I honestly don't like voice chat, but it's for pretty valid reasons. I can stand the annoying kid voices or the horny teens, but I HATE the accents. It drives me nuts when I call customer support and I have to try and understand so and so from india or whever else the company outsourced too. It's even worse when i'm trying to enjoy my game.
The next main reason is input and output rates vary on peoples settings so I have to adjust my sound on an individual bases a lot of the time. Someone whispering into their mic practicly i'll crank it up then someone shouting just dominates my ears. Also the quality of mics some people have is just absurd. It's to hard to understand them anyway so why bother even turning it on? 99% of the time i'll log into voice chat, but have it muted. Just to fool them into think i'm on it. I'll leave it on if it's my first few runs in the instance, but after that I don't need it anymore. I know my role.
The next reason is I like to play with music in the background at a subtle volume so I can hear it in the background of the game. With voice chat I basically have to mute the game and have no music. It's not fun to play the game without the sound and i've done this many of times late at night. It's just weird and hard to get into the game. Music helps keep me relaxed and keeps it from getting boring. It's also cool when a good song comes up randomly in a crazy fight and gets my adrenaline pumping.
It's pathetic that RPGs have become so fast paced no one even slows down to enjoy it anymore. It's rush to the end. Get phat lewtz. Do it again. Nothing more to it. I'm near quitting MMO's forever due to this. I remember back in the slow paced EQ1 in the good old days we took our time to do things carefully and enjoyably. Now it's IWANTLEWTZKKTHXPLZ!11oneone11!!
Voice chat is 100% understandable for FPS games. They are twitch combat and 1 second off the mouse/keyboard could mean death. So voice chat SHOULD be used there, but this isn't an FPS world. So why is everything becoming so fast paced. Is the world truely growing this impatient. You don't need a grind to slow down the game, but crap a lot less intrusive (Respawn rates of mobs in LOTRO enforce fast paced.)
It's just to the point where I can't enjoy a game anymore. There is no time to read a quest. Everyone wants to move on NOWNOWNOW. There is no time to look at the scenary of a dungeon or you'll get 5 respawns on your butt. So what's the point of all the extra fodder? Why not just make a generic stone cave and place random mobs and chests all over it? That's basically all you can enjoy anyway.
I'm probably going to be ending my MMO career very soon. I'm going to pick up a few good single player games and start from there to see how things go. I'll miss the community and competitive play, but this is just rediculous. I don't want an exp grind like EQ1, because I simply don't have the time anymore. There is other ways to make a game slower paced though. Level has nothing to do with it. It's the pace of combat that is the problem. Respawns on your butt all the time. You've got but a second for a breather and that's it. You can't explore a dungeon, because Jimmy2By4 wants to finish it quickly and take all the shortcuts for his lewtz. So the only insentive to explore would be if there is good loot. It really dissapoints me how many good looking areas artists put a lot of time in that get completely ignored.
I think there should be a voice over kinda like microsoft sam, except reverse. It'll translate the voice chat silently the best it can into chat IF you have the option on or vice versa. It may be a hard thing to do, but it'd be VERY nice to have. This way I can play how I want to but still listen to what is being said.
I also think games paces should be slowed down a few notches. It's becoming to fast paced and these games are no longer RPGS. They are FPS games with quests.
Well, I think people should be honest. If you prefer voice chat, play with other people that prefer it. If you do not like voice chat then be upfront about it. Tell other players you do not want to use it and play with people of a like mind.
Nothing worse than people not hearing instructions over voicechat and screwing up the raid.
Edit: I like that games are becoming FPS style MMOs. I don't like the slow, turn based, stand in place, and auto-attack style MMOs. A perfect game to me would be a FPS, with tons of gear, Huge maps, thousands of players, customizable appearance, and lots of entertaining PVP that has a goal. So, I do not agree with slowing MMOs down.
I acknowledge it is more effective than text chat but I really don't like hearing people talk in a fantasy setting. It just kills the mood.
----------------------- Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW. Current MMO: Current Games: L4D, Skyrim Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR. Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
Voice chat is like 10 times faster than typing. But when roleplaying it can be devastating if not done correctly, and I don't mean you have to make guttural sounds when playing a troll, but if the player it's a 12 year old, the result is funny and could be an immersion breaker for some people.
Sorry for digging up the past, but I thought this was better than making a new thread.
Instead of using voice chat software, how about a voice to text system? Is voice recognition software sufficiently advanced enough now to be reliable? Would it be able to "learn" to decipher people with an accent? Would it have a broader appeal than voice chat?
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
3. Voice chat should include some sort of voice harmonization. Female elves should sound like female elves, etc. This is to keep voice chat from breaking the immersiveness of the game.
I think the technology is out there to do that well, but - and this is a huge but - most software does a terrible job of it. I'm not sure why, but think it may actually require some kind of hardware to do properly? That's why I don't see it happening any time soon
That aside, I think it'd be pretty cool. For pre-pubescent little geeks to be able to sound like grizzled hulking ogres, and the like. I bet to hear eachother sound like that would actually encourage real roleplaying, too.
Without anything like that, I avoid voice chat like the plague. I don't want to hear my fellow players, I don't want them to hear me. I'll play games that have it, I just refuse to use it myself.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Lotro has a built-in voip function which functions pretty well, actually. I'd like to have more options to controll it though, like being able to mute individual players, have seperate chat rooms, and actually have radius chat - like everybody near you in the in-game world can hear you. It also needs to have a good visual sign of who is speaking. A speech-to-text would also be nice, perhaps only for the most basic stuff (left, right, yes, no, stay back, etc).
I'd love more control options in LOTRO/DDO's voice chat, although it's licensed from Gamespy so maybe GS' tech doesn't allow extra options like muting individuals etc.? I do think it could stand to take WoW's idea and lower the game sounds/music while anyone is speaking, though. That seems like a great idea.
The "radius chat" idea though... horrible. The last thing I need is for all that extra bandwidth to be taken up to hear random babbling of nearby players. For LOTRO at least, voice is part of the grouping mechanism, and doesn't need to be part of the ambient noise.
Most everyone is for Voice Comm, and they tell those that prefer not to use it to go find people to play with that don't want to instead of complaining.
The easiest thing games can do is set aside servers for different comm preferences. It's such a simple solution.
Set aside servers as "Ventrillo" servers, and mark them as such. Set aside "Teamspeak" servers in the same way, and set aside "text only" servers for those who game that way.
Of course, the voice chat folk can simply say things like "adapt or get out," or "voice is the future," or, "you are in the wrong genre." Many folks are taking your advice, not by adopting voice, but by getting out. With MySpace, Facebook, and browser-based games, we don't need MMOs like we used to.
All games right now could use more players, and that means accomodating the text-only crowd, and making sure they have fun. I don't think the games can afford to start driving people away from the genre because of something like voice. It's a deeply personal preference, and one that is not necessarily able to be changed, as we have seen in this and other threads today.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Comments
I honestly don't like voice chat, but it's for pretty valid reasons. I can stand the annoying kid voices or the horny teens, but I HATE the accents. It drives me nuts when I call customer support and I have to try and understand so and so from india or whever else the company outsourced too. It's even worse when i'm trying to enjoy my game.
The next main reason is input and output rates vary on peoples settings so I have to adjust my sound on an individual bases a lot of the time. Someone whispering into their mic practicly i'll crank it up then someone shouting just dominates my ears. Also the quality of mics some people have is just absurd. It's to hard to understand them anyway so why bother even turning it on? 99% of the time i'll log into voice chat, but have it muted. Just to fool them into think i'm on it. I'll leave it on if it's my first few runs in the instance, but after that I don't need it anymore. I know my role.
The next reason is I like to play with music in the background at a subtle volume so I can hear it in the background of the game. With voice chat I basically have to mute the game and have no music. It's not fun to play the game without the sound and i've done this many of times late at night. It's just weird and hard to get into the game. Music helps keep me relaxed and keeps it from getting boring. It's also cool when a good song comes up randomly in a crazy fight and gets my adrenaline pumping.
It's pathetic that RPGs have become so fast paced no one even slows down to enjoy it anymore. It's rush to the end. Get phat lewtz. Do it again. Nothing more to it. I'm near quitting MMO's forever due to this. I remember back in the slow paced EQ1 in the good old days we took our time to do things carefully and enjoyably. Now it's IWANTLEWTZKKTHXPLZ!11oneone11!!
Voice chat is 100% understandable for FPS games. They are twitch combat and 1 second off the mouse/keyboard could mean death. So voice chat SHOULD be used there, but this isn't an FPS world. So why is everything becoming so fast paced. Is the world truely growing this impatient. You don't need a grind to slow down the game, but crap a lot less intrusive (Respawn rates of mobs in LOTRO enforce fast paced.)
It's just to the point where I can't enjoy a game anymore. There is no time to read a quest. Everyone wants to move on NOWNOWNOW. There is no time to look at the scenary of a dungeon or you'll get 5 respawns on your butt. So what's the point of all the extra fodder? Why not just make a generic stone cave and place random mobs and chests all over it? That's basically all you can enjoy anyway.
I'm probably going to be ending my MMO career very soon. I'm going to pick up a few good single player games and start from there to see how things go. I'll miss the community and competitive play, but this is just rediculous. I don't want an exp grind like EQ1, because I simply don't have the time anymore. There is other ways to make a game slower paced though. Level has nothing to do with it. It's the pace of combat that is the problem. Respawns on your butt all the time. You've got but a second for a breather and that's it. You can't explore a dungeon, because Jimmy2By4 wants to finish it quickly and take all the shortcuts for his lewtz. So the only insentive to explore would be if there is good loot. It really dissapoints me how many good looking areas artists put a lot of time in that get completely ignored.
I think there should be a voice over kinda like microsoft sam, except reverse. It'll translate the voice chat silently the best it can into chat IF you have the option on or vice versa. It may be a hard thing to do, but it'd be VERY nice to have. This way I can play how I want to but still listen to what is being said.
I also think games paces should be slowed down a few notches. It's becoming to fast paced and these games are no longer RPGS. They are FPS games with quests.
Well, I think people should be honest. If you prefer voice chat, play with other people that prefer it. If you do not like voice chat then be upfront about it. Tell other players you do not want to use it and play with people of a like mind.
Nothing worse than people not hearing instructions over voicechat and screwing up the raid.
Edit: I like that games are becoming FPS style MMOs. I don't like the slow, turn based, stand in place, and auto-attack style MMOs. A perfect game to me would be a FPS, with tons of gear, Huge maps, thousands of players, customizable appearance, and lots of entertaining PVP that has a goal. So, I do not agree with slowing MMOs down.
I acknowledge it is more effective than text chat but I really don't like hearing people talk in a fantasy setting. It just kills the mood.
-----------------------
Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
It's handy for raids but hardly a must have thing.
There are some voices I have heard before that I think I would have been better off not hearing.
Voice chat is like 10 times faster than typing. But when roleplaying it can be devastating if not done correctly, and I don't mean you have to make guttural sounds when playing a troll, but if the player it's a 12 year old, the result is funny and could be an immersion breaker for some people.
Sorry for digging up the past, but I thought this was better than making a new thread.
Instead of using voice chat software, how about a voice to text system? Is voice recognition software sufficiently advanced enough now to be reliable? Would it be able to "learn" to decipher people with an accent? Would it have a broader appeal than voice chat?
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
I think the technology is out there to do that well, but - and this is a huge but - most software does a terrible job of it. I'm not sure why, but think it may actually require some kind of hardware to do properly? That's why I don't see it happening any time soon
That aside, I think it'd be pretty cool. For pre-pubescent little geeks to be able to sound like grizzled hulking ogres, and the like. I bet to hear eachother sound like that would actually encourage real roleplaying, too.
Without anything like that, I avoid voice chat like the plague. I don't want to hear my fellow players, I don't want them to hear me. I'll play games that have it, I just refuse to use it myself.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Lotro has a built-in voip function which functions pretty well, actually. I'd like to have more options to controll it though, like being able to mute individual players, have seperate chat rooms, and actually have radius chat - like everybody near you in the in-game world can hear you. It also needs to have a good visual sign of who is speaking. A speech-to-text would also be nice, perhaps only for the most basic stuff (left, right, yes, no, stay back, etc).
I'd love more control options in LOTRO/DDO's voice chat, although it's licensed from Gamespy so maybe GS' tech doesn't allow extra options like muting individuals etc.? I do think it could stand to take WoW's idea and lower the game sounds/music while anyone is speaking, though. That seems like a great idea.
The "radius chat" idea though... horrible. The last thing I need is for all that extra bandwidth to be taken up to hear random babbling of nearby players. For LOTRO at least, voice is part of the grouping mechanism, and doesn't need to be part of the ambient noise.
Most everyone is for Voice Comm, and they tell those that prefer not to use it to go find people to play with that don't want to instead of complaining.
Answer: http://www.silentgamers.com
The easiest thing games can do is set aside servers for different comm preferences. It's such a simple solution.
Set aside servers as "Ventrillo" servers, and mark them as such. Set aside "Teamspeak" servers in the same way, and set aside "text only" servers for those who game that way.
Of course, the voice chat folk can simply say things like "adapt or get out," or "voice is the future," or, "you are in the wrong genre." Many folks are taking your advice, not by adopting voice, but by getting out. With MySpace, Facebook, and browser-based games, we don't need MMOs like we used to.
All games right now could use more players, and that means accomodating the text-only crowd, and making sure they have fun. I don't think the games can afford to start driving people away from the genre because of something like voice. It's a deeply personal preference, and one that is not necessarily able to be changed, as we have seen in this and other threads today.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
For me it ruins the Role playing..Used it and didn't care for it at all