First Look Voice ( First Sound?)

Yes griefers will grief. And now there is a whole new level for them to annoy us from.
And that’s sad. But I’m not letting it deter me from enjoying SL. Ironic that while I was at Ahern last night helping as much as I could with those new to voice, most of the griefing came from anti-voice groups typing “SHUT THE F**K UP* repeatedly. But it was Ahern.
DK

My personal experience with that is if you have voice enabled so you can hear people, but just don't talk and type instead, you generally won't get ignored, unless the people you're talking to are being asses.

Though if you have voice turned off so you can't hear the people talking you'll probably be ignored or at least won't be part of the same conversation that's going on in voice because it's annoying to have to transcribe everything that's going on in voice into text.

Generally though, even if you have voice turned off someone would at least answer you back if you said something, just not as readily as if you had voice turned on and just typed instead of talking.

And of course it varies by person. I met someone who absolutely refused to talk to anyone if they didn't have PTT enabled, while the vast majority of people don't have a problem if it's just a low amount of noise and no echo, and will at least help the person if they're having trouble with echo or loudness problems.

Hopefully with time more people will get used to controlling their sound so that won't be as much of a problem anymore.

I just tried voice (I was looking forward to it by the way) - and I thought it was awful. On reflection it completely ruins that magical fantasy feel SL has; one moment I'm in a great dream, the next I'm surrounded by real world voices - and it was like being stuck at a bus stop listening to someone with a big mouth but not many brain cells. There were about 20 people there .. with the inevitable 2-3 being loud/obnoxious and 'zany' while the horrified remainder listened ... it could have been a compilation of the top 100 most embarrassing teenage moments.
We can talk to people in RL anytime, and SL is unique for 2 other main reasons;
1) You can do lots of things you can't do in RL
2) The graphics are amazing
Perhaps the Lindens lost the plot a little by going for voice rather than improving other features. Personally I think that better avatar controls like independent limb movement and grasping hands should have been top of the list ... its a lot more intimate being able to touch someone properly than shout your mouth off at them.

And I'm not a pervert btw ...

I didn't miss your point at all actually. And if Voice Chat had been a standard in the system I would agree with you.

It was not. Not one non-Linden resident in this system has carried on an inline voice chat on the main grid prior to the latest FirstLook viewer release. Every minute of the time you and I have spent in SL has been spent without voice.

You are taking a feature that has never been essential to the operation of the game, that you have never been given a reasonable eta for having, and putting it on the same level of importance as gender choice? You're suggesting that because others will be able to disable a new, possibly very annoying, and not widely supported feature, you should be able to disable the primary and universally accepted form of communication?

If voice is your preferred method of communicating, then why have you stayed? Personally, I will absolutely disable voice on my property, because I didn't spend close to $600 building it up so it could sound like the trading floor on Wall Street. If they remove my ability to turn it off I will change modes on my security system and orbit anybody talking out loud on my property, and won't lose a second's sleep over it. You have the right to make as much noise as you want. On the far side of my property line.

As another poster said, you will still be able to voice IM and group IM, so where's the problem?

I just tried the first look viewer version of voice. I found the sound quality to not be as good as the version on the beta grid. I'm sure that will be fixed soon. I'm totally excited at all the great possibilities this voice feature will bring to SL. Keep up the good work LL!