Am I the only one who has not really liked the addition of voice chat to gaming? Apparently not-- here's a short essay on the topic from Wired.com:

http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworl ... tiers_0617

While the benefits of voice chat for raiding in MMOs are obvious, the addition of voice to my gaming atmosphere has not been enjoyable to me. The constant foul language, the deliberately racist comments and the complete objectification of women heard in voice chat all combine to destroy the calm comfortable evening I like to have while I'm gaming. When I play any MMO, I generally like to enjoy the atmosphere of the MMO, not have to listen to 16-24 year olds yelling at each other to "get the motherfucking priest NOW" blah blah blah all night.

When I play with a Vent server on, I barely ever talk, preferring to type. I miss the days when everyone typed. Am I the only one?

No, you're not.

My near total refusal to use ventrilo/teamspeak when I was playing warcraft actually hindered my progression by a lot. While I agree it makes raids a lot easier, I still miss the days when all chat was done via text.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

it's a lot easier to go through funny chat logs than if someone somehow can log vent/teamspeak

I hate it as well. Mostly because I can't be raiding and listening to my own music at the same time, or chatting with someone in the same room. On top of that it is easier to scroll up if you miss something important than to ask people to repeat everything again.

despise it, completely destroys any sense of immersion, and there's always inconsistancy in mic loudness...there's always the too quiet folk and the too loud folk(and typically the most annoying/grating individual is the loudest...to the point you can hear their breathing)

Well, if we are talking about Vent...a guildmate of mine made the following post that pretty much cleared up the different volume issue for me and others:



Unfortunately, there is no slider control for stupidity. Just a mute button.

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When I played FFXI I used ventrillo for a bit and I hated it, it totally killed the atmosphere. I enjoyed playing the role of an obnoxious and silly Taru, and taruspeak just doesn't work in vent. On the other hand when I used to play Airwarrior it's in game voice system was cool especially when you had a crewed up B-17 with the gunners calling out the incoming fighters. Voice in Airwarrior added to the atmosphere.

Typing "Tarus are super-duper fastaru!" was funny.
Saying the same thing in vent would just be strange.

I much prefer it, as far as getting volumes set, it takes a few minutes, if someone won't fix their volume just adjust them.

Unless you're using some shit voice chat setup or something there's almost always a mute for individuals. It's no different then typing, there are always idiots you just hear them instead, which is what the mute is for.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

everyone who hates it is probably a mangina in their respective game.

I love it for precisely that reason, Nibl.

"Hi, Syuni."
"Hi."
...
"WTF?!"

There's always SOMEONE in guild or alliance who hasn't quite caught on. OMG IM FUXORING THEIR PERCEPTSHUNS

add to this.... i'm deaf, so fuck the vent/chat shit.

I NEED MY GREEN GUILD CHAT! otherwise it feels like i'm playing a single-player game.

I didn't like it at first, but kind of got spoiled. I think it's a huge time-saver and order keeper when it comes to raids and groups. To me, calling an add, or incoming, or quick strat when you get thrown a curveball in Vent is much easier, even with hotkeys for text, and everyone on Vent will hear it. Saying "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" to 25 or 40 man raids in Vent works better than caps in-between the BS guild chat or raid chat conversations that almost always go on right before raids from bored people waiting. Plus, I am normally making food or getting a beer and it's nice to know when I need to get back. A lot of people say it's necessary due to the complexity of raids compared to say, Emp/LIS/POP Gods and even Anguish fights (last I played EQ), but if you are in a guild that truly belongs at that raid level, people should know their shit beforehand and not have to be instructed mid-fight. It's all about convenience. The same end-game mobs dead now in MMO's would be dead with or without Vent/TS etc.

I love it. The people with play with stay pretty much completely quiet durning the encounters, only the officers speak. On new encounters everyone discusses the strats as a team. It's pretty smooth. It's nice to actually play with adults.

My guild continues to primarily stick with in-game text. We occasionally use ventrilo during raids - but it's never more than 10-12 of us at a time. It makes it manageable. :p

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The problem with not using an in game voice chat now a days is the level of coordination it takes to kill anything past Hydross is ridiculously harder if you're not using Voice Chat.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

I'm a vent chat whore. I love it, couldn't play without it, but then the social aspect is a big part of the game for me and vent amplifies that.

Still, it gets really annoying to hear 3 officers all yelling "CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK" in unison on Mag raids (yeah...they know that's why the emote is there, they just can't help themselves)

If it weren't for voice chat, Moerne would never have heard "Just cause she dances go-go, it don't make Moe a hoe no" 9000x.

<3 <3 <3 Moe

Best part about voice chat in WoW is AV. Logging in to blast some N.W.A. right now.

Vent is incredibly useful for going over instructions and during an encounter in raid situations. Other than that, nope.

I prefer typing instructions in some cases anyone, as at least people can scroll back up and digest at their own pace.

The WoW 25-man bosses are so complex that vent really helps.

But I turn voice off for everything else. In Halo 3 it's kinda fun to trash talk a teenager when I kill them, but that's only after a long day at work

I've yet to turn it on in an AV....I'm afraid.

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Not a fan of voice chat in game but I realize that IF everyone in a raid was using it AND the raid leader actually had a strategy worth listening to, it might be useful. I think there is a time and place/a use for that technology if everyone is on board with it, however, if there are a few who don't have it, keeping a raid alive and successful could be foiled because people 'forget' to type the necessary info to those who aren't able to hear it all.

My husband hooked up TS for me a week or so ago. It was on for one day and one Katta mission. The first (the 'day') was almost unbearable to listen to (I just listened, didn't talk) - in game hulk hogan characters turned out to be 12 year olds with high squeaky voices and virtually no one matched the image they portrayed through type which kinda destroys any 'fantasy' one might have had in fantasyland, and yes, there was also quite a bit of verbal crap and loads of putdowns about females to filter out of the conversation in and among the de rigeur 'gotta get this gear just 'cause I will be uber with it' and other generally mundane bored teen talk.

The second use (during the Katta group) worked well. People followed, people were healed and buffed, the objective was achieved, and rezzes happened faster than they might have without it. Since half the people in the group seemed able to only type 2 words a minute (and 1 of those was generally incomprehensible), TS was a great boon.

So, it has its place but I would hate to listen to it all day long. On the other hand, what better way to relive those days of youth when we used to sit around bs'ing and using whatever curse words/slurs we could ... just because we were out of parental earshot and .. we could. So TS hasn't been logged into since then (by me) but will be kept around for those times when it could be worth having.

Sorry I love it, love it even more when it's built into the game. Why I've been playing DDO so much the last few months. Maybe I'll try WoW again since they added the feature. Have they yet?

Yes, it's in. You're better off with a cheap vent server.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat