Voice Chat Can Really Kill the Mood on WoW

Lemme download morphvox first!

Greetings,

I just time travelled back from the future to let you know about a Stanford research into SL... which concluded that overall there are more deaf and mute people playing SL than compared to deaf/mute vs unimpaired people ratio real life.

Do they have better grammar than you?

Or the contingent of people who just choose to not hear anyone but themselves talk.

Voice in game isn't going to change anything as far as the roleplaying is concerned. A true roleplayer doesn't let something as simple as this affect anything. If anything, you use this as an added bonus and it's much easier then typing all the time. You continue as you're doing now, the only difference is instead of this tiresome typing, you're now voicing. It's not such a big deal as some of you make it out to be. Now, you can't hide behind the computer, your voice will be heard.

But then I can understand not everyone who calls themselves a "roleplayer" is one.

Another thing is, you don't have to have and hear every single person around and near you. You have the option is just have the persons you choose to be in voice chat so you can't use this as an excuse to say you won't have it on in your club because you don't want other's yelling to drown out the music or whatever else you can think of.

I see many people using so many different excuses to say they won't use voice chat. But the thing is, first, you have the option not to use it. And second, LL is making this voice chat with many different features which you can use to your advantage such as mute and private conversations.
Plus, many of you have yet to even try the damn thing and you're already bitching about it.
Don't make excuses, if you don't want to use it then don't. I doubt anyone else cares. Others will care only if you choose to use it with them, if you don't then it doesn't count, now does it?

Amen!

If Voice Chat is optional - then they are not Excuses, they are Reasons.

The word excuse implies that theres something somehow wrong with someone saying they dont want to use it.

People do care - There will be cases of pleading whining and accusing related to get people to use voice.



Becuase - Voice already exists , has existed , in several different forms.

If people are complaining about the QUALITY of Second Life voice without trying it, then you (and others) have a great point.

But if people are complaining about the CONCEPT of voice in second life - thats entirely different and your point isnt really relevant.

It would have been relevant back in say 1993 when people didnt ever use voice over the net.

Yes voice is important on raids in WOW. Watch how they do it. It is amazing how coordinated things are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

If Blizzard have really designed a game that's unplayable at the high levels using the communication mechanisms they provide, so that users have to go to another company (Ventrilo?) to enable communication to be fast enough, that's pretty bad I think..

But I agree with some of the skeptics here. The problem is that voice *won't* in practice be optional, because typists and voicers will have big issues communicating with each other. So if all your friends go to voice, you'll have to, too - or not talk to them any more.

And this can be a dynamic thing. You can see the argument above - that, for example, a "true roleplayer" wouldn't object to a person's voice not matching up with their avatar at all, because after all in standard tabletop roleplay it's always that way. But many roleplayers are interested in breaking out of those limits of standard tabletop roleplay on SL. Moreover, sooner or later there will be someone for whom it turns out their voice _is_ absolutely perfect for the role they're playing - and they'll be more popular, and then the revolution has started.

...but that's where you're wrong about it. V-chat is being put to use in a completely different way than regular chat setups like skype and the others out there. Sure you're still talking on a headset but it's being applied in a different situation.

Also, a lot of the complaints about the CONCEPT of voice in SL are based on social factors that have yet to play out and haven't played out before anywhere else. It's all been assumptions and assumptions are the leading cause of stereotypes and prejudice...which is ironically one of the anti-voice crowd's concerns.

For one thing there are a lot of people that haven't used v-chat in any other form that are casual SL users that may not react the way some are used to in WoW and other areas. There is a different cross-section of users in SL than in most other previous games/platforms that have existed before. Let's give them a chance to react and respond to v-chat before we decide what problems are gonna be in what areas.

Many anti-voice people are drawing conclusions based on limited experience. You may have had experience in WoW or Counter-Strike or wherever with voice but those are completely different from SL. There are no major classes or meetings going on for RL institutions in any of the previous games/platforms using voice. The social aspect in these games are pretty focused on playing the game (for the most part) whereas being social IS the focus for many people in SL.

Now, as far as anti-voicers being "attacked", it's actually a silly arguement to make since most of the attacks originate from "voice will ruin RP and the social balance will be lost" posts that are based on conjecture instead of any actual evidence.

I have yet to see any arguement with someone who posts "I don't feel like using voice because that's not my cup of tea."

Then you should re-evaluate your choice in friends if this is the case.

I see a lot of the arguements revolving around popularity and alienation. I wonder how much of these people's opinions are formed based on previously-formed phobias and/or personal issues.

Thanks for posting this Bekah. You have eloquently stated an often subtle distinction that can be hard to describe. Whether people are paying attention to an avatar or the person behind the avatar will not only have a great affect on how they feel about voice chat, but also in everything they do in SL.

You forgot the Four Horsemen of the SL Apocolypse

I'm guessing that even now you don't see the contradiction in these two paragraphs....

It's a very good observation! But it might need to be taken further - I'm not sure that people can be divided into just these two separate categories. I think it's far more of a continuum.

For the "people who care about the person behind the avatar" there's an extra tweak in SL too. In WoW if someone's avatar doesn't match their voice there could well be a game reason for it; like if a demure shy girl's playing a giant orc then, well, that's because orcs in WoW are strong or have particular abilities, and if they had chosen a different avatar they wouldn't get those abilities (or something like that, I don't really know that much about WoW). But in SL, since there is no reason provided by the world for her to do that, people are going to start asking "why?". In SL, your choice of avatar says something about you - in WoW, it doesn't do so, to anywhere near the same degree, because your choice of avatar can be imposed on you by the "game" aspects.

The other reason is that there are a LOT of conversations in Second Life - and on the 'net in general - that fall between these stools. Foxes and butterflies talk about what they did over the weekend, dominatrices discuss their favourite restaurants, children ask deep questions about hundred-dollar business deals. I've been chatting with a pixie about how they were overworked by their boss when a cybernetic soldier teleported in to proudly annouce he had a new job. And I think it's this "middle of the way" interaction that people feel is threatened by voice - that it will create precisely the split described in the previous post.

"A true roleplayer doesn't let something as simple as this affect anything. If anything, you use this as an added bonus and it's much easier then typing all the time. You continue as you're doing now, the only difference is instead of this tiresome typing, you're now voicing"

I would have to disagree with this statement. Text and voice have quite different rhythms....and in text you can describe the setting, feelings, subtle movements, far far better than you can with voice. I might emote "Sweet presses her ear to your chest, listening to the muffled thump-thump of your heart, assured by your presence, the warmth of your skin on her skin, the steady draw of air in your lungs, assured and safe as the thunder crashes overhead and the canoe rocks unsteadily in the middle of the lake." That might take me about 90 seconds to write, and the slower pace of text allows me to revise it to that shape.

Enter voice.

"Uh, I am pressing against you. I mean my ear is pressing against your body, your chest. I hear you breathe. And your heart. I hear your heartbeats, steady. I feel assured. The storm is all around but here I am safe. Wait a sec, phone (or boss, friend, spouse, child)."

You see.... I talk too fast to edit, to do the quick revision that makes textual roleplay an art. And in text, erotic roleplay is possible....and it can also be artistic. But turn it into voice, and it's just phone sex....more banal than the worst pose-ball addicts. You can't revise voice. You can only speak. You can't unspeak and speak again as you can with text.

If you choose not to use voice and are a female, you WILL be suspected of being a crossdresser. There will be enormous pressure to "prove" your gender. In WoW, I initially only had a dial-up connection. A "raid" guild finally accepted me even though I was unable at first to get Ventrillo to work simultaneously with WoW. Most people accepted who I said I was, but some in the guild (other women) made very nasty accusations simply because I couldn't speak on Ventrillo. It was only after I finally had a cable connection and joined the Ventrillo conversations that the pressure dissipated. So if you think there won't be social pressure to enable voice, from my point of view you are either a guy or you are naive. It's very different for women than for men, truly it is. A guy in this thread said his mic was broken. Once SL has voice, he can say his mic is broken and it will be accepted as true. But a woman claiming her mic is broken will be suspected by many of being a liar, an imposter, a guy in disguise. And nothing is more aggravating to me than not being believed.

They haven't designed a game that is unplayable at higher levels with the communication mechanisms provided, Gold Buyers ...I mean raiders, are strange beasts.

Yes it will.

There was confusion, "griefers", a majority of 13 year old boys, etc when I used to play my Playstation 2 online using Voice...and almost all of us were American, so you would assume we could understand each other.

Nope, folks on TeamSpeak from anywhere besides New York and Chicago say they have to "get used to the accent" when I talk to em on voice, so I can just imagine how much more that's gonna happen in SL, when most of us are from all different regions and countries. I don't even think most of SL Residents are Native English speakers.

The ONLY thing that concerns me about Voice, is the fact that, based on my past gaming experience...the Voice users have a tendency to try and *force* everybody else to use Voice, for thier own personal reasons. Those who don't (in my past experience) get ignored, and intentionally left out. Why? Because of the effort of keeping up with 7 experienced Voice users, and 3 or 4 text-only speakers...all trying to communicate in the same space.

I love the idea of Voice...but yeah, we WILL have years of "growing pains" to look forward to.


Side Note: Somebody mentioned having Voice on just to hear Gossip about them. That will be another method of "griefing" in my opinion, that will be pretty damn popular...2 or more Voice users can easily drive a text-only user away if it happens to be a shy, or otherwise non-combative person, just looking for a good time.

In short, I'm glad Voice is here, but I don't look forward to the distrust, peer-pressure to use it, and other "growing pains". Like somebody else said: C'est La Vie.

More choice can't be a bad thing.

With any new thing, though, I always fear that it's going to add an extra level of complexity on a system that is far from perfect.

I'll give it a go, though. I'm curious to view those beautiful new sunsets whilst listening to some person with a loud TV, kids, pets, wives, husbands, etc... in the background.

I'm a text person and will keep to that. I'll refuse voice politely.

Do you plan on coming up with a single paragraph that doesn't imply that people having problems with voice stems from a personal defect of theirs?

Suppose I started speculating that the only reason people "whining" about wanting voice while mysteriously remaining in a text-based game are only doing it because of an innate need to run their mouth ceaselessly?

You conveniently ignore the posts that have come in these forums from people who are speaking from experience in the beta test and with the First Look viewer unless they are grinning like cheshire cats about voice. Is that because giving those posts equal recognition invalidates your claims that people are being reactionary with little in-world justification?

Did you just say 'Amen' to that other poster and then continue on with your theories with a straight face? Here we have the perfect example of bias and a textbook diagram of the mindset of a voicer being told that other people have reasons not to voice. A poster who calls any personal reason not to use voice 'an excuse'. A person who refers to people not using voice as 'hiding behind their computers'. And what do you do? You sign off on it - immediately. Then you go right back to saying that people's concerns about that mindset are - unfounded and reactionary. Are we at some sort of Event Horizon where people can make themselves believe whatever poppycock they vomit out, reality notwithstanding?

Your technique is, unorthodox. I have never before seen someone try to make a point by becoming the living embodiment of the argument against said point, within two posts. Kinda like that old show Name That Tune, now with doublespeak! I can invalidate myself in four posts. Well I can do it in two!

Colette? Amen.

Talk about projecting!

Ya...way to cop out my friend. Far be it for me to expect you to prove me wrong, huh? But then your slap happy 'way to go' for that other poster is right there in writing isn't it?




At least take this back and APPEAR to have not filtered out what you read in this thread based on whether or not their opinions were 'Pro-Voicer approved'. LMAO

I am not using Voice, because "It's not my cup of Tea". There. I don't hail it's coming nor do I fear it. I don't have to explain, excuse or justify my choice to anyone.When asked, I will politely decline. If you wish to make the extra effort to text with me, that is great, I appreciate it. If not, no problem, carry on and enjoy your SL.. You can pressure, ridicule, question, ostracize , fold, spindle and mutilate for all I care. I won't be listening. I have better things to do than play mind games with paranoid juveniles. I do that everyday in RL. And I win every time. This is gonna be a social upheaval for sure. But I think it will be not as bad as non voicers fear, but worse than pro voicers care to admit. In any case, bring it on.

This is a little more "recent" and "accurate" raid. Leroy was staged and happened back in 2005. No voice, but the "how to" covers the level of complexity in TBC raiding /shrug. If you want to believe it's all Leroy and 10 year olds- go ahead. But that's like believing that every Second Life player is having wild sex every moment they're logged on. There's a whole world out there that doesn't get covered by mass media because it's not news worthy or splashy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slptKK5ooJE


Blizzard is bringing Voice in game- it was announced a few weeks ago and will probably be out this fall. The change is in recognition that high end raiding *is* impossible for players without outside communication. That said, I probably won't use it because it will probably be low quality and I have a very nice Ventrillo server already.



Name me a single guild in Black Temple without voice. Any one will do. Yes, raiders are strange. Then again I think people who own entire islands in SL are strange. =P It's a choice of addictions- there are far too many glass houses of SL addicts to start tossing rocks at people who play WoW competitively =) (and as for gold buying- It's legal in second life, but I won't deny that it happens on the black market in WoW. Not all raiders are gold buyers any more than all SLers are perverts. Some clarity please!)

Anyways, my point is simply this- the difference between Ventrilo for WoW *raiding* and Ventrilo for Second Life *in general* is massive. Comparing them and using one to justify a position on another is silly. I'm logged into Ventrilo 20+ hours a week for WoW, but I'll probably never use voice in SL. Second life encourages it's fanatics to get involved socially and to relate, on a basic level, with your avatar as a being. You play dress up, you have pixel sex, you go out dancing, and live in a pixel house. There are mechanics for marriage and adoption, it's very much focused on the person to person relationship between players.

WoW is focused on a person to AI-controlled monster relationship. There are virtually zero role playing tools and servers that encourage role play are more rare than any other type of server. Don't go to the local farmers market for sushi and don't go looking for chicken fried steak at a sushi bar.

Wait, you mean there are other things to do in SL besides having wild sex?