With me it depends, if I am focussed on something, I don't usually say a heck of alot. If I am in a group, I talk to everyone. Sometimes voice chat, can get out of hand with people singing into the mic off-key or someone constantly coughing, or if they leave their mic open and you can hear the baby crying, the garbage truck backing up..etc. (all true stories :P)
Thank you all for voicing your opinions! I read everything and am somehow relieved to find that a lot of folks also remember a time where it wasn't the norm to be in voice chat all of the gaming time. Some posts where exceedingly funny, thank you also for that :D
Times have changed for sure. I saw that again yesterday, on the newly created time locked expansion server in EQ2. My guild and I wanted to do a blackburrow dungeon run (in EQ2 it's one of the first dungeons your baby character will hit). Everybody was asking, which teamspeak channel? You not coming? No? Why not coming?
But I just wanted to play in peace and quiet. And so I didn't came into Teamspeak and felt like a scoundrel, because I said that I wonder how people managed to visit blackburrow without voice chat 11 years ago. Oh wait, they DID! ;)
(I have to say that I am of course not thinking that people can't manage without. It was just my reply to the pressure they took onto me)
Maybe in Pantheon I will find more like-minded people. Would be really great :)
One of the key things I look for in a guild is a very active TEXT chat. Most of the time while adventuring I don't want to wear a headset or have voices coming out my speakers. So if the guild mostly only talks in voice chat it can get boring and you feel like you're missing out. Not saying they shouldn't talk in voice but as a guild rule everyone should also be encouraged to chat in text. It can take a long time to find a nice guild like that. When the first thing a guild recruiter says is to meet them in voice chat for an interview I just say forget it.
It's fun on raids. For planning and fighting it can be used for serious business. Mostly though, hopefully everyone is excited and having a good time making jokes here and there. One time someone out of the blue said "if you put a puppies head in your mouth and touch the back of your throat it's good luck!". Stuff like that is much more fun in voice chat.
There can be a lot of dangers in voice chat for guilds too. Some people will talk endlessly. Some get drunk and voice chat. Some always have their mics too loud or too low. Some curse constantly. Some will sing. All those things and more can bother some people. I've seen many people leave guilds because of voice chat, maybe even for more than any other reason.
So I don't mind voice chat and do enjoy it sometimes. The most important thing though is to remember to use your text chat as well. I'll be searching for that guild with a fun voice chat that also seriously reminds members to converse in text chat as well. Send me a message if you know of one!
You can be sitting in a room looking at a computer screen get interupted by rl stuff and the thing that breaks immersion is voice chat. Really ?
Imagination is what is required, it is what made pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons so fun. If youre a roleplayer you stay in character in game chat and pretend that everything that could ruin your immersion doesnt exist. Use your imagination it will free you.
I use voip for grouping / raiding but still use text chat to be in character and life is good.
This is one of those chicken+egg things...
1. MMO games started introducing quirky game mechanics 'to make combat more interesting' They added things like twitch mechanics, stealing from FPS games.
2. Inevitably this lead to MMO combat approaching the speed of FPS games. This fast-paced combat (high-speed button-mashing etc) meant no free fingers (or time) for typing chat. Ans so chat died (see how long in a typical WoW session before a single person talks to you)
3. Enter TS/Voip (again stolen from FPS) to make up for the lack. Now MMOs can write faster and faster combat into the game, *assuming* Voice will be used. This leads to Voice being percieved as 'standard'
4. Now, if you are in a group and have no voice, you are excluded...
And so the story continues....
Voice -allows- fast-paced combat ....
fast-paced combat -stops- typed chat
Thanksfully, Pantheon is returning to a more meaningful pace for combat it seems.
Time to think of strategy and tactics.
Downtime to talk to your team-mates.
So... my question to advocates of Voice-chat ....
.... how will *you* include typed-chat?
.... how will *you* include those without voice?
PS: a wonderful solution would be 'the next step'... Your voice chat is converted into text and sent into the chat box! Better than alll of use having text-to-voice and sounding like robots! hehe
Back in the day, and even the last time I played...not so long ago, I enjoyed the very basic communication, but... I would always always always prefer voice chat over text, it in no way demished gameplay, it enhanced it! Those bonds you made with your regular group from levels 1 thru 19 just paid off because in a tight spot you all knew to stop joking and focus, someone took charge, **** got done and ... whew. 10 Minutes later that group you were worried about on the way in is now asking you for assistance on a CR. Those hours of senseless killing frogs turned into a bond that means something, you know her voice, and his voice, and when you say, hey whoa...here we go, they know to listen. Bonds are formed and strengthened. Even the most talented crew knew their limits, when someone 'pulled' for you every frog they could before dying.....just..that focus...finishing each others sentences, locking things down, overcoming the absolutely ridiculous and then...whew! uhoh repops. I have to have voice chat, in game or out, I prefer that. Good stuff
To me it depends, in EQ i played mostly on english speaking servers and since im from Switzerland and im usualy speaking swissgerman im not used to the english language spoken much, i had a easier time , if ppls wrote stuff. I enjoy silence at times and listening to series or movies in my room while playing. But at times i hate writing stuff since it gets bothersome and voice chat is much easier (if its you language at least). If you have the players in your group at least listen to somone giving advice it helps alot usualy, most ppls who played eq could play it whithout the need to talk much while in combat. Everyone just knew what he had to do anyway.
After all in todays games i got bothered by voice chat a few times with ppls joining breathing loudly, having bad mics loud background music ...or other stuff . I pretty much would prefer an Orc that does sound like an Orc or an Ogre Gnome Dwarf ..it can break immersion at times. And im not even a role player i would just prefer to imagine them having thoose voices :).
Yup, we can all agree that voice chat is going to be used regardless and that's cool, i'm game either way. I enjoy both actually, voice chat when i am raiding or needing to know certain mechanics in a dungeon, text chat when i am grinding xp and istening to music. Yeah, you have all those crazy things that involve voice chat but i don't let it get to me, i just kindly make toward an easy exit and go back to my music and text chat. Raiding usually doesn't have any of that excess noise, if it does, something is wrong. So yeah, I am game either way :) usually both for me. *cheers
Hoping for a built in chat that will autojoin you to a channel when you group up with someone. As far as the immersion breaking comments... I dont understand them. You are suppossed to pretend the person talking is the avatar you see on the screen not someone playing the avatar...
Zorkon said: Wouldent constant use of VOIP interfere with the "perception" system I believe is intended for Patheon? It's going to be pretty hard to hear a "whisper coming out of a well" while some Gobber in voice is telling what he had for lunch.
You also get text poping up on your screen.
@Evoras
I dont know if the tech is there or if its at a level it should be but the voice-to-text and text-to-voice would be great. Its not my intention to force people to use voice chat that dont want to (or cant, I have known a few deaf players in my time). Or to leave them out of the conversation. But over the years it has become a necessary tool. I also find that a lot is lost in pure text, because they dont convey the emotions that voice chat does. And probably something I forgot in an earlier post, it also is a lot more personal. My friendships with my guild members increased 10 fold when we switched to voice chat. Its not like we werent firends or didnt have a good time together before that but it just made it more..... real? I guess. Also a virtual world shouldnt be lacking of human voices, makes you feel like your on the moon.
What would be more personal a group texting session or a few friends sitting around a camp fire having a drink?
Maybe I'm an old fogey, but I don't like voice chat with random strangers. I do use a group Skype call with RL friends, but I don't think I've ever joined voice with strangers.
For an MMO I think it would be real bad for immersion, also - I much prefer to hear in my head the husky drawl of that sexy dark elf necromancer rather than the real voice of the 12-year-boy playing that character.
Hopefullty in Pantheon the pace of the game will be such that text (with a few macros) is more than sufficient. By the time you get to raiding, yeah maybe a few key players get voice linked, but you've usually got you're role down well and your macros set up.
I prefer text chat under most circumstances. I like being in my peaceful bubble while gaming, listening to the zone's music, the ambient sounds. In raids and such voice chat can be a fantastic tool, and being on voice chat with friends can be really fun.. but not all the time please. Having to talk constantly wears me out, I like being quiet. Typing doesn't have that effect on me, I can chat away for hours then.
I've mentioned before that I am not a fan of built in voice chat platform wide. I don't want to be in scenarios where I'm not included because I choose not to utilize voice chat.
However, I understand some people like it so I don't want to take it away from them. I think the best option is to either 1) Have separate voice enabled servers or better yet, 2) Just leave voice chat to the 3rd party applications and allow guilds/friends to use it if they choose.
I listen to mp3s, or have TV sports playing in the background while playing, so hearing someone babble non-group/raid related things is interuption for me.
While I'm not totally against VC and do see a purpose for it, I again, would not want it to ever be required. Which means there needs to be ways/options to have both text and voice interact with each other, so the end user gets to choose his/her preferred form of communication.
I still prefer text myself.
if the guild you join requires it, you have the choice to either dont group, leave, start your own guild, etc. even in the past when i was in such guilds, i often didnt log into voicechat outside of a dungeon or raid. (although at times if me and someone i was friendly with were playing yet doing different things, we would get on voicechat just to BS)
never understood why this is an issue. everyone is free to make their own choices in game, we are all free to make a 'non voicechat' guild if we so choose, or join one that doesnt use it, or whatever.
as far as immersion, haha yeah i can see that actually. hearing the voice of that badass tank, finding out he was 120 lbs irl, kinda funny. it shouldnt matte, but it does, and i think in some way, many of us have a minds eyes picture of the player based on the character. more than one person has told me my voice didnt fit my irl picture, as well (story for another time heh)
Besides raiding (and if I ain't the raidleader I have it on but rarely say anything) I only use skype if I play with a few buddies. When PUGing I don't use it at all. If the game itself support it I might use it at times but rarely that much. I tend to write a lot in the chat whenever we have a dull moment though.
I typically use voice chat with real life friends and people we've got to know well in game. I've never used it in any sort of pickup group. And even when my friends are playing, I try to use text as much as possible when we pick up others in the group that we don't know.
I would hate to see it built into the game, just because I know it would become required for groups.