SOE announced yesterday that they would be working with Vivox to provide new voice services to their user base. The press release went on to state that Vivox would manage and host the voice features "so users won't be cutting into their valuable bandwidth.
Source: SOE Press Release via Reuters [ more info ]

It would seem that voice chat in gaming environments is fast becoming a required feature. I don't mind this idea because, thus far, it's always been an opt-in situation. And the value of being opt-in means you can also op-out.

Now, I value the time I spend chatting with folks in video games, but honestly I don't always want to hear what they have to say first hand. Hell the text alone tends to creep me out. That means you Skoob! **grins**

Originally Posted by Woody:

Now, I value the time I spend chatting with folks in video games, but honestly I don't always want to hear what they have to say first hand. Hell the text alone tends to creep me out. That means you Skoob! **grins**

I have to fully agree here. Back when I played EQ1, we started using voicechat more and more in the guild I was in at the time. Over time though, some people became almost cultish about using it. I've had immense fun hanging out with people in game, but, with some, as soon as I had to listen to them, I felt like I had a sudden hair ball struggling to get out.

After that I just dropped using vc at all and refused to bring it back up, because I didn't want my gameplay with these people soiled by hearing more of their personalities than I needed to. *snicker* I tend to have much more fun without using any kind of voicechat anyway, unless it's someone I already know and like talking to IRL.

I hate having to talk to people I don't know online. Most of the time its trash talk.
I'll only talk to people I know online. Unless they're alright...

I also would only use this feature to chat with RL friends in-game.

A good idea for helping people feel more comfortable and connected when playign but sometimes i do wonder where the minds are going with the people i play with.

P.S. I have been readign GU comics for 2 years and i just not registered? Anyways they have always been hilarious Woody. Good Job.

PUG voice chats are... interesting, I can say that for sure.

Thankfully there's many, many excuses that can be used to have voice chat off.

Sounds interesting from reading that article, but then again some of it just sounds really creepy. Like "soundfonts" for your voice so you can sound like something else, and/or one of your characters. I hope I don't need to enumerate why that'd be creepy.

And while voicemail in-game would be neat for genuine friends and guildmates, just wait for voice spam. Ugh. Hope it's restricted to guildmates and mutual friends, or else this'll get grim.

Overall I feel like this is a good idea that could get weighed down by asshats and/or spammers. I hope I'm wrong though.

I wonder if this will be anything like Blizzard's voice chat when it first was released. Though I don't know of the details currently surrounding voice chat at present, I do know that in the past when it was released, several guild mates and myself would have a private channel, and we used it in conjunction to our normal Ventrilo server, for comedic purposes. However, to legitimately hear someone, you had to yell for it to register on the other person's end; it was like a non-violent shouting match.

Honestly, I log on to vent before any game I play. I'm on vent when I'm playing single player games, or just browsing the internet. Hell, I've even tried to talk family into downloading vent so I don't have to call them.

Voice chat is the new era.

Joining a PUG with teamspeak?
Now there's a scary thought...

As if a/s/l wasn't enough.