where we're heading, I think.

Me? Heh- Text or Voice, I'd still talk to you. Of course some things are not to be spoken/typed of, but thats the part just like RL. If we really wanted total "escape" from RL, we'd still be playing The Sims.

Thak you Tod I need a little laugher in this mess we are in these day

DaQbet Kish For information I send alot of time in game Unlike some do. So before you start ASSuming and making ourself look like a total ass. Stop while you still have repect you have left runs out....................Don`t you love people these days......

Another tenant of Desmond's here. I have been using voice since it went live. I think its fun, and hearing those you have known, and in one case talking with another Caledonian I hadn't really interacted with before. It opened up a bit. But there are times when I will find myself typing even when I am only with one other person and we both have voice enabled. Sometimes I just express myself better or feel more comfortable typing. Though my close friends like voice. I am also in the "meh" crowd. I wasn't overly excited about it, but I am not against it either.

Hence in Caledon, why I think the surprise. Those who oppose voice saw it coming down the pipe. Like an approaching train, it is inevitable, they saw it coming and protested -- loudly. Those of us looking forward to catching the train had no need to be "vocal" it was coming, whether we cheer for it or not. And then there are folks like me. Not thrilled, but not opposed, so really no need to say anything one way or the other.

Though in a small casual setting, voice chat is actually quite nice and enjoyable.

Hmm Voice was booming in the Pond for the first couple of nights, but then after listening to people having kitchen arguements, kids fighting and people slurping drinks, it fell into disuse

I continously hear you shouting from the rooftops in every post, you manage to slip into, this sooth sayer complex. You liberally use the term 'we' when in reality a large portion (myself included) do not seem to have the technical issues you suffer, nor do we come into contact with the prolifercation of drama you appear to. Dosen't that tell you something?

Everything about this platform is about choices.... if there are too many bad points for you, you can leave... if the good out weigh the bad, then stay, but either way, please make up your mind and stop this trolling bring doom and gloom to every section of the forums.

You may wish to consider creating your own blog, website, wiki, forum, where anyone of a similar ilke can frequent and feed eachother.
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Getting back on topic...
Personally, voice isn't a big part of SL for me, whether its business or personal. For some parts of business, I prefer to use text, so I can keep a record, other times, I would just use voice to create an 'outline' of a potential contract, before comitting to paper.
For personal use, it has its uses when there is a group of us, that all have mic's etc.. then we may venture into using voice, but if a member dosen't have voice, its no problem, we just use the standard method of text chat.
I've tried the IM voice function, which was fuzzy and unreliable, although looking at the blogs today, it would appear some upgrades have been introduced.

Personally, I don't see voice as being the 'norm' in SL, well not for at least a year or two, I see it as a secondary function.

Dont have to plant around here, all u gotta do is start a thread, and by then 2nd or 3rd post it's another bitchfest regardless of the orginal post

People even bitch about the bitching.......

same here. I really like the voice IM and conference call ability, but spatial voice chat is something I don't indulge in often. I use voice IM the most of all, but only with friends.

Yes.

I'm mostly a text chatter, but voice chat with a few friends, in a nice casual conversation, quite a pleasant thing

Not something I'm interested in with everyone, but with a few folks where its easy to keep up with the conversation and the people are pleasant, it works fine. I still have reservations about voice griefing and keep it off in most places, though.

Making the generalization that people who post in the forums don’t spend enough time in world was a cheap shot…sorry.
What I can gather though is that people will gravitate to what ever their experience is with voice based on their bias. I find lots of people using voice because I consistently look for people using voice and I wear my Voice Mentor tag.
Those people that have no real interest in voice will currently find only a few using it because they are not looking as I do. That, I believe is the premise of Desmond’s OP. Finding something he didn’t expect.


Usagi. I have enough drama in world. Could we possibly limit ours to the forums please?
And are you really that thinned skinned, to take such offence? All I was doing was defending a group that I started, and filled with good people, and you attacked.

You may have a point.

I really dont want my neighbors coming over either - ever.

When someone comes to the door I do not answer it unless someone called first, so I know who it is.

I do not answer the phone if its a number I do not know.

And yeah im very leery about voice chat.

With regard to demographics: YES, I was surprised, I thought even with the few quiet supporters of the voice feature that Caledon residents would be largely voiceless.

I absolutely did recognise regular residents enquiring about the feature, in significant number. I tend to be a sort of quickie tech support center for Caledon people, when I'm on. The only people who asked to have voice activated, in fact, when there were problems were actual residents of Caledon regions.

My guess (I have no hard stats) is that many turned it on to simply listen as necessary, then started using it as well.

It's very hard to tell who has it, or if silences in conversations are voicechat, without turning the feature on. Which is a shame.

It may have been 'new feature curiosity' - I hadn't thought of that until I read about it here. Not that much time has passed, so that remains to be seen.

Incidentally, it's going to be a lot less money and fuss if I let some Caledon sims revert back to 'no voice'. There's no 'win' in this for me, either way - I can't please everyone, and this is just another division in what was a nonproblem issue in the past.

But I wasn't kidding at all - I saw a lot of voice usage this past week or so.

I haven't seen or heard it at all. It may very well be that the voice fans go to different places than I do.

I DO really like caledon, BUT if voice is widely used there, I will probably seek an alternative.

My public and rental islands are all voice-enabled, and I've yet to encounter a single person using it. Pretty weird.

Well, many residents are playing with computers that are marginal for SL, and just cannot handle voice.

Caledon is very demanding to render, and thus will attract residents with more capable machines. Perhaps that has something to do with Desmond's experience.

(there are several other threads explaining the stresses voice puts on client CPUs, and how it is more demanding than Skype etc.)

Just so you know, I'm running a P3 and the addition of voice doesn't change my performance one bit. My rig handles voice just fine. I can't imagine a new(ish) P4 having problems with SL--especially not contributed to voice (which runs on a different server).

My point being voice's impact on your CPU, RAM, and GPU is negligible.

Hi, Michael. Of course performance will vary according to the particular capabilities of your machine. While the voice mixing and server-side signaling are handled on dedicated servers, there are client-side components that MUST reside on the end-users PC. Specifically, end-node voice rendering and client signaling. Individual computers' abilities to cope will be very specific to the individual PCs. Older laptops are particularly likely to be stressed, as mobile versions of both audio and graphics chips don't have the onchip memory or cycles to render swiftly.

See /142/de/202733/1.html
It gets interesting with Kascha's post around the end of page 2.

My point was...if you're running SL now...voice is going to be a negligible difference in performance. If you are running on a system so old you have to set ALL graphical settings to their minimums...then voice definitely isn't the issue--the issue is you need new hardware. lol.

Lol whatever. I say, try it. If it works, fabulous! If not, there are technical reasons why it might not. HOWEVER, even if it doesn't work, the technology is quite subject to tuning and optional methods, so even if it doesn't work initially on someone's inadequate gear, the Lindens may fix that as time goes on.

And now, back to the informal survey of voice usage .... the actual topic of the thread ...

I hate it. Can't hear what people are saying half the time, most people seem to ignore people in text chat if they are in voice and it means I can't listen to music or have my speakers off (I need to have them on and at a decent level to make sure I can hear everyone properly).

Thanks LL, add something else that makes life harder rather than fixing the current issues.

None of the places I frequent uses Voice, none of my friends do either. Honestly, my SL experience is exactly the same as before they introduced Voice.

It would seem.. that the voice feature is gradually getting better, we managed to get 12 people into one place and have some reasonable conversations. Some complained that the voice would fade in and out for them, whilst others said it was a good experience. We were 600+mtrs in the air, which may have helped?

IM voice chat worked on and off, although quite clear at times.

Group IM chat was a no no. All the volume controls were fixed at 0 and could not be adjusted, so we gave up on that.

At one time, I found myself in a mixed culture group and discovered just how difficult it was to use voice. When using text, the conversations were very fluent, using voice openned up a new senerio whereby conversations were slow and broken as those that could read text in English (not their native tounge) had time to digest the meanings before responding, now found the accents actually fuzzed the conversation and a lot of repeating/explainations of what was being said, was put into text before continuing.