Previos (Pre-Voice) download

That new comm window is an insanely huge obstacle to me, too.

Here's an example.

I log in and get IM's like rain. Lots of notecards from while I was offline, too. And whoops, someone walks up and says hello.

Comm center huge, plus have to read a notecard, open my inventory AND look around in the 3d world. Then... I need to edit something... FOOM comes the edit window, blocking out most of what was left of the world.

@_@

*dies*

I've got a Dell widescreen and the patience of the Buddha for goofy interfaces, painfully honed while using AutoCAD prior to vers 9, Forth interpreters and Tango PCB. But this... is waaay too much.

If I was a casual SL user with a few friends and no time constraints, I'm pretty tolerant. But... wow, ouch.

This is literally driving off Caledon residents, and not a thing I can do about it.

sigh.

The activation of vocie in Caledon was actually the FINAL straw for me, Desmond. After trying the Nicholaz client, and him saying on his site he would do a voice client but with old interface, I was about to stay. Don't need voice, long as I have a usable interface, it was cool.

Then I caught a ration of shit from voicers ingame over being silent....AND then that kind of asshattery was coming to Caledon too....final straw...I won;t live in a voice enabled area, not after that.

* editd, after realizing I was being a bit too hard on a couple folks I was using for an example.

Just for the record, Caledon won't be 'forced voice'.

Right now, we have the feature like the rest of the grid (for now - the older sections of Caledon may lose that feature in 5 months when they start charging for it).

But I'm certainly not telling anyone they need to keep voice turned on, within the parcels they control. I'd expect that many citizens will shut that feature off at first chance.

Maklin, as ever, I respect your decisions but still hope against all hope you choose to stay with us.

Thanks. I just cannot bring myself to live where voice is active, not after the crap I have had to put up with from voicers in ohter games that I can see CLEARLY starting up in SL.

When I asked you several months ago, when it was first announced, you sad nothing of it being on like this...in fact, indicated the opposite. I would not have expanded into SCC had I know this ahead of time.

With a flip of a switch, I became a second-class citizen in caledon. I don;t like it. I am looking into other sims where the admins have globally disabled it. No offense, you made a decision to cater to a small minority of voicers in Cal (even you made comments on it being unwanted and in some cases disliked), I made a decision to move on.

I will not be perpetually 'on the defensive' and excluded from conversations merely because I choose not to voice. And that is already happening even in Caledon.

Sir, your experiences are not mine, obviously. But I have not downloaded the new client (nor, judging by what I've heard, will I!). So, I am voiceless. In fact, even were my client to support it, I doubt very much I would use it.

But in Caledon, I have not seen any use of voice aside from betwixt friends, much less discrimination against those of us who dislike it. I am NOT saying that you have not experienced such, but believe you me, most I know are above that.

I am afraid for SL right now--I have a dear friend who cannot log on with the new client at all using Vista. Voice seems to be at best a complication that causes crashes, and at worst a divisive and unnecessary feature that will ruin SL for most. But, can we not give this a go and see if we weather out the storm? I should hate to be the only pennyfarthing maker around. I mean that.

Truth to tell I didn't think we'd ever see it enabled, other than as a beta feature in the older sims.

Here's my thoughts.

We have very low resident turnover compared to other places, but even in Caledon turnover is significant.

If I hard-commit to a course such as 'no voice' or 'all voice' and the market chooses otherwise, we'll eventually be in trouble. As such I feel I have to offer the voice option, thus letting the market self-adjust.

If everyone chooses 'no voice' I'm perfectly happy with that - more than happy.

It's inexpensive, it's immersive, and it's the option that might keep you around.

You are dead right about the 'second class citizen' effect - I've felt it in other worlds. It's worse than even you described. Maklin I do want to know privately what happened to you, regardless of staying or going.

Maklin is one of our longtime residents, from waaaay back when Caledon was barely a speck on the map.

If you love Caledon as it is today, it's because of the support that Maklin and others just like him have poured in with raw talent, countless hours and a lot of $L over the long haul.

His experiences will be painfully common in a voice-enabled region. I have no illusions otherwise. If he's running into it, so are a lot of other people.

It's been an incredible week. 'Bank' collapses that have hit some Caledon residents hard, and now this.

*sigh*