First Look Voice ( First Sound?)

I wonder if this is the same FirstLook that will have WindLight in it. That'd be cool to get them both soon.

Well there you go…sounds like a PLAN to me.
Voice and possibly WindLight all in one First Look…omg!
Can’t wait!

/me now prepares for thrashing by pessimists
DK

I do hope that in this First Look version of Voice, there will be some way to access the Parcel-level and Estate level controls to turn the blasted thing OFF. Because that is the first and only thing I will use it for, other than to test the latest corruptions it will force on the non-voice community's use of the Chat window, so I can register my negative feedback on that unwanted UI change.

I kind of wonder though how a client-side-only "optional" viewer will be able to make changes to parcel and estate settings on the main grid. Want to bet that it can't?

Personally, I would prefer to have the new skies in a seperate First Look viewer. I'd like to know which 'feature' is to blame for any bugs they introduce.

Good point about separating the Windlight from voice in FirstLook, Ceera. Wouldn’t want us rowdy voice advocates blaming Windlight for Vivox buggs : P
As far parcel restriction settings for voice, I would imagine only select sims will be voice enabled by LL at first for those using FirstLook, possibly at Welcome areas like Ahern/Morris, or HIP. Otherwise the whole grid would need to be voice enabled with non FL users unable to restrict voice. Ouch…even I’m not that reckless.
DK

Or they could just be doing a new server release the same time they're doing the First Look.

Could have done the server half already.

Turning it off parcel side is a bad idea. Two major points I'm going to make here

1: the client defaults to having voice chat off anyway.

2: If people have to turn it on, then the people who want it have enable it manually

Because of the above two points, any parcel side controls will be not only redundant but down right draconian. "I don't like Voice Chat so I'm going to prevent everyone from using it."

Since they're going to have parcel side controls for it, I want the following parcel side controls in addition. Just because if others can force their personal tastes onto me, I want to be able to force my personal tastes onto them.

Seeing as how I feel that voice chat allows a more honest and entertaining dialog between people, I want to be able to turn off text chat.

I want the ability to turn force the new skies to be on or off on anyone's client when they're on my parcel.

I want to be able to disallow sculpties on my land.

I want the ability to disallow male avatars, or female avatars on my land as the mood strikes me.

I want the ability to disallow prim attachments if I so choose.

Heck, I want the ability to tell the land I'm on to allow, disallow, or force any client toggle I damned well please and foist my personal tastes on others by restricting their rights to even concider features that I disapprove of.

Wow. If you need all that to compensate for voice chat then your last three years here must have been a nightmare!

And now everyone else who has stayed here since inception through thick and thin happily "texting" away should back-burner their entire experience because you just have to talk?

You've never been prevented from talking. It's called Skype. In darkened rooms and behind closed doors I hear whispers about a creature called "The Telephone". Can't forget good ole RL either - rife with talking. Why would you join a text-based world, stay for three years, and then complain cause you can't talk? Isn't that the same thing as eating the entire pizza and then complaining about the hair you found on it?

I don't have a problem with parcel owners turning off voice chat, that's their prerogative. (Incidentally I don't think there's a way to turn off text chat and only leave voice enabled...) Though it's more like eating all of the slices of pizza but one, and then a hair suddenly drops on the last piece that won't come off. So you can either eat it with the hair, or waste a piece of pizza because you're afraid of hair germs or something.

Hehe...silly!

You miss my point. My point is that we should not give parcel owners the ability to STOP someone from communicating in their preferred manner. We don't have the ability to stop IMs, we don't have the ability to stop text chat, why should we have the ability to stop them from using voice chat? Especially when those who don't want voice chat can simply turn it off locally on their own system.

I agree with Myra. I won't use voice, but I don't think it's appropriate to discriminate more than necessary against those who do. Her point above is that if you fall back on the "it's my land; I should be able to do what I want", then her silly suggestions are all validated by the same argument.

I think folks are making a bigger hubbub about voice than is necessary. Think of voice as similar to another language. Communities cluster based on common languages -- we genearlly don't find a lot of people who speak only German hanging in crowds of people who speak only French. Similarly, we won't find people who use only chat hanging in crowds of people who use only voice, and vice versa. People will gravitate to crowds who communicate in their preferred manner.

Folks who use voice primarily will have to deal with the fact that many of us do not. And we will have to deal with the fact that some people will refuse to use chat. Big deal, move on.

Um, actually, in a recent interview Michael Linden spoke of a system whereby a resident would be able to mute an Avatar - big time.
The plot was that when you muted someone, not only would ALL communication be muted, but THEY would vanish from your view, and you, likewise would vanish from theirs - even down to the green dot on the map!

This by the way is the very same Michael Linden who thinks that adult roleplay in a virtual world restricted to over 18s is DANGEROUS...

'nuff said?

And this is an improvement over our current Second Life experience how?

Currently, with text chat, we all do cluster together irregardles of our common languages. Currently, we generally do find a lot of people who speak different languages hanging out in crowds of people who speak another language. Currently, with text chat, we include not exclude the deaf and mute, which is what voice chat will do.

So your answer in support of voice chat is to become more like real life because in real life we cannot communicate with each other so therefore it should be ok in Second Life as well? Even though to this point we have been all getting along fine, irrespective of our different languages?

Seems like a huge step backward if you ask me.



So you acknowledge the fact that voice chat will splinter our community and create separate sub groups based on voice and non-voice chat communities and that is just fine with you?

How is this an improvement again?

I must have missed the memo.

But you do exclude those without hands... There will always be people with disabilities and there will always be ways to work around them. There are a couple very good text-to-voice and voice-to-text clients out there to keep the deaf and the mute in the loop.

-Nate

The main point of the post response was to highlight the splintering of the community that will prevail between voice and non-voice residents.

But thank you for picking out one line out of my entire post and attempt to justify why we should deviate away from the current and accepted norm, which is and has been working just fine, just to appease the few who want to talk. As if we don't get enough talk as it is in real life.

Is a little quiet time too much to ask for without having to be subjected to non-stop can we talk in voice, and why cant we talk in voice, request each time someone passes our path?
Because you know that's exactly how it will be.

Not this arguement again!

If you had actually spent any time on the beta grid using voice you will have seen that this generally isn't the case in practice. I was very surprised with people's attempts to include everyone in the conversation regardless of v-chat or typing preferences.

Typing isn't being phased out. V-chat is just another option available and there are going to be a lot of people that won't enable v-chat on their land for whatever reason.

Typing is safe! It'll be okay!!!

This is very true. It is my experience that the people who use voice do not ignore text chat.

-Nate

I have. Stop assuming. Besides, what is your sampling group from which you base this opinion. The same five to fifteen people every day? Because that is the average amount of users using the voice beta on any given day.

And as has been said a thousand times, the concept of voice is not new, its been around for awhile.

Here's a bit of irony for you. The concept and use of text chat in cell phones and other modern means of electronic communication is increasing, voice decreasing.

Hmm ... think they may be on to something?

Anyways, it's not even an issue worth discussing. At this point we all know that it doesn't matter what is said, or how many great points are brought forward against voice, LL is going to force it on us. A lot more can be done with voice to bring it along a bit more slowly and allow a natural transition to voice. But that is not the plan. So what's the point? Que sera, sera.

Yes I'm sure we do. I am also sure that there is some regular feature in SL that excludes left handed, gum chewing, green eyed, balding, traveling vacuum cleaner salesman who talk with a lisp and hop on one foot on alternate Tuesdays while singing Like a Virgin in a voice predetermined by rolling 2D8+1D6. And...?

This has been covered. People without hands don't usually apply to become hand models and then demand a change to feet. The blind probably can't be found in numbers at silent film festivals demanding an audio feed.

The common response from a voice advocate to anyone anti-voice has been to go to sims where there's no voice. Fine. I choose my own. And now that I'm here where I paid over $600 U.S. creating an environment with some expectation of harmony, peace, and quiet I've got people telling me I have no right to that? That two non-paying newbies should be able to stand outside my house and blabber endlessly about what they saw while their camera with no constraints zoomed through my wall? But if I orbit them off my property then I'm wrong, is that it?

Last night while I was on my deck playing my harp and listening to the ocean waves, my crazy next door neighbor was having a foursome in plain view outside on his lawn. Do I have no expectation of being able to prevent hearing the voice audio from that? It doesn't go too well with most harps...

And I'm not even anti-voice. I may even use it sparingly with my partner and closest friends. I am anti anyone who pops in and tries to force everyone else to change for them with no regard whatsoever for the effect it will have. That's called RL, and I already get that for free.

Exclude them from what? A private conversation, maybe, and I do that now with IMs…sorry. You don’t?
If some one walks up to me and TYPES…”HELLO”…its your argument that by me using voice I will have forgotten what the keyboard in front of me is for.


No that’s not the common argument….we say…DON’T USE IT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO!...sorry for the shouting.
I really don’t get the logic with these arguments that voice will splinter SL.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t go to the Brazil sim and demand that everyone there speak English. And then bitch and moan if they don’t.
I heard the best definition for Voice from a friend of mine who called it an ACTIVITY.
Like skyping. Something you do with friends or groups. There will be areas in SL that cater to voice just as there are currently areas that cater to…OMG…so many other activates here in SL.
OBTW…I like to talk, but hell 6 hours or more with a headphone on…don’t think so. Just now I can give my fingers a rest too.
DK

No that's not her argument. Her argument is not that you will forget, but that you will refuse and ignore, something that has already been reported by more than a few people texting in the presence of voice users on the beta grid.



That argument is common enough. I've heard it plenty of times, and usually shouted, which doesn't speak highly of the level of tolerance (or volume) I can expect from voicers when everything is live.


And that is admirable. But you don't know about anyone else as you've said. You probably don't grief others in chatrooms either, but does that mean it isn't being done?If everyone could be counted on to be a sweetheart this would probably have never come up as a concern.


Listen I agree with you about most of this. I guess for me it comes down to griefers, smart remarks about why I am not voicing nonstop, and another interjection of RL into SL. Three things that have already been reported firsthand as being a byproduct of voice by plenty of users. I don't know that things will be polarized - I can't predict the future. I just think that if it ain't broke...(can't believe I just applied that saying to the SL viewer!)

The parcel settings only allow the landowner to turn off SPATIAL voice chat. You can still Talk Voice one-on-one, or in a group. Just not publicly (read spammy).

I don't know about you but l typed, read, talked and listened. No cared! I was a lot of places with a lot of different people. The only negative I got was one guy wanted me to join him in an activity and I said no. I am being nice in my words but in his type he was very crude.


If some people are going to base their opinion on a short time frame with a small group of people. Then I will base mine on a short time frame with a large group of people and I say

Yipeeee Voice is here and I have options!!!!!