How I envision most voice chats:
Tank: Okay, getting ready to engage the Horrendous Hare of Hollinghsworth. Cleric, are you ready?
Cleric: Ready! Have my heal chains set up, along with 2 cures in case...
Rogue: Awesome! The Jets just scored another touchdown!
Shaman: Woot! Woot!
Ranger: Guys, let's focus on the game, please...
Rogue: Sorry, guys. I'm going to be using my poisons that slow the...HOLY ****! THEY WENT FOR 2 AND MADE IT!!! JETS WIN! JETS WIN!!!
Shaman: Woot! Woot!
Tank: /sigh
Once again, you can count on the new arrival to rezz some old thread :) In my defense, this seems to be the most active thread on the subject of voice chat, so I thought I'd chip in.
1. To voice chat or not to voice chat
I have to say I love having voice chat. ESO was the first game where I used it and man, what a difference it made to group content and raids! There is simply no substitute for it when you're discussing strategies, or explaining them to less experienced players. I would have worn out my fingers if I'd had to type every single boss strategy every single time. And I did type them - a lot! - since I often joined PUGs to clear dungeons for daily quests. To have a group willing to use voice chat, even if it's just to listen and not to talk, is such a relief compared to having to type lengthy descriptions of positioning, boss attacks, add spawns, enrage mechanics... In PvP it was the same thing: if you wanted to have a chance not to be wiped by an enemy group you needed to follow the leader and act as an organized army instead of just a band of players going berserk. Outside of group content I found myself using voice chat in many situations, whether planning some activity or just relaxing and chatting with guildies.
I realize many people object to voice chat for a variety of reasons, but it seems to me that most recognize its value in group content situations, and especially in raids. Something that should be noted is that nobody is forced to use it, apart some sort of guild/group rule. But if a guild or group mandates using voice chat, that's going to happen whether it's using an in-game functionality or an external programme. Also, many problems with voice chat (background noise, incessant chatter) can be easily solved with the right tools, namely push-to-talk and mute.
So, my answer to the million-dollar question of whether or not to have voice chat is a resounding YES.
2. In-game voice chat or third-party app?
There are a lot of third-party programmes specifically suited for gaming voice communication. Why then should the developers dedicate resources to an in-game solution? I can think of a few reasons.
- Some of these programmes are paid, or some critical functionalities are locked behind a paywall. Creating large enough channels for an entire raid or for a general guild chat, for instance. Assuming the developers agree that voice communication will be, if not essential, then at the very least highly beneficial to players' experience in Pantheon, then they should consider developing an in-game solution so that players or guilds don't need to pay yet another fee to play the game.
- From my experience using third-party programmes, the need to download and install them is a very strong deterrent to the use of voice communications, especially for players who don't expect to use it very often. Removing this hurdle may contribute to more people realizing the benefits of voice chat and drive up adoption.
- To make matters worse, different guilds and groups may favour different voice chat software. This means a player might have to install multiple programmes in order to communicate in-game.
- Using an external programme can be a nightmare when what you're actually trying to do is play the game. Things such as checking attendance, managing channels, muting and unmuting group members, all require either a multi-monitor setup that not everyone will have, windowing the game, or constant alt-tabbing between the game and the voice chat programme, all of which take your attention off the game. An in-game voice chat system with the right tools could replace the external solution, keeping everyone focused on the game all the time.
- An in-game voice chat system can implement functionalities that cater specifically to the game, such as local chat, even though I don't see myself using it that often. The point is that the developers are then free to build whatever features they like into the voice chat system.
In short, I believe there are compelling arguments for an in-game solution instead of relying on third-party programmes.
3. What features should an in-game voice chat system have?
My position is that if the game is to have built-in voice chat functionality, and for the reasons above I think it should, then it should be robust enough that a third-party solution would not be necessary in all but the most convoluted scenarios. This means, for me, the following:
- Voice chat should be optional. Players shouldn't be forced to use it to play the game, but the option should be there.
- Voice chat should not impact the game servers. The in-game chat system would probably need to have persistent channels not dependent on certain persons being online, including zone chat or guild chat. The server load of communications should be kept at a minimum, so for instance - and forgive me if I'm talking out of my behind, I'm not a programmer - the server should only keep track of the existence and population of a given channel, and possibly manage permissions. Everything else should use a peer to peer protocol and bypass the servers entirely. If possible, voice servers should be separate from the game servers themselves.
- Voice chat should offer standard features such as push-to-talk, voice detection activation or mute self/others.
- Voice chat should in addition offer advanced features catering to the game, such as:
- The ability to create a channel for the current group, private channels for voice chatting without the need to group up in-game, and other ad-hoc channels, e.g for guild officers, raid group leaders, etc.;
- The ability to be in several channels simultaneously. For certain types of content, namely multi-group raids, each group would have its own leader. But all of the group leaders would have to coordinate among themselves, which would typically require switching to a different channel from time to time. Instead, group leaders would each be a primary channel with their group, and also in a secondary channel for group leaders only. The primary (group) channel would be the default, and group leaders would normally only hear and be heard by users in that channel. But for example by pressing a specific hotkey they would "tune in" to the secondary (group leaders) channel in order to coordinate strategies. By releasing the hotkey, they would "tune back" to their default voice channel, similarly to how push-to-talk works. Primary/secondary channels could even be freely designated by every player, so that they could briefly tune out of their primary channel for a quick word with someone else.
- The ability to check attendance. A raid leader would be able to create a raid roster and the raid channel would check against it for online/offline, in-group and in-chat status.
Other advanced features.
To the VR team: are there any news concerning voice chat other than the confirmation that there will be such a system in-game, as per the current FAQ?
I prefer in-game voice chat over anything else, assuming it works.
I prefer voice for as much communication as possible. I hate text screens.
When in a social group/PUG, nothing is more annoying than to have to download/join yet another server or service.
For dedicated guild communications, I am OK with an external system, since it's only one consistent system.
I only do push to talk. There is usually a lot of screaming and cussing that I prefer not to have go over my mic.
Manouk said:What I don't like is the dull, flat voice chat. There should be some drama and adventure and speaking loudly- speaking loudly is not yelling and some people may say "why are you yelling?" if they do, they don't get it. In a fight, Yell encouragement " Once more into the Breach!- Warrior stand your ground! SK?-! " - " Sk stopping the adds here!" - " Getting rough- clerics PRAY!~" " Raise the Bowsprit! Lower the Jimboom! Master brooks!-" "Aye Cap'n?!" - " Lifelines! I say lifelines fore and aft. Mr. Christian.... Mister Christian....MISTER CHRISTIAAAAN?!" That's what I want to hear in chat on a raid. But I think it instead.
Ugh. I would hate to group with someone like that. Immediate mute.
Manouk said:What I don't like is the dull, flat voice chat. There should be some drama and adventure and speaking loudly- speaking loudly is not yelling and some people may say "why are you yelling?" if they do, they don't get it. In a fight, Yell encouragement " Once more into the Breach!- Warrior stand your ground! SK?-! " - " Sk stopping the adds here!" - " Getting rough- clerics PRAY!~" " Raise the Bowsprit! Lower the Jimboom! Master brooks!-" "Aye Cap'n?!" - " Lifelines! I say lifelines fore and aft. Mr. Christian.... Mister Christian....MISTER CHRISTIAAAAN?!" That's what I want to hear in chat on a raid. But I think it instead.
Oh God no. Just talk like a normal human being.
I like voice chat. I use it when ever I can in games and love it when a voice chat is incorperated into a game. Not everyone uses the same medium i.e. Vent, TS or whatever. It makes life easier when working with a group or just shooting the breeze with people. Voice chat is deffinately a wonderful option for those wanting to use it.
Although voice chat can come in handy, its also a way to shy away hearing impaired people from socializing. If a guild uses VC frequently the typed chat will not be noticed or used. In EQ the pace was slow enough for everyone to be able to type out what they wanted. Just chatting in downtime (medding, respawn)or warrior telling he was about to pull. Enough time for the healer to type OOM and letting the group or raid know the pull had to wait a sec.
I am hearing impaired. I can follow a 1 to 1 conversation ok, but as soon as several people start talking at the same time im totally lost. In guild i dont get to know the people anymore since they are on VC.
So my preference would be typed chat. Only -if needed- VC in raids and only raidleader and maybe main tank talking in VC. Everyone else muted, just listen. Socializing through typed chat.
Remember how nice it was killing gnolls in Karana and having people joking and chatting over typed chat? Thats something i would look foreward to :)
Tharca said:Although voice chat can come in handy, its also a way to shy away hearing impaired people from socializing. If a guild uses VC frequently the typed chat will not be noticed or used. In EQ the pace was slow enough for everyone to be able to type out what they wanted. Just chatting in downtime (medding, respawn)or warrior telling he was about to pull. Enough time for the healer to type OOM and letting the group or raid know the pull had to wait a sec.
I am hearing impaired. I can follow a 1 to 1 conversation ok, but as soon as several people start talking at the same time im totally lost. In guild i dont get to know the people anymore since they are on VC.
So my preference would be typed chat. Only -if needed- VC in raids and only raidleader and maybe main tank talking in VC. Everyone else muted, just listen. Socializing through typed chat.
Remember how nice it was killing gnolls in Karana and having people joking and chatting over typed chat? Thats something i would look foreward to :)
In my experience, voice chat never fully replaces text chat. It was certainly used 100% of the time in raids, but even then some people in the group would use text rather than voice so that they wouldn't talk over the raid leader, or because they didn't have a mic. I realize not everyone will be able to use voice chat, but at the same time there could be players who have a hard time typing and for whom voice chat would be an important tool to interact with others in the game. More options couldn't hurt, right?
As with everything, some discipline will be required, and it will be up to players and guilds to set the rules to prevent spam both in voice chat *and* in text chat, which can also make it impossible to have an actual conversation.
Voice chat is a valuable tool, but I can't help but think it can and often does hinder the players interactions in other, text chat based channels. When I think back to times before using Ventrilo or TS I often remember how full my chat windows were with tons of players, all interacting with one another. Guild chat always seemed to be buzzing and groups frequently had long interactive conversations during raids and camping. After voice chat entered my life (it actually started for me in a planetside outfit that used it) it completely changed the way I played the game. It was so easy to use and made communication a lot quicker. After that I always made it a point to use voice chat whenever possible and to develop voice chat assets for any gaming group that I was part of. However the guild chat has seemingly went away, the constant buzz of activity slowed almost to a stop and while I find myself still frequently interacting with my group, I often find its to the exclusion of other players and often miss in-game tells and /say communications from other players outside my group. Its just not a habbit of mine to watch text chat anymore and while I know thats on me, I also know I'm not alone in that.
That said, I think its a sign of the times because I don't know if I could go back to being without voice chat and wonder if there is truely anything that could be done to encourage players to be more interactive in game chats. However I'm also firmly against seeing developers build voice chats directly into their games. I've seen in the FAQ that they intend to do so in pantheon as well and that disappoints me to be honest. With so many voice chat options on the market today and often many free versions like Discord, I fail to see why they should waste any development time creating what is frequently a subpar option that is normally ignored by the players in favor of an out of game solution that frequently has a dedicated team of developers behind it. Beyond that often times the ingame systems can be clunky to navagate and a mess to get setup properly, especially if they plan to offer any sort of /say type of general voice channel that could be easily spammed or abused.
Honestly I wish they'd drop any plans they have to intigrate voice chat directly and focus on ideas that could encourage the resurgence and importance of text chat interactions, but I'm at a loss as to how to accomplish that at this time.
1. People who don't want to use voice chat will be separated from people who do use it.
2. Voice chat is harder to moderate and prove that someone is being abusive.
3. Voice chat can't be re-read like text and is often less clear.
Text is superior in every way, brings people together more and IMO there shouldn't be voice chat in this game at all. It will be dead just like WoW's attempt at it. People who want to use voice chat will already have things like Discord and Teamspeak with superior audio codecs. This is one of my primary complaints about the game other than cosmetic gear and pets.
For me this isnt even a question. If I'm in game, I'm using TS. Or the prefered voice program of the guild I'm in. While I'm annoyed by people who don't use PTT. I play MMOs for the social experience as well a my seemingly never ending thirst for gaming. I will chat with whoever logs in. In fact, my current guild is very active in voice chat. We have differnt channels for people doing their own thing as well as a community channel for People who just want to chat while they run around doing watever they happen to be doing. As I imaging almost all guild voice chat opperates.
If you're going to make an in game chat, the standard voice program features need to be in place. But I am all for it. And If you can, try and make PTT mandatory. No one wants to hear people sneeze, cough or their dog or kids in the background. Or any background noise at all for that matter.