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March 15, 2007

Your Opinions: Talking About Talking

Earlier this month I blogged about in-game voice chat and asked for your opinions. I regret that the blog system we use on FilePlanet doesn't have an integrated comments feature yet; I received a deluge of mail, with lots of well-written opinions from across the board. As promised, I'll summarize the best responses here.

Talk Like a Robot!

First off, many of you pointed out the possibility of using voice modulation technology to address some of my issues. (You know, you flip a switch, and now everything you say into the mic sounds like a Robot or Darth Vader...)

[After pointing out voice modulation technology already in widespread use] "Your list of 'issues' with voice integration is relatively short, and easily surpassed with a bit of thought put into the system." -John Doe

"I get the feeling developers (especially MMO developers) will implement and refine voice chat. If I recall, there already is an app to toy around with your voice's pitch and timbre on Ventrilo, so it's not a stretch to imagine such features would be implemented so that voices would match the characters, possibly even with a certain degree of automation. The downside is that it could a whole new dimension weirdness.... that Human female Mage that sounds like a guy really could be a girl trying to sound like Dr. Girlfriend from the Venture Bros. Actually, that last bit about the Mage is kinda sexy." -AbsurdONE

True Story. Well, except for the part about the robot. And the guy.

Personally I don't think modulating voices fundamentally changes the problem. Instead of judging someone for sounding like a 12-year-old, I rush to judge someone because they sound like a robot version of James Earl Jones. In either case immersion suffers. That said, I agree that there are ways to address the issues I brought up.

People Act Like Jerks?

The anonymity of the Internet means people often act like creeps online. This problem is compounded when actual voice is involved. Of the readers who wrote in against voice chat, dealing with the jerks was the biggest issue:

"Seriously, voice chat put me off of playing Gears of War online. I fired it up joined a game and before the game had even started some foul mouthed @$$ was calling someone extreme profanities and my wife was giving me that wifely look that says 'Why the hell do I have to listen to all that just so you can play your stupid video game' look? Needless to say ever since then, I haven't even bothered to play Gears online." - Scurvycrow

"Conversations of offensive topics usually ensue in these channels 24/7. Parents should be banning this kind of activity in their homes. Fileplanet should be asking parents what they think about voice chat. Bottom line: Voice chat is offensive." -Alex

"Here's my issue, RACIST COMMENTS by those that have the ability to voice chat within a game online. I play quite a bit of CounterStrike Source online and I get so tired of people using the N-word that I sometimes shut my computer down and go do something else fun or simply play single player. I am an African American gamer and I have come to appreciate all people especially my fellow brother and sister Americans... I am all for in game voice chat, but I think we really need to try to be courteous of other players. This may be asking a lot because of the anonymity that playing online gives players but please Fargo appeal to your readers the necessity to be respectful of other players while they are on the Mic." -Quincy J. Whitfield

In my original post I noted that voice chat works best when it's consensual, meaning you have some control over who enters your audio space. Most readers seemed to agree that that was the best way to handle the jerk factor.

Breaking the Game Immersion

Readers also agreed that sometimes in-game voice pulls you out of the game fiction in ways that text chat for some reason doesn't. I don't think this is a deal-killer -- the pros of instant in-game communication outweigh the cons -- but I definitely wasn't the only one to note the problem.

"My main gripe is the way it can suddenly pull you out of your immersion in the game. If I'm getting owned during a really wild fps match the last thing I want to hear is the cracking voice of some 12 year old telling me how I can't hit the broad side of a barn and making me want to give him a time out!" -Crosshair

"When I read the text I put what I think they might sound like to it, the tone and manner. But if I have to hear their real voice my imagination is shattered. Theres no RP left in the RPG then." -Christopher Vanucci

"Unless I'm actively engaging in PVP I want nothing whatsoever to do with voice chat. Why? Because, as you said, it's the single biggest killer of immersion out there. In a game like EVE it's not so bad. But in EverQuest or WoW or EQ2 or Lord of the rings or DDO? No way in heck would I be on a teamspeak/vent server." -Elnator

Other Issues

Two of my readers from overseas pointed out various other problems, with either language or bandwidth:

"I don't like game voices, because people tend to think if it's possible to speak, then you MUST speak... I'm not a natural English speaker, I'm from Argentina, so I speak Spanish. My pronunciation is really bad and I can't understand some English accents, because I'm not used to them....On the other side, I can type and read extremely well ... I'm perfectly happy with the speed of written communications for MMORPGS, where combats aren't instant, there are no one hit kills (or at least there are really few), but it seems I'm a minority." -Gustavo Campanelli

Mistirious wrote from the Netherlands, complaining that his Internet connection isn't always rock solid. "If I have to sacrifice precious Internet speed and/or fps for voice chat... In some games I wouldn't mind, but in other I would just be pissed like hell..." -Mistirious

So What's the Final Word on Voice?

If I could've gotten all of you guys into a room to talk it out, we'd probably reach two conclusions: 1. It would be a hella party and 2. in-game voice chat has a lot of issues but most of them can be worked out. I've got a dozen letters here from people saying that despite the problems it sometimes causes, there's no way they could coordinate a World of Warcraft raid without a voice chat server. There's an immediacy to voice communication that you just can't get around -- game developers can do things to mitigate the problems, but it's definitely worth continuing to incorporate into titles.

And that's the word on ... words.

-Fargo

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