do we even want voice?

I think it would be clear that events such as concerts, theatre, or even smaller. more intimate gatherings such as poetry readings and the like will be open and ripe for TONS of griefing and jamming with the coming of voice.

The current system limits, and even negates those downsides by limiting the audio on a parcel to the media stream selected by the parcel owner. I get the feeling that voice will simply NOT be the tool of choice for entertainers or hosts, for that very reason. I think they'll disable voice in their venues, and stick with a system of streaming that works for them...and provides the best possible atmosphere for their clients.

I can see Squeeze's point about the third-party app route...but I'm not one that advocates it because it's "bad for others". I simply think moving the SL client to be more third-party friendly would be a way to add *more* functionality to the environment, and allow users to refine the kind of experience they'd like. It's the same reason I like using firefox, rather than a monolithic web-browser. It allows me to build the kind of browser I want, using the kind of plug-ins I find most useful. I think the same sort of thing should have been the intent of the LL dev's...rather than adding a *fixed* feature like voice.

this is from the skype EULA, one of the reasons skype can cause bandwidth and processor problems...

"Article 4 Utilization of Your computer

4.1 Utilization of Your computer. You hereby acknowledge that the Skype Software may utilize the processor and bandwidth of the computer (or other applicable device) You are utilizing, for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype Software users."

You're not getting it Mathew...jeepers.

Voice is IN Second Life NOW...what don't you get about that!!??!! Third party software on top of integrated software is...pointless. Wasteful. Stubborn. Ignorant.

It is NOT a valid solution.

Do you see me installing third party-dictionary software to run behind Word? Same thing.

And don't assume memory issues are not there. I run a P3...I have noticeable memory lag running Skype.

Also, try and tell my Mom to run and set up Teamspeak or Skype. She barely got out of Orientation Island.

I'm from Jupiter, btw.

the thing about griefing is ppl can mute the person with a click of a button

no more problems and they will just be talking to themselves

for instance if I were to attend a concert or poetry reading and others were speaking on voice I would just mute their voice so I could hear the speaker, and continue to chat via text

Michael I too have issues with skype eating up my resources prolly cuz they are using some of mine to supplement others heh

hey if your mom needs help send her my way

tried to im you in world but you not logged in

things seem to be getting back to normal in there

Yes, I think you are wrong.... There is a big difference between acting and roleplaying.

No disrespect for acting. I am a big lover of musicals and theatre plays. I often visit them.

But acting is following a pre-defined script, even more someone elses script.

Roleplays is making the script, right there on the moment... depending on undefineable and unpredictable factors that you cannot control....

That is a big difference.

Morwen

I see this thread has become a flaming troll convention so i will just say NO we dont need voice cause i dont really want to hear the above conversation in voice

Frankly I agree with the actor. acting and role Playing are so similar it's not even funny.

The difference between them is academic - you're still assuming the role of a character.

Paragraphs: 4

Number of times poster extols his own virtues: 3
Number of times a criticism is leveled at others: 5

Sorry, Michael, you have completely missed my point - which is that I think the decision for LL to prioritise voice was (and still is) wrong given that unlike many of the other oft asked for, promised and long overdue features - this one can be done via other means.

Also voice is *not* in the main viewer yet, just in firstlook, is *not* available across the whole grid yet, and *still* requires tweaking of both the client and the server code, so *is* still taking resources from other development/bug fixing. For example, the rolling restart on Friday was to address issues with voice and not the embedded notecard issue which was introduced in 1.17 back in June and with 255 votes in jira is the most wanted fix by a long shot!

that is my issue - voice was not a priority, tweaking the remaining issues with voice to get it into the main viewer is not a priority.

Matthew

I want voice. And I think it's funny. You can tell exactly how many people have never programmed or done anything with software development.


New features outpace fixes. It's like that with every single piece of software I have ever seen. It's why patches are fixed.

I do. I like voice and I think it will be a great addition to our possibilities in S.

I have been an actress at a Renaissance Faire, staying in full Elizabethian personna, responding off-the-cuff in real time to everyone I meet as I play my part as a member of the Queen's entourage. That means staying completely in-character for 12 hours a day, two days a week, for two months, and the only 'script' is what my name and role in the Court is. So I think I do know a bit about acting and doing real-time roleplay.

But when I do such roleplay, my voice, gender and body limits what I can do. I can't play the dashing six foot tall Sea Captain, with the full beard and sonorous deep voice. Not unless it's obviously a farce, with a 5'4" woman playing the role...

In SL, I can just as easily be a male, a female, young, old, Human, dragon, or fox... There are NO limits, save my ability to creatively interact in text. I can even be two or three extremely different characters at the same time: Say, an adult female Kitsune (Japanese anthropomorphic fox spirit); her teenaged daughter, (another Kitsune, who speaks with a cute French accent as she has been living in a French boarding school and is just home for the summer); and a Human male Scottsman who has a rich bass voice, and a thick Gaelic accent. And all three of them can be chattering away with other Players, in the same room or in different sims, with all whom they meet accepting each of them as a unique individual...

Enter Voice. I don't have a voice that can switch instantly between characters like the late Mel Blanc. So, at best, my Scottsman now sounds like an abnormally high-pitched tennor, because my Soprano voice can only go just so low without voice changer software, while all three lose any semblance of the foreign accents that they once posessed. Nor do I have an empty sound stage that I can access SL from. Now, even assuming that I can get Voice to work flawlessly in multiple accounts, and even if I DO use Voice changing software... all three have the same background noises from the room I am in. The same TV show is playing in the background, the same loud dog barking. The same little girl's voice asking Mommy to pour her a glass of milk... It won't take long for any semblance of believability to be shattered, or for those interacting with me to be certain that the three characters are being played by the same older woman. And that doesn't begin to get into the complications of trying to switch on the fly between the different voices and personalities...

So I try to do without Voice. But the new UI for text chat and IM's in the Voice client is so big that each time a new IM comes in, or each time I need to open the Chat history, it's like trying to drive a car and having someone unfold a large paper map in front of my face. Meanwhile, those satisfied to use Voice and to represent only characters that their voice sounds natural for can chatter away, with no obstacles. And they wonder why I keep pulling over to the side of the road every few seconds so I can speak or listen to someone. Or why I never respond to what they are chattering at me about.

Voice is all well and good, for those who only want to be their RL selves or something close to it. But for those of us who come here to escape from our daily grind and enjoy the freedom to be whatever we can imagine? Voice, as it is being imilemented by LL, sucks.

Michael : Surely as an actor you know that sometime a LACK of exposition, whether it be plot details, or even sensory input, can actually enhance a performance. You've never been interested in an amateur actor's performance... and then they open their mouth and you go "whaaa?"

I think the problem here is you really don't see roleplay from the perspective of the average roleplayer. You know what acting is, and you know that people act during roleplay, but I don't think you really grasp roleplaying in its entirety.

Think Cosplay. Cosplayers go to a lot of trouble to present themselves as something they aren't, in an environment where that is next to impossible, right there in the harsh light of reality. Virtual worlds afford less of the harsh light, which leaves more room for the actual CONTENT of the roleplaying.

So, when you say if roleplayers are serious they can learn to stifle an accent or speak more deeply, etc., you aren't giving their performance more depth to them, you're actually asking them to swim up to the shallow end and work on details that aren't really that interesting. You say you are an actor, then you must know that what you leave to the audience's imagination is almost ALWAYS better than what you can create yourself.

That's called feature creep - it is a very bad habit in software development, as any professional developer will tell you!

Matthew

Meh.

Skype was a pain. At least voice does NOT cause me a load of lag.


There I said it.

Um, no. Text-based online RP is a combination of imagination, literary ability and improvisation -- all of those are more important than "acting". Acting involves expressing onself "in character", but generally that character is the creation of someone else, and you are following a script. That's why in real life we distinguish between "acting", properly understood, and "improv". Sure, there is an overlap, but improv is closer to RP than what most people understand to be "acting". In online RP, acting becomes important when voice is used, because of course the timbre, timing, expression, and diction of your real life voice take the center stage -- but that's very different from text-based RP, and the differences are more fundamental than academic, in my opinion.

You run a P3. Is that a Pentium 3?

Did someone kidnap the Michael Bigwig who has been extolling the virtues of "modernization" and the "inexorable march towards the future" that voice represents? If you are actually Michael Bigwig, and not some alien that is using Michael Bigwig's body as a sock puppet, are you not chuckling at the irony of using a Pentium 3 in 2007 and claiming that the failure of others to embrace new technology is a flaw best resolved quickly? I am doing quite a bit of giggling here.

If P3 refers to something else entirely, please disregard this notice.

I hate when I go to music events in SL and realize I just can't understand and/or hear the singer. At least most of the time I can hear the instruments, but even there I sometimes have problems.

That is my experience as a person with limited hearing using something like "voice" in SL - live music events and DJ's. My trouble hearing a lot of what they are saying/singing leaves me with the idea that I just don't want to frustrate myself with "Voice."

(sorry for the snips, trying to somehow make my contributions longer than the quote, and I still failed)

You can embrace new technology without being able to afford it. That's why I want a personal helicopter...yet don't have one.

They're not even in the same ballpark. Is reading a book the same as watching a movie or seeing a stage play...or even acting in one? No.

The difference between text-based RP and LARP-ing is vast. One allows a participant to take part in the action by controlling a number of subtle and nuanced descriptions. The other relies on their ability to hurl socks and speak in a caricatured voice. Is one "better" than the other. No. Did they both evolve out of pen-and-paper RPG's. Yes.

SLRP has developed into a text-based collarborative form of literary storytelling.

VOXRP will turn into something...different. I'm not saying "worse"...but the myriad problems that loom for it (babbling confusion, lack of logging, no ID for the actor, bg noise pollution, etc...), make it VERY difficult for me to even want to think about using it in a roleplaying environment.

Yes...you can mute people...but a text-based system allows conversations to occur...with the possibility of them being overheard or ignored...without having to mute them as *unwanted*...and they're much less of a distraction than a possibly misheard voice.

Bingo! So well written, and I agree 100%.

I am in the minority, it appears, who understand what Colette Meiji was attempting to say.

I understood her.

VOXTARD

Someone who wanders into a voice-enabled area and begins to bray out something like the following:

"HAAY. HOW ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU DRESSED LIKE THAT? *snort* *sniffle* WHY'S EVERYONE SO QUIET? ARE YOU *REALLY* A CHICK?"

...or an almost infinite variation of the above.