How many haven't downloaded the new viewer?

i got it, fired it up, looked at it, decided that obnoxiously large windows sucking down a good percentage of my screen for a feature i will never use wasnt worth it, uninstalled

voice is a gimmick, something to put on the bottom corner of your box, just like a decoder ring on a box of rice crispy's

Haevn't installed it, won't if I can avoid it.

Installed it .... tried it ... hated it .... for all of the reasons above
TY soo much for the link back to previous version ) Happy again)

Velda

Please step this way to the Colisseum Remember the old motto "Strength and Honour". Now close your eyes and let us Leopards have our meal.

I never download the optional downloads, and I don't even like downloading the mandatories because each one seems to make SL worse.

Hi,

Having tried beta versions of the voice viewer, I've to admit that at least the release version is not that bad. Here some points after a few hours of experience:

- The new communications window: ok, it will not win a design price, but I got used to it quite fast. Anyway, the SLviewer interface is far from being optimal, and this new window is no exception: too much functionality cluttered there and so on, but I've also seen worse I think.
- I couldn't detect a substantial increase of lag. But true, as already pointed out, some more load on my pc (may be different if you additionally use voice changing software).
- Talking with some friends (max. two at the same time), was fine indeed. I think this will overcome the problem of sometimes asynchronous communication using text chat (I mean, your friend is still on one subject, while you've already switsched to the next one). Building will surely profit from voice chat, as well as teaching, if correctly complemented with text protocols and explanations.

But...

- Hanging around in some populated areas, welcome areas and so on, is really terrible: there is so much verbal spam (not griefing! just superfluous comments and nonsense), giggling, singing, background noise and much more. Sometimes it went up to the level of acoustic stress... And I even wasn't in a large club!
- Quite annoying is also how difficult it is to figure out who's talking, looking at the chatters/voicers lists, at the main screen... until you can assign the voices to single avatars.
- Not being native english, I really have troubles with some accents - as well as they have with my bad pronounciation, of course, and with the delay on my side while a l look up some specific word. Maybe I should take this as a chance to learn now english dialects from all over the world
- And then, there are also this shorter or longer, quite embarassing pauses, where nobody talks, until someone starts again with some nonsense...
- Furthermore, I don't like the RL-voices of many avatars - they usually just don't match what they intend to look like. So, please no voice for RP's or more individual or even intimate talks (until voice changing software gets better at least and adapts easily to different characters).
- And for sure, while the voicing people I've met are very polite so far, they are just too 'lazy' to additionally write down in text chat what they say - perfectly understandeable, of course, I haven't expected anything else. At least the text chat history window doesn't fill up so fast this way

Overall, I find text chat is more concise, precise, personal, less banal, much more economical if you want (and even griefers and nonsense talkers can't type that much and fast). When I muted voice, I felt suddenly so relaxed again just some background wind or steps, some music if you want...

My main and fundamental criticisms to the whole voice thing are still:
- There is no reason for it to be on the top of priorities list, while 1) the game itself is still not stable, 2) the overall strategy is not clear, at least not for the community (see also changing ToS and established features/services at their will), and 3) sorry, but this is the truth besides all the marketing and media hype, no business will use this platform for doing really serious and important business - it is at the best just a playfield for them (they may do it later in a similar way, but it won't be through SL, take this for sure).
- LindenLabs pays deceivingly little attention to the community that build up SL, their communication practice is more than lousy, often even cynical (e.g. with many of their extreme short termed announcements, schedules, policy changes). I still think, they should have splitted up in 2006 in two worlds: a tolerant game-SL and a "clean" business-SL. (Of course, LL & SL have many points of excellence though, that's out of question - but this is not the issue here.)

So, what will I do in the end...?

- I happily reinstalled the previous non-voice verion 1.18.0(6) for Windows, of course with the Nicholasz patch edition (see http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/), it works fine, and myself, I don't need more environmental pollution
- When the new voice feature will become obligatory, I certainly will turn it off and only use it very occasionally in specific situations. I'm lucky I'm a male, so usually nobody will think I'm faking gender
- I will switch between both subcommunities (the 100% non-voicers will be anyway only a small part of them and remain in their ghetto, sad, but this is the future). The only thing I can do, is to be as tolerant as possible and be always specially attentive to non-voicers - as well as to the avatars with opposite gender voice, no problem for me, it's a RP after all, so please don't leave this game just for this reason.

Just my 2c.

Voice in itself is a meh feature for me, somethng I might be tempted to play with as a toy, but of no real value or harm. That new "communication" window is made of Satan's own sweat, and is an excellent reason to upgrade to the older version.

I've hung out at Ahern for hours at a time, several times now. It almost always feels like I'm eavesdropping on kids hanging out at the mall. Almost all of the voice chat is mocking those who aren't using it, mocking avatars for other reasons, talking about voice chat itself, or silly noises and comments to fill awkward silence.