Voice Chat, good or bad move ?

So if I disable voice I am now in a silent world. The number of people texting on the Beta was small.

Trouble is, by the time I have an opportunity to use the mute button, the perp has already annoyed me. And it may not be easy to figure out who said what.

Voice, if it becomes popular, will allow the charismatic and outgoing to marginalize the rest of us, just like they do every place IRL.

It will allow the less mature citizens to monopolize the grid.

"...static....rap blaring....Yo Dude!.....Look at my Head MAN!....Whooooooooooo.....static.......Boobies!!!!.....static"

/muted

Those people will lead to less and less people using this service.

This is a good point too =/

Some people might laugh considering how often I post here but im very introverted in my Real Life.

Second life has been my escape - Ive always liked reading so a text based world really apeals to me. After years online, in a text world I can be outgoing..

Like many of my friends have said, Ill probably only voice with people I already know well.


I imagine im not the only person who feels this way - since if all these people in SL were outgoing IRL theyd be out being social IRL.

There will be some really good places to use voice, classes in SL being one of them. How to stop students from all asking quetions at the same time? How to politely ask those who have their music blaring in the background to turn it off?

As it stands now, you either have to mute each immature av, or turn off the voice option completely plunging yourself into a silent world.

i hope it would be possible to mute just the audio of a person and not them entirely, say they are playing music on the mic i may not want to hear that but could be interested in what they are saying

Or perhaps, Dnali, they are introverts who prefer text to voice. Easier to maintain anonymity and a safe distance - time to reflect before answering. One may even have a job involving lots of phone calls, and doesn't want that particular real life element intruding into Second Life. Or perhaps they just needed time to warm to the idea. That was a first take. Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions and offer innuendos. Communication beats conjecture every time!

I would just like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. *takes notes*

I can't think of any use I would have for it. Tried voice on messenger programs and just felt silly talking to my pc (hehe), but then, I'm not much of a phone person either, I like my talking face to face. I can, however, appreciate that it will be useful for other people and so, in that regard, it is a good idea.

I'm not worried about being marginalised for not using it either since it seems to me there is a rather large slice of the SL population who also say they won't use it, it'll be hard to feel left out with so many other people left out with me.

I've never been bothered about whether the person I meet in SL is a carbon copy of the person at the keyboard. I'll only ever deal with the SL one anyway so where's the harm in taking things as they are? Will people think I'm hiding something because I don't speak? Probably but I deal with enough insecure people in RL without handling the trust issues of peeps in SL too!

one thing im hoping one of you that has tested it can answer for me is:

is it a push to talk enabled voice program or am i going to be constantly muting my mic when i have to talk to someone in my home?

one thing ive always loved about ventrilo and similar programs was i could push a button and people heard me not hearing everything cuz i have atendancy to sing while i dj and im sure not everyone wants to hear that lol

I RP as males, as females, as herms (rarely), and as various anthros and animals, and often have more than one of those avatars active in the same RP. And in Text I can switch between those roles in an instant, and can play them so well that even friends who have RP'ed with those characters for years have not realized those characters were being played by the same individual. But I'm not a professional voice artist like Mel Blanc, nor do I want to be. I am not able to switch my voice at will between a dozen or more different individuals of differing genders and even species. And I have no intention of trying.

Voice will be banned from any RP I am in, and will be banned from my land. If someone tries communicating with me by Voice, they will be flatly ignored, because I will never have it turned on.

The default is a live mike, 100% of the time. You have to change a preference seitting to either deacticate it or make it push to talk.

woooot but there is a push to talk setting for sure ...im excited then i love talkin to people and miss a few friends i used to talk to on vent before we got rid of it

I should clarify what I mean by being marginalized. I don't mean I will be ignored because I don't use chat.

What I mean is that if I do choose to use it, I will have the same trouble I do IRL. I will have trouble breaking into conversation, and because I am soft-spoken and not aggressive, when I finally do manage to get a word in, someone will talk over me.

Pay attention to conversation IRL and in voice chat. A few people dominate. Those are the people who will enjoy voice chat.

I just tried it out in Beta and much to my surprise, I like it.

It's easy to disable...and since there's a small audio indicator
showing when someone is talking, you can enable to hear
when needed.

But in this first test, it was just a few people.

In larger groups it could get kinda crazy, but I think people
will learn how to use it.

First thing I learned is to click on the little lock on the Talk
Button so that it's in Push to Talk mode, otherwise the mic
is open and if you're using speakers or have other ambient
noise around you it will broadcast it...resulting in echoing
other people's talk.

- Infrared

Yes skype was fine. I myself think its Lindens just trying to dodge the real issues. SL lags badly and each patch it gets worse and worse. Good thing atleast they put this on a seperate server. I saw this with palace years ago. Second Life is on its midlife span. Real bad choices back to back. What they need to do is upgrade the servers, and focus resoures on making a better and more stable grid. You can put pretty bows and ribbons on an empty box, but its still an empty box. Well atleast Second life has chosen its path its more stalker friendly ha ha.. Sorry that was in bad taste. I just hope after all this drama they do something constructive, and needed. Though would not invest in any Linden Lab Stocks .I'd get funds out now before the value goes down anymore. Just feel so bad for all the people who invested so much time, and heart in a failing project. The age verification things is fine. Though giving out Names and ages , address to parcel owners now that is scary.

I'm entirely anti the whole idea. However, I spot a business opportunity - my dulcet cockney tones are available at L$250 per 15-second sample to intone "bugger off you 'kin nonce": should be the equivalent of bear spray for RL females seeking to put off in-world harassment!

I had a mean idea like that .

I'll add "Will voice for L$500" to my profile, then (voice) say "There you go... happy now?", then mute them and walk away.

I'd figure out who wasn't worth my time *and* have extra shopping money .

VC ruins all immersion

Whether your rping or just 'playing' - I used to play EQ, finally one day one of the guilds I was in decided to make vent mandatory.

When you hear a big buff troll squeak like a 12 year old (problably not far off) it DESTROYS and sense of immersion you may have had. Of course thats just for RP .. from a non rp standpoint adding VC to SL is going to add some lag no matter what they do, and with lag already making it impossible to be in SL for more than 2 hours without restarting its going to suck

Great. I'm hard of hearing, so will not be able to use Voice Chat (my land does have music, just have trouble hearing and understanding speech, and I assume I'm not hearing the music "correctly" or the same way). Guess I'll have to live with people assuming I'm a guy then.

Personally I'm looking forward to it as I speak a couple different languages (Portuguese, bad Spanish and horrible Japanese) but don't have enough chances to practice. As a result I can type and read a lot better than I actually speak and hear!

For those of us NOT hiding behind our avs this will be a great opportunity!!

I like being able to operate on the same level as the rest in SL (I appear to not be saying this correctly; to not have this hindering my enjoyment of SL). With voice enabled I will return to being at a disadvantage (at least in the RL people can see I'm female; so that's added to the mix - "yeah, right, can't use voice".

I'm rather shy, anyway, in RL, and would likely have not used voice, but I don't have the choice. Not sure if this means I'm hiding behind my avie then.

"Hiding" seems a little harsh. This is exactly the problem of voice chat. If I don't use it am I hiding? A liar? Underage? Not worth talking to?

Maybe I have a speech impediment. Maybe I have a RL that makes background noise I cannot mute. Maybe SL is a place to escape, create, imagine and I am nervous about real life bleeding into it. Voice doesn't just go in world, it is broadcast live from my mouth in my livingroom. The desire for privacy applies there too. And not just for sexual misadventures (though why be harsh and judggmental about those. We all do it in SL, RL or both) but also because if I shout "Wow this jet ski is awsome" then people in the room I am sitting in are drawn to come look over my shoulder and see what is going on. I have yet to discover a security orb that prevents inquisitive preschoolers from hopping on the couch.

Voice may be great. I don't know yet, but I am nervous.