3D Voice Beta?

I emailed LL regarding my willingness to participate in the 3D voice beta. Surprise, haven't heard back! Did anyone else get info about the beta and how to participate? Also, do we know when the target for the grid-wide release is? Q2 2007? That's all we know?

Considering LL's track record for following through on the things they tout in press releases (virtual puppeteering, anyone? Speedtree?) I'd say you can expect the voice beta to start some time in mid-2014.

Aaaaaw I'd forgetten about Speedtree - whaddid ya have to go and bring that up for? lol

What's that?

Voice beta has been going on for a week or two now. See the Beta forum.

The voice beta started early last week on the Aditi grid.

Thanks all!

LOL IRL

The first phase of beta testing is in progress, and is a closed beta test. If you didn't already e-mail the LL staff and rave about how cool Voice Chat would be, you can't get in on that test.

The second phase will be open to the public. That is when those of us who didn't leap forward as rampant cheerleaders of the new order will get our chance to see what this 'brave new world' will be like.

Personally, I saw a you-tube video of the public beta in use, and was severely underwhelmed. Audio quality sucked, you get a squiggly green line over your name, obscuring your name, when you talk... I didn't see any sign of anyone who had it disabled, so I don't yet know what the scarlet letter for non-speakers will look like.

I also asked to join the beta, specificly to test the opt-OUT features. I think Voice is a feature I will always disable, and I want to know just how bad it will be for those of us who refuse to fall in and buy headsets.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2PwsrEYJUBk

There's the link. Looks pretty cool to me!

/shudders

Lovely, a world of incoherent conference calls. And this is being released as a demonstration. Lord knows how bad it would be once it hit the grid.

Count me amongst those who will always have this horrid feature off, thank you very much.

You cant have unanimous support if you listen to people who arent supporters!

Aw darn...I missed it...didn't even know it was in the works! Blah! Didn't do forums often enough...also need mic jack fixed or a USB mike.

This new feature ought to be quite... ummm,amusing..imagine all the over muscular oober adonis well endowed males on SL conversing in unison to the tune of 'I got my balls caught in a vice grip!' in high E

And the females that talk in a deep bass.

"Mama sang bass,
Daddy sang tenor." ~Janey Cash

they look like they are being electricuted and i didn't hear much talking so i dont know just saw the electricution thing happening there ...

That short clip alone is enough to prove without doubt that adding voice was a complete and utter waste of time.

Incoherent babbling, people talking over each other, and not being able to hear someone if your camera isn't right on them.

Can you imagine what a griefers paradise the welcome areas will be??

Linden Lab, I know you've spent lots of our money pursuing this feature (that very few people actually asked for) but it would go a long way to show that you care about us if you actually abandoned implementation of this unnecessary feature due to the overwhelming apathy about it. As already listed, puppeteering, speedtree, havok 2, or even fixing the damn water bug would make a lot more people happy - features that have actually been asked for.

If you really need to voice chat with someone... there's skype, instant messengers or... even... the telephone. SL does not need it added.

Broccoli

Now, how do you know that? What, have you done a grid-wide poll or something?

Quick flashback of Life of Brian: 'Who threw that?' ...... 'She did, she did, she did, she did, he did, he did, he did, he did ....'

Do a search of the feature votes. You'll see how few people out of the 4.6 million accounts asked for it.

Did you see a post with thousands of people complaining that they tried to get into the special closed beta voice but couldn't? Nope, didn't think so.

Have you seen hundreds of posts from those who did get in saying how wonderful it is? Didn't think so either.

You saw the Youtube video and saw how useless it was? Maybe, maybe not.

Can you prove there *is* a great deal of interest in this feature?

Broccoli

Well, what I'd mostly be seeing is how few out of the 4.6 million accounts use the feature voting forum. Surely you're not making the mistake of thinking that these forums are an accurate representation of grid-wide sentiment?


Nope. So what? Lack of proof of X is not proof of Not X.

People have used that logic to try and disprove the existance of God for many years.

But, back to the point, I reference several verifiable places where there is not much interest in voice chat. Are you able to share anything that's available that shows that people are using and enjoying this feature?

Broccoli