So people really prefer to bang out orders and the like via typing in the middle of pvp than use VC, really?
Furthermore if people are on vent/TC with others who are constantly acting like retards then perhaps they should look at a different guild/group as it's not the VC that is the issue in such cases, it's the people.
In a pug then that's another case, but then they should be avoided like the plague anyway quite frankly.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I actually use vent pretty often, but I have to say, I hate it more than I like it.
I miss my days of playing DAOC without voice chat. Being able to anticipate what my friends/groups were doing without verbal or even written communication. I enjoyed watching our teams form into cohesive wholes WITHOUT the use of voice chat.
The thing is I don't understand where this need for voice chat comes from. I really don't. If I want to talk to someone, I go over to their house. I still hate talking on the phone. I'd rather text. People find that impersonal, but I couldn't disagree more. With text, I think about what I have to text, then text it. I put thought into what I am making you experience. With voice, you get whatever the hell comes to mind and can't be kept in line by my vocal chords and mouth.
And with the phone, unless I am talking TO YOU, which I rarely have time for, I am listening to a voice message or reading a text. The text takes me all of 2 seconds to glance at. The voice mail takes me 5 minutes to type in codes for and listen to instructions for and listen to the first 3 seconds of a message to find out who it is so I can finally delete the damn thing and then just CALL YOU ANYWAY. Or text you.
And what do we talk about on the phone anyway? The same things we talk about in vent?
No. On the phone its bills, money, how're you doing? When are you coming over for dinner? How's that pound cake we sent you? It's a quick in and out. You touch base, deal with business, and you HANG UP.
In vent it's always everyone in a rush to have their say, and no one is ever in a rush to hang up. We have to KEEP talking until its 8am and the sun has come up long ago.
Everyone always in a rush to say something clever. Because we are semi-anonymous and having someone laugh at our verbal excrement is good fun. When it isn't forced.
And that's it. As someone else said earlier in a completely different thread, what we true MMO fans crave is CHOICE. And vent/ts/voice is representative of a mentality devoid of choice. You can't choose to ignore someone who is talking and not suffer consequences. In-game, you can ignore chat till the cows come home and at the very least you can always say "sorry, was afk." What are you going to do in vent? Move to the afk channel because you don't want to let all the loudmouths know you put them on mute? Then what was the point in being in vent anyway?
And what about immersion? Roleplay? Are you going to larp over voice? Or risk someone thinking that singing in vent is roleplay?
And that's another thing. A lot of these folks in vent that are insanely annoying are annoying because of speech patterns langauge AS WELL AS their general behaviors that they simply can't keep in check. With text, they could have easily NOT TYPED for the 10 seconds of tourettes-esque freak out that they have when a girl jumps into the game on their same server. In vent, the words leave the mouth before a single thought can even be formed in opposition.
A guy (or gal) can be an awsome tank, a great raid leader, and a fantastic pvper in-game and command a great deal of respect. But that same person in vent is a whiney kid who can't get a sentence out edgewise in a correct form. So instead of a "roleplaying game" where their character fills a role, you erase that role they played before voice chat and instead of uber-tank-leader-ganker they become whiney kid who makes stupid penis jokes over and over again. They literally destroy the persona they were attempting to play in the first place.
And really its not even that that bothers me. It's the 12 year old kid who sounds like a girl and plays a maxed out toon who leads my groups. Its the texan with the inability to speak quietly even when i have him at 20% volume. Its the inner city guy who sounds like he is chewing on marbles. I can UNDERSTAND "1fg inc r side" or even the vague but useful "a" for aggro... I can't understand "Dooo wez ned tah gets beckenn ta tha shi-" etc etc.
It's not that I don't want to talk to people. The people in my current guild are a blast to shoot the proverbial shit with in vent. I do it all the time. But I'd rather they type, because I get more laughs out of it, and I actually feel like I understand people IN GAME far better if they use the game as the commincation medium instead of the voice chat. The only real reason to use voice is because some people can't type. But who is playing an MMO for PC/Mac that can't type? Seriously?
Get back into your game people. It's still there waiting for you. Just hit enter and have a go. Unless that is your push to talk key as well, in which case I find the coincidence to be supremely entertaining and wish you the best of luck on both fronts.
Just my 24 cents.
[Begin Sarcasm]
Girls don't use the internet unless theres a webcam involved....its a physical impossibility.
They also don't play them thar vidya gaymes, mmorpg = most men online role play girls...even in ventrillo.
You know reading this post and the comments has given me an idea. Everybody needs the immersion so bad, everyones worried about censoring, text reading is as bad of a vision breaker as gender, but generally the communication is worth it. Not once did I hear anything about lag - my biggest concern.
It sounds a lot like they are asking for a voice to voice google translator synthesisor set up to do immersion voice output. To support this arg goto look at quest giver npc's that have voices - the difference is like "omg we are coming out of the dark ages". WOW came conquered and then forgot what it's all about - immersion/escapism.
To the developers who read this:
This is one of the main issues regarding depth that can't be pasted over. It's like no one can come up with a better game because they aren't driving up this avenue. VR is as stale as possible and the reason is the scientists have all left to do skinner box's for the eugenicist's. We don't want skinner boxes we want VR. Alas the closer we get to Real Virtual Reality the more Perceptive we become to their Reality Manipulation.
I have thought long and hard over this but ultimately we won't get anything we want unless you usurp the banksters in RL!
I am such a dinosaur that I am almost a Luddite. I have never used voice. Mainly because I still play on a lousy internet connection that would probably be even more laggy if I did. Also because i don't want the break in immersion. I want to play a character. And I just don't see having conversations whilst engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Related to that, I hate voice comms in general. I have spent too much time with silly comms. I remember when i first tried a whisper mic. We quickly disabled them because only the sound of phlegm was being transmitted. Or all the times when some idiot's PTT button is stuck and then another idiot keeps yelling "hot mic" over the channel. Or the times when we were supposed to be in "listening silence" listening some inane dribble. I get real angry when the radio starts to squawk during a silent move. Getting compromised by squelch is no fun.
So, i hate radio crap in the real world, with real lives at stake. Proper planning and training and good radio discipline makes most radio comms superfluous. There ain't no way I could bear innane gamer-drivel over a headset while killing pixelated orcs. When the metal starts hitting meat, real or digital, you need to shut up and pay attention.
I'm with the OP. I don't like voice chat. I have a very deep voice. At my old job, when I got on the intercom to announce something, people would joke saying 'wtf is that the voice of God' or call me Barry White.
I also, apparently, sound like I'm growling. I can't count the times I was playing a lupine, demonic, or orcish character and someone commented about my roleplaying when.. I wasn't roleplaying.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
There are times that I really enjoy listening to voice chat such as my old Lineage 2 guild or my current LOTRO guild as there are some very nice folks there.
but overall, I'd rather not chat up a storm. If I need chat for a raid or event I'll turn it on. But it's "oh so difficult" as I then have to use head phones as I play late at night and having all sorts of volumes to contend with while my roommate is sleeping is not cool.
I oftentimes have to turn the volume up and down constantly because of the variable volumes. And if the girlfriend is over then forget it, I'm not going to ruin her sleep with me trying to ask questions.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I'm deaf so I can't use voice chat at all! It's pretty rare but in LotRO every once in awhile people I'm grouping with ask me "oh why don't you have voice chat on, turn it on!" Most of the time they rarely type and then I notice "Oh yeah they all have voice on." They get awkward when I have to tell them "Well I'm deaf so I can't, please type." When did voice chat become required? Even if I could hear, I don't want to deal with the headache of people chattering all the time.
I'm not big on voice-chat either. Even though I've been playing games that use it for a decade or more. Counter Strike and Day of Defeat were my first encounters with voice chat. And it was helpful to know "there's a sniper in the top left window" as quickly as possible, I still just didn't like chatting.
One problem I have is a lot of folks tend to venture toward discussions of drugs and alcohol, and as an addict in recovery, I have to mute any time someone starts bragging about how drunk they are.
I play video games to escape reality, not to have it blasted in my ears from some drunken idiot with a microphone.
See , thats a funny thing , i don't really get all you dinosaurs, if you don't use voice comms, you simply cant participate that good in a pvp group or raid group, and having to tell everyone else on voice what to do, but because your special , everything has to be typed to you, that just dont stick....
And yes by "you" i mean all of you old dinosaurs who stick to texting rather than take the time to be on voice comms, you dont have to talk, but you atleast need to be able to listen, personally i don't play with anyone online who havent turned 18+ , so most societies i join , you can call it clans, guilds, legions, corporations, i tend to make sure people are mature and 18+ before i apply.
Oh and one last thing, if you play intense pvp games like .... Lineage II , Eve Online f.x where dying has some serious consequences in form of loosing gear or with eve online you loose everything you fly right there and then, then voice comms is a must, not something you can just filter out because your special.
See , thats a funny thing , i don't really get all you dinosaurs, if you don't use voice comms, you simply cant participate that good in a pvp group or raid group, and having to tell everyone else on voice what to do, but because your special , everything has to be typed to you, that just dont stick....
And yes by "you" i mean all of you old dinosaurs who stick to texting rather than take the time to be on voice comms, you dont have to talk, but you atleast need to be able to listen, personally i don't play with anyone online who havent turned 18+ , so most societies i join , you can call it clans, guilds, legions, corporations, i tend to make sure people are mature and 18+ before i apply.
Oh and one last thing, if you play intense pvp games like .... Lineage II , Eve Online f.x where dying has some serious consequences in form of loosing gear or with eve online you loose everything you fly right there and then, then voice comms is a must, not something you can just filter out because your special.
Damn right I'm "special". I *choose* who I wish to deal with and in what context. Unlike way too many these days, I understand the concept of communications discipline in actual stress situations. Keep it short, to the point and then go silent again. Its not there for random bickering, fliting, or any other nonsense. Its especially not there for people who have little or no emotional control of their out bursts. Until these issues are addressed, I simply refuse to play games or with groups that require V comm.
While I do respect your view on this, do you think it is solely because you are a woman or do you think you'd feel the same if you were a guy too?
I know and have seen all that gaga over women gamers stuff etc. etc. I hate to say it but that is the male dominated world you're in. I'm sure you realize that too and i'm not saying to just shut up and deal with it at all. Just that it is to be expected in this place.
All that being said don't you think we are really on quite an interesting frontier in the internet world that is only heightened by using voice chat? I mean the possibilities of making really good friends / mates just from playing video games? I actually made some cool friends i stay in touch with just from playing WoW. I also found that the voice chat did enhance my social experiences, especially when raiding. I think that the use of voice to break some of the boundaries which you spoke of helped us to get closer as regular people / gamers. Not to say you can't with chat but i think it helps.
I think with the potential high highs there are also the low lows to be had too. All depends on the people you are playing with. You might have someone who just won't shutup or asking annoying things etc. Definitely remember lots of yelling sometimes. Mute is a wonderful thing hehe.
One thing that typing can TOTALLY do which voice cannot. Yet. At least not practically. Is translation. For those that played Final Fantasy Online (11) we were playing with japanese players and eventually others from around the globe. Was pretty cool to be able to communicate with those i normally couldn't. I even picked up a little Japanese through it which is sweet!
I think this can go one way or another depending on the people. One thing my friend mentioned which I believe to be somewhat true is voice as a crutch which can cause folks to be lazy. Rather than paying attention they wait for someone to shout out instead of being vigilant. Reaction vs. proaction.
If you have 2 teams equal in every aspect, 1 on voice comms, 1 not, the team using voice to communicate will win without fail. You do not need to sacrifice time that could be used for maneuvering or what have you to type a message, regardless of how short that message is. You can continue to maneuver and maintain full control while communicating with voice. This is why for the clan I run voice comms are mandatory. You simply cannot have equal cohesion in a competitive environment when attempting to communicate through typing. Even the time it takes to read what others have written takes your eyes off the action which could cause a fatal mistake to your team. Any truly competitive team worth their salt will have established rulesets for comms. When ranked matches are going on, noone speaks unless needed.
Also, it's not dinosaurs that have this issue of not using voice comms because we have members that are over 60 and have no problem with the mandatory voice comms. If people are refusing to use voice comms, it is most likely people that either have social anxiety, are not good with social interaction, do not want to be bothered much with others, or are just plain stubborn. Any of these issues will not make for an optimum team player.
See , thats a funny thing , i don't really get all you dinosaurs, if you don't use voice comms, you simply cant participate that good in a pvp group or raid group, and having to tell everyone else on voice what to do, but because your special , everything has to be typed to you, that just dont stick....
And yes by "you" i mean all of you old dinosaurs who stick to texting rather than take the time to be on voice comms, you dont have to talk, but you atleast need to be able to listen, personally i don't play with anyone online who havent turned 18+ , so most societies i join , you can call it clans, guilds, legions, corporations, i tend to make sure people are mature and 18+ before i apply.
Oh and one last thing, if you play intense pvp games like .... Lineage II , Eve Online f.x where dying has some serious consequences in form of loosing gear or with eve online you loose everything you fly right there and then, then voice comms is a must, not something you can just filter out because your special.
Damn right I'm "special". I *choose* who I wish to deal with and in what context. Unlike way too many these days, I understand the concept of communications discipline in actual stress situations. Keep it short, to the point and then go silent again. Its not there for random bickering, fliting, or any other nonsense. Its especially not there for people who have little or no emotional control of their out bursts. Until these issues are addressed, I simply refuse to play games or with groups that require V comm.
I can gladly say i will be happy im not playing games with you then, ive met a few of your kind before that refuses to use voice comms in games , and simply stating if they want a social life they will go outside etc, but atleast your not that stupid to listen to, but then again your not to bright either.
See , thats a funny thing , i don't really get all you dinosaurs, if you don't use voice comms, you simply cant participate that good in a pvp group or raid group, and having to tell everyone else on voice what to do, but because your special , everything has to be typed to you, that just dont stick....
And yes by "you" i mean all of you old dinosaurs who stick to texting rather than take the time to be on voice comms, you dont have to talk, but you atleast need to be able to listen, personally i don't play with anyone online who havent turned 18+ , so most societies i join , you can call it clans, guilds, legions, corporations, i tend to make sure people are mature and 18+ before i apply.
Oh and one last thing, if you play intense pvp games like .... Lineage II , Eve Online f.x where dying has some serious consequences in form of loosing gear or with eve online you loose everything you fly right there and then, then voice comms is a must, not something you can just filter out because your special.
Damn right I'm "special". I *choose* who I wish to deal with and in what context. Unlike way too many these days, I understand the concept of communications discipline in actual stress situations. Keep it short, to the point and then go silent again. Its not there for random bickering, fliting, or any other nonsense. Its especially not there for people who have little or no emotional control of their out bursts. Until these issues are addressed, I simply refuse to play games or with groups that require V comm.
I can gladly say i will be happy im not playing games with you then, ive met a few of your kind before that refuses to use voice comms in games , and simply stating if they want a social life they will go outside etc, but atleast your not that stupid to listen to, but then again your not to bright either.
Chuckle... I seriously doubt we would be in the same games any way. I've used VC in games that the tactical situation requires it. Generally FPS team games and raids. Beyond that I see no point. In fact, they detract from my enjoyment of games. Which is the only reason I play games to start with.
Comments
So people really prefer to bang out orders and the like via typing in the middle of pvp than use VC, really?
Furthermore if people are on vent/TC with others who are constantly acting like retards then perhaps they should look at a different guild/group as it's not the VC that is the issue in such cases, it's the people.
In a pug then that's another case, but then they should be avoided like the plague anyway quite frankly.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I actually use vent pretty often, but I have to say, I hate it more than I like it.
I miss my days of playing DAOC without voice chat. Being able to anticipate what my friends/groups were doing without verbal or even written communication. I enjoyed watching our teams form into cohesive wholes WITHOUT the use of voice chat.
The thing is I don't understand where this need for voice chat comes from. I really don't. If I want to talk to someone, I go over to their house. I still hate talking on the phone. I'd rather text. People find that impersonal, but I couldn't disagree more. With text, I think about what I have to text, then text it. I put thought into what I am making you experience. With voice, you get whatever the hell comes to mind and can't be kept in line by my vocal chords and mouth.
And with the phone, unless I am talking TO YOU, which I rarely have time for, I am listening to a voice message or reading a text. The text takes me all of 2 seconds to glance at. The voice mail takes me 5 minutes to type in codes for and listen to instructions for and listen to the first 3 seconds of a message to find out who it is so I can finally delete the damn thing and then just CALL YOU ANYWAY. Or text you.
And what do we talk about on the phone anyway? The same things we talk about in vent?
No. On the phone its bills, money, how're you doing? When are you coming over for dinner? How's that pound cake we sent you? It's a quick in and out. You touch base, deal with business, and you HANG UP.
In vent it's always everyone in a rush to have their say, and no one is ever in a rush to hang up. We have to KEEP talking until its 8am and the sun has come up long ago.
Everyone always in a rush to say something clever. Because we are semi-anonymous and having someone laugh at our verbal excrement is good fun. When it isn't forced.
And that's it. As someone else said earlier in a completely different thread, what we true MMO fans crave is CHOICE. And vent/ts/voice is representative of a mentality devoid of choice. You can't choose to ignore someone who is talking and not suffer consequences. In-game, you can ignore chat till the cows come home and at the very least you can always say "sorry, was afk." What are you going to do in vent? Move to the afk channel because you don't want to let all the loudmouths know you put them on mute? Then what was the point in being in vent anyway?
And what about immersion? Roleplay? Are you going to larp over voice? Or risk someone thinking that singing in vent is roleplay?
And that's another thing. A lot of these folks in vent that are insanely annoying are annoying because of speech patterns langauge AS WELL AS their general behaviors that they simply can't keep in check. With text, they could have easily NOT TYPED for the 10 seconds of tourettes-esque freak out that they have when a girl jumps into the game on their same server. In vent, the words leave the mouth before a single thought can even be formed in opposition.
A guy (or gal) can be an awsome tank, a great raid leader, and a fantastic pvper in-game and command a great deal of respect. But that same person in vent is a whiney kid who can't get a sentence out edgewise in a correct form. So instead of a "roleplaying game" where their character fills a role, you erase that role they played before voice chat and instead of uber-tank-leader-ganker they become whiney kid who makes stupid penis jokes over and over again. They literally destroy the persona they were attempting to play in the first place.
And really its not even that that bothers me. It's the 12 year old kid who sounds like a girl and plays a maxed out toon who leads my groups. Its the texan with the inability to speak quietly even when i have him at 20% volume. Its the inner city guy who sounds like he is chewing on marbles. I can UNDERSTAND "1fg inc r side" or even the vague but useful "a" for aggro... I can't understand "Dooo wez ned tah gets beckenn ta tha shi-" etc etc.
It's not that I don't want to talk to people. The people in my current guild are a blast to shoot the proverbial shit with in vent. I do it all the time. But I'd rather they type, because I get more laughs out of it, and I actually feel like I understand people IN GAME far better if they use the game as the commincation medium instead of the voice chat. The only real reason to use voice is because some people can't type. But who is playing an MMO for PC/Mac that can't type? Seriously?
Get back into your game people. It's still there waiting for you. Just hit enter and have a go. Unless that is your push to talk key as well, in which case I find the coincidence to be supremely entertaining and wish you the best of luck on both fronts.
Just my 24 cents.
[Begin Sarcasm]
Girls don't use the internet unless theres a webcam involved....its a physical impossibility.
They also don't play them thar vidya gaymes, mmorpg = most men online role play girls...even in ventrillo.
-kyte317
You know reading this post and the comments has given me an idea. Everybody needs the immersion so bad, everyones worried about censoring, text reading is as bad of a vision breaker as gender, but generally the communication is worth it. Not once did I hear anything about lag - my biggest concern.
It sounds a lot like they are asking for a voice to voice google translator synthesisor set up to do immersion voice output. To support this arg goto look at quest giver npc's that have voices - the difference is like "omg we are coming out of the dark ages". WOW came conquered and then forgot what it's all about - immersion/escapism.
To the developers who read this:
This is one of the main issues regarding depth that can't be pasted over. It's like no one can come up with a better game because they aren't driving up this avenue. VR is as stale as possible and the reason is the scientists have all left to do skinner box's for the eugenicist's. We don't want skinner boxes we want VR. Alas the closer we get to Real Virtual Reality the more Perceptive we become to their Reality Manipulation.
I have thought long and hard over this but ultimately we won't get anything we want unless you usurp the banksters in RL!
I am such a dinosaur that I am almost a Luddite. I have never used voice. Mainly because I still play on a lousy internet connection that would probably be even more laggy if I did. Also because i don't want the break in immersion. I want to play a character. And I just don't see having conversations whilst engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Related to that, I hate voice comms in general. I have spent too much time with silly comms. I remember when i first tried a whisper mic. We quickly disabled them because only the sound of phlegm was being transmitted. Or all the times when some idiot's PTT button is stuck and then another idiot keeps yelling "hot mic" over the channel. Or the times when we were supposed to be in "listening silence" listening some inane dribble. I get real angry when the radio starts to squawk during a silent move. Getting compromised by squelch is no fun.
So, i hate radio crap in the real world, with real lives at stake. Proper planning and training and good radio discipline makes most radio comms superfluous. There ain't no way I could bear innane gamer-drivel over a headset while killing pixelated orcs. When the metal starts hitting meat, real or digital, you need to shut up and pay attention.
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
I'm with the OP. I don't like voice chat. I have a very deep voice. At my old job, when I got on the intercom to announce something, people would joke saying 'wtf is that the voice of God' or call me Barry White.
I also, apparently, sound like I'm growling. I can't count the times I was playing a lupine, demonic, or orcish character and someone commented about my roleplaying when.. I wasn't roleplaying.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I agree so much with everything you write.
Run your own MMO please? :P
I have to agree with the article.
There are times that I really enjoy listening to voice chat such as my old Lineage 2 guild or my current LOTRO guild as there are some very nice folks there.
but overall, I'd rather not chat up a storm. If I need chat for a raid or event I'll turn it on. But it's "oh so difficult" as I then have to use head phones as I play late at night and having all sorts of volumes to contend with while my roommate is sleeping is not cool.
I oftentimes have to turn the volume up and down constantly because of the variable volumes. And if the girlfriend is over then forget it, I'm not going to ruin her sleep with me trying to ask questions.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'm deaf so I can't use voice chat at all! It's pretty rare but in LotRO every once in awhile people I'm grouping with ask me "oh why don't you have voice chat on, turn it on!" Most of the time they rarely type and then I notice "Oh yeah they all have voice on." They get awkward when I have to tell them "Well I'm deaf so I can't, please type." When did voice chat become required? Even if I could hear, I don't want to deal with the headache of people chattering all the time.
I'm not big on voice-chat either. Even though I've been playing games that use it for a decade or more. Counter Strike and Day of Defeat were my first encounters with voice chat. And it was helpful to know "there's a sniper in the top left window" as quickly as possible, I still just didn't like chatting.
One problem I have is a lot of folks tend to venture toward discussions of drugs and alcohol, and as an addict in recovery, I have to mute any time someone starts bragging about how drunk they are.
I play video games to escape reality, not to have it blasted in my ears from some drunken idiot with a microphone.
See , thats a funny thing , i don't really get all you dinosaurs, if you don't use voice comms, you simply cant participate that good in a pvp group or raid group, and having to tell everyone else on voice what to do, but because your special , everything has to be typed to you, that just dont stick....
And yes by "you" i mean all of you old dinosaurs who stick to texting rather than take the time to be on voice comms, you dont have to talk, but you atleast need to be able to listen, personally i don't play with anyone online who havent turned 18+ , so most societies i join , you can call it clans, guilds, legions, corporations, i tend to make sure people are mature and 18+ before i apply.
Oh and one last thing, if you play intense pvp games like .... Lineage II , Eve Online f.x where dying has some serious consequences in form of loosing gear or with eve online you loose everything you fly right there and then, then voice comms is a must, not something you can just filter out because your special.
List of SOE lies
Damn right I'm "special". I *choose* who I wish to deal with and in what context. Unlike way too many these days, I understand the concept of communications discipline in actual stress situations. Keep it short, to the point and then go silent again. Its not there for random bickering, fliting, or any other nonsense. Its especially not there for people who have little or no emotional control of their out bursts. Until these issues are addressed, I simply refuse to play games or with groups that require V comm.
While I do respect your view on this, do you think it is solely because you are a woman or do you think you'd feel the same if you were a guy too?
I know and have seen all that gaga over women gamers stuff etc. etc. I hate to say it but that is the male dominated world you're in. I'm sure you realize that too and i'm not saying to just shut up and deal with it at all. Just that it is to be expected in this place.
All that being said don't you think we are really on quite an interesting frontier in the internet world that is only heightened by using voice chat? I mean the possibilities of making really good friends / mates just from playing video games? I actually made some cool friends i stay in touch with just from playing WoW. I also found that the voice chat did enhance my social experiences, especially when raiding. I think that the use of voice to break some of the boundaries which you spoke of helped us to get closer as regular people / gamers. Not to say you can't with chat but i think it helps.
I think with the potential high highs there are also the low lows to be had too. All depends on the people you are playing with. You might have someone who just won't shutup or asking annoying things etc. Definitely remember lots of yelling sometimes. Mute is a wonderful thing hehe.
One thing that typing can TOTALLY do which voice cannot. Yet. At least not practically. Is translation. For those that played Final Fantasy Online (11) we were playing with japanese players and eventually others from around the globe. Was pretty cool to be able to communicate with those i normally couldn't. I even picked up a little Japanese through it which is sweet!
I think this can go one way or another depending on the people. One thing my friend mentioned which I believe to be somewhat true is voice as a crutch which can cause folks to be lazy. Rather than paying attention they wait for someone to shout out instead of being vigilant. Reaction vs. proaction.
If you have 2 teams equal in every aspect, 1 on voice comms, 1 not, the team using voice to communicate will win without fail. You do not need to sacrifice time that could be used for maneuvering or what have you to type a message, regardless of how short that message is. You can continue to maneuver and maintain full control while communicating with voice. This is why for the clan I run voice comms are mandatory. You simply cannot have equal cohesion in a competitive environment when attempting to communicate through typing. Even the time it takes to read what others have written takes your eyes off the action which could cause a fatal mistake to your team. Any truly competitive team worth their salt will have established rulesets for comms. When ranked matches are going on, noone speaks unless needed.
Also, it's not dinosaurs that have this issue of not using voice comms because we have members that are over 60 and have no problem with the mandatory voice comms. If people are refusing to use voice comms, it is most likely people that either have social anxiety, are not good with social interaction, do not want to be bothered much with others, or are just plain stubborn. Any of these issues will not make for an optimum team player.
I can gladly say i will be happy im not playing games with you then, ive met a few of your kind before that refuses to use voice comms in games , and simply stating if they want a social life they will go outside etc, but atleast your not that stupid to listen to, but then again your not to bright either.
List of SOE lies
Chuckle... I seriously doubt we would be in the same games any way. I've used VC in games that the tactical situation requires it. Generally FPS team games and raids. Beyond that I see no point. In fact, they detract from my enjoyment of games. Which is the only reason I play games to start with.