First Look users: how many of these issues have you encontered with voice?

Just a poll regarding how voice is going in the beta. Thanks!

What I like about voice – it allows accessibility to SL for some disabled people, and it is a wonderful thing.


What I do not like about voice – everything else.

Voice chat is often not pretty, but it is interesting and I will continue to use it. The best was a conversation with an Aussie real life puppeteer who encouraged me to work more on my bush baby avatar and gave me some helpful pointers. The worst was witnessing a group of people laughing and mocking a woman for her Chicago accent and another time witnessing an acquaintance (who is in his 30's, ffs) get hateful insults because his whiskey deep south voice sounds like an older man.

I have experienced several times a nice vibe going with a group of folks who are reasonably polite and friendly and seeing that vibe broken by a single voice griefer/troll.

I have witnessed several times, a kind of jazz improv with voice. Someone repeats a phrase in rhythm and others echo that phrase or do variations. Spontaneous group poetry, how cool is that? Is anyone doing that at real life clubs or parties, or is it a way to create a group vibe in the absense of eye contact and body language?

You forgot the most popular option in your poll:

"I have no interest in voice communication in SL, and do not intend to use it in any way".

Broccoli

I don't think it's time for voice in SL, since we need to improve alot more important things.

Observations of mine from another thread I was posting in about voice;



Again, I love voice. I use it with my partner frequently, and with close friends. But I find when there are more than a handful of people using it, it becomes a clusterfluck. On top of that, gestures, sounds in the background, music playing, whatever, all ruin the experience, as well as people blatantly ignoring the chatters.

Again though, it's starting to die down in a lot of the places I hang out in to an almost non-existant level.

As far as what people are saying about whether it's time for voice or not; I agree, there are a lot of things that need to be fixed in Second Life. Linden Labs has got this bigger better now mentality that is ruining the experience of the game, in exchange for a few flashy pictures, and cool features.

HOWEVER. I love voice. I love it because now I don't have expensive cell bills every month, or have to use an outside program, which while people constantly say "want voice, use skype" I don't agree. I like my voice in Second Life. It's brougth a new dynamic to the way I communicate with people I care about, and it's a total blast.

Not for all chat situations, but definitely something I will be, and have been, using.

EDIT; one other observation I saw from someone else was on the issue of being accused of hiding something. That I think is a major issue that needs to be quashed if at all possible. If someone isn't using voice, it doesn't automatically mean they are hiding something, such as who they are, or what gender, ect all. I can imagine it would be very frustrating for someone to be accused of being something, whether they are or are not, when they are simply trying to enjoy the fantasy of it all, or whatever.

As far as a lot of your options up there, I've never seen any of them aside from the ignoring. Having "secret" conversations seems a bit paranoid to me, and if people were really that concerned they could simply get the firstlook viewer and be able to listen.

If someone is defriending another person for using voice or not using voice, maybe they weren't a friend you wanted in the first place. That just seems ridiculous to me, and senseless. I don't think it's healthy to necessarily blow this out of the proportions that it is, Voice isn't some evil that's been wrought upon us, it's just yet another feature that may or may not be useful to most players in Second Life.

"You did not select an option to vote for. Please press back to return to the poll and choose an option before voting."

A none of the above option would give a somewhat more realistic view of the situation, since only people with a complaint can vote and people with no issues so far are excluded. =)

lulz. I dunno, I haven't had any of those problems, but for the most part I don't use voice at all. I got the firstlook viewer just cause i wanted to make sure I could hear people.

this Poll seems to be bad at figuring percentages

If you have 12 voters and 6 say they have been voice griefed, that is 50%

Not the 9.84% that the current poll is calculating.

Evidently the math doesnt work very well on polls where you can choose more than one option.

And as stated previously there should be a "no problems so far" option availibe.

As it stands its more of a "Of those having problems how many are experiencing .." of those people are encounting said problems at least 25% , most of the list over half the time.

So where's "None of the Above"??? Not all of us are against/for.

A bit of a one-sided poll, so far.

I support Broccoli's option. I don't want voice and it's turned off on my land.

voice is very fun

Why not an option "none of the above"?

I'm not a fanatic for voice, but it's OK. If my friends ask me to voice chat, I'm more than happy to oblige. It's just not that big of a deal except that I've had a couple of projects that have been significantly easier because I was able to just talk to the people I was working with. Oh! And Noramyr took me on a tour of 2 sims she'd been working on - it was really nice to just have her tell me the details as we walked instead of stopping to type every few minutes.

If you don't like it, don't use it. And if someone doesn't like you for not using voice then they probably aren't worth your time to be friends with anyways.

of course the poll is one sided, it is aimed at ppl that have USED voice... or at least that is what I thought via the topic...

encountered with voice would imply one would have to have used it first...right?

so far only thing for me out of the list was griefed, all the rest nada, and I enjoy voice.

sure it is not for everyone and no one is forced to use it so I guess I really do not understand people who get upset about it.
that would be like someone who dislikes music being upset because we can stream music....

*shrug*

True.

If people wanted to learn how to build, script or texture in SL, do you think they really really want to read several pages of text??

Browse through the Content Creation forums. At the top are Yellow Stickies, chock full of posts on how to go about creating content, yet people constantly ask the same thing over & over. No one wants to take the time to read several dozen paragraphs on how to do stuff. They want a quick answer. Speech is alot quicker. Unless you don't mind me doing a "copy & paste" job of a 'How to Use Maya' PDF. Only 1000+ pages!

And yea, its useful when working being able to answer someone without stopping to type.

Users in text chat ignored an approach from a voice user


this selection I dont think its possible whenever people used voice I didn't have it turned on so there is now way I could ignore them cause I could not hear them in the first place

If I had heard them I would have typed my response. The most common thing though is voice users ignoring text interfaces completely so you can be answering their question if you do have voice turned on for some reason and they wont see them.

In any event I think too much is being made of voice I think that it wont be widely used and it will have its place and life will continue (such that it is in second life) without to much worry. I guess the gloom and doom predictions of an isolated community don't worry me mainly because I have been in so many situations where I am the only one not using the voice software attached that I dont notice. If they want me to participate they gots to type if they dont need me to participate they wont type its quite simple and easily solved

I love voice. I have no problem talking on voice to a text chatter, or talking on text to voice users. Voice allows people to communicate more rapidly, and more clearly than text.

People who are anti-voice always seem to have some sort of axe to grid, or some sort of personal issue. For example, the group of people who seem to be the most anti-voice, and to not use the issue, are furries. Among the furries, the most anti-voice are the Lusk people, who are known for not exactly being the nicest types. The anti-voice arguments are silly on their face and don't hold up.

There is only one "argument" a person has to say when they say they don't use voice. "Because I don't want to." No other explanation is necessary. (Or will be given, by me).

When i looked at the subject to this topic before reading it, i assumed it would be addressing real problems with the client, as in broken features and memory issues or something... I know of a few problems it has in that category. However voice chat is not a real problem. If you don't like it then don't use it. Intelligent people will realize you don't have a glowy light above your head and will use text to communicate with you. If they shun you for not using it, then F them... Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything.

Heres some problems i noticed.
Toggle Option: Client > character > Character Tests > Go Away When Idle: Developed a bug where sometimes it doesn't work.
Sever Client Freezups.
The God Awful communications window. Not many like it.

By condition #2 I am assuming you mean persons Indicating in TEXT that they are on voice, and the text user(s) they are addressing Ignoring them. It can hardly be called Ignoring IF the text users are Not Monitoring voice channels At All and as a result fail to notice someone addressing them In voice.
I have Witnessed, or experienced Most of the conditions listed above. I have my own reasons for not voicing, In RL i ALSO Actively Avoid using the telephone. When i Do, and am confronted by a recording, or voice message system, i hang up rather than leave a message. I have just never been comfortable Talking to, or With machinery. I don't seem to have that issue with text. It's a personal thing, probably Akin to "Mic Fright". Voice is just something i Have never been comfortable with.

Angel.

Yes, in this case I meant "users who were able to voice, but chatting in text, ignoring another voice user".

For those who have used voice and not had any of the problems - I'm sorry I didn't put in an option for you. The above options were actually based on things that people told me about, or that _actually happened_, at a single meeting to determine if a certain in-world location should use voice or not. So, I wanted to get some idea of how common these things were compared to each other, to know which were of more concern than others. I appreciate that many people are using voice happily with no problems at all.

one thing has me curious though cause i'm strange like that

If i run a shop of any sort or anyone does what will be the reaction when they say use voice (i'm not worried about the text only crowd actually I think they will adapt better then the voice crowd just from comments i read hehe) and come to a parcel with no voice capabilities and the store owner is around and types "hello" and they start blabbing away and he can't hear them

Will they get annoyed and try to shop elsewhere where the owner uses voice

mainly curiousity has me on this one although when I shop i actualy LEAVE when anyone approaches me I"m the type of shopper who hates to be bothered when they are looking at items if i have a question I will ask it but the amounts of questions i have ever had when shopping are probably less then the fingers i have on one hand. So if shoppers are the type that want to blab with me when i am around which is rare i'm actualy pretty shy believe it or not... yes i know you dont believe me but its true . and I have no voice on will they want to not buy my stuff?

I"m curious because some of the comments made on the opposite end really where voice users may not communicate in text. Does this mean then that I as a shopper ask them a question and its not on voice that they will ignore my text question and I will walk out empty handed ?

I'm thinking the answer is no but to me the universal will always be text due to the fact that there is more then one spoken language in SL and we have those babbler translaters which work pretty well but work on a text interface. (another reason why I think voice is not going to be that big a deal as half the people who come to buy from me dont even speak english)

Anyhow i want o hear music or my television set and not be yacked at as its simply not my preferance to sit and yammer all night when I have had to yammer during the day time being older I simply dont have the energy. when i see the demographic for SL and realize that most people playing it are probably middle aged and that most of the comments for voice are also "not interested" I'm pretty sure I know why. Life is hustle and bustle as it is when you turn on the computer you dont want that hustle and bustle invading the tranquility of your "happy time". YOu want to hear music watch tv fart around in SL and whatnot I remember my parents when i was a teenager i would yammer away at the diner table about all the stuff that happened during the day. My parents were simply to dammed tired to listen and I often got told to stop yammering cause they were too tired to listen to the noise. (they both worked) Now I'm the age they are and low and behold by the time a day is over I dont want to listen to yammer i want to relax. My shoulders as i think about the yammering I deal with in a regular day during the week I feel them right now tensing up. So those with more energy go to it but in all honesty I think the "anti voicers" who dont really exist I have not seen one I only seen people that simply can't be bothered with it (big difference) are just not wanting the stress of it all and the "pro voicers" those would be the ones that want to blab is up are looking to be younger and probably a whole lot more of a social bug then I am.

Basically its like trying to force me an introvert to be extroverted all the time it simply wont work. I am forced to be extroverted and paid to be that way so i do it but its not my underlying personality and someone actually has to PAY me to talk so the bottom line is if you want me to yammer on my spare time please start sending me pay cheques

is there an anti voicer? I suppose its simply anyone who is not going to hook up amic or turn on the voice so they can hear it

is there a pro voicer ? yes its the guy who wants to hook up the mic and turn on the voices and hear them.


Will a "pro voicer" ever convince and "anit voicer" to talk well if i'm an "anti voicer" which by what i read i am the answer is no not unless your willing to pay me a large sum of money per hour equal to what i earn in the real world to talk as its simply not in my nature. NOthing anyone who uses voice will change my inner personality or the fact that I dont even socialize a whole lot in sl i like to make stuff .

Will "anti voicers" ever convince a pro voicer to use text? I think so because half the people in second life aren't even speaking the same language so whether they like it or not if they want to communicate with someone not speaking their native language they will have to write as they do now into babbler to have the other guy understand what the heck is going on

just my long 2 lindens but the fact of the matter is
we have no sign language translaters like on tv who sit in the corner of the screen and translate everything spoken
we have no translators for every language translating what is spoken into your native tongue so what you hear is a translated voice over of another language

we do have text which is translated because of what it is and how it moves along the client into another language so that its understandable using a free gadget available to anyone

That is kind of interesting for me, especially since I help run Second Ability, the disability sim (yay, we're famous - featured on newsweek!). Our team is unanimous about keeping the sim voice-free, except for one dissenter who suggested having a small area set aside for voice to be enabled, for the benefit of people with disabilities that affect typing.

SL being what it is, even if a person weren't to communicate by typing, it still requires a fairly sophisticated level of ability at typing. the platform is intrinsically unfriendly to people with typing disabilities, more so than for most other disabilities I suspect. These people do exist in SL of course, but in disproportionately low numbered even within the disabled SL community.

I have no doubt in my mind that some time in the future, voice will be the norm on Second Life (assuming Second Life survives the test of time) and the anti-voicers will just need to get used to it or find some where else to play. But the future is NOT now nor will it likely be here for several more years. There are just far too many issues both technical and social to be making voice a priority. We still have numerous technical issues in Second Life and it would be nice to see the Lindens addressing those before they make voice their priority. Then we have the social issues, age issues (face it many of us are getting older yet our avatars are not ... I wish I could stay 20 ... but I can't). Anyway the griefers are an issue and they will only get worse if they are allowed to spam the voice channels, the various spoken langauges at a busy sim and all the different regional accents of these languages. Talk about a headache I don't want to be dealing with. I am here to have fun, I have enough issues with my real world to be adding more unnecessary issues here.

Voice will be the norm one day, but today is not that day.

More rapidly? You must be able to speak pretty fast I have yet to meet the person who can speak faster than I type.

As for more clearly... I love to watch movies and TV series with the original English audio, instead of dubbed in German (thank dog for multilingual DVDs). But I often have a hard time understanding the various dialects. Deadwood gave me a lot of trouble, for example. I had to download the transcripts of some episodes. Never had a problem to understand written English.

Even in German... I wouldn't try to communicate with a Barb... ehm... Bavarian or a Swabian other than in text form. Not that I have anything against them, I just can't understand what they're trying to tell me if they don't write it down.