Online-Games and the voice-chat segregation

[Jeff Kelly]

I am an avid WoW-Player. I usually play three days per week and 5-6 hours per session so I do not consider myself to be a casual gamer. I am no catass, but I have enough free time so that I could go on MC and BWL raids and I even had offers from several guilds to do so.

Alas I can't attend those raids. I play WoW on an Apple Powerbook and am therefore unable to use voice-chat programs. Both Ventrilo and Teamspeak only offer Windows and Linux clients. The Teamspeak guys have plans to support the Macintosh platform when they release Teamspeak 3 but it is in development since early 2004 and the release date has been delayed to the end of 2006.

This wouldn't be a problem if Teamspeak was not a mandatory requirement for joining raids on my server. Raid parties plowing through MC, Zul'Gurub and Blackwing Lair laugh at me when I tell them that I want to join but do not have the ability to use Teamspeak. I have been kicked out of countless Scholo, Strat and BRS raids because I have no Teamspeak and even battlegrounds are now closed to me because even pick-up groups now use voice-chat after they repeatedly got their asses handed to them by groups using teamspeak.

People tell me that the main reasons they use voice-chat is so that they can coordinate more easily and that it is the only way to react quickly enough to certain events in instances or during boss battles. Many of these people say that instances like Blackwing Lair or Molten Core are very hard or even impossible to master without voice communications. These are valid reasons and I can hardly argue against them. It is rather more efficient and fasterr to say something than to type it. People do not have to track the raid-chat, can concentrate on the battle at hand and there are numerous situations where every second counts.

However this doesn't change the fact that a certain percentage of gamers, who might be capable and have enough time, are excluded from endgame content because they might not be able to use voice-chat. People on dial-up or isdn for example or those playing their game on an exotic  platform.

I do not play other online-games very much but I assume that similar problems exist in other online-games, where there is challenging high-end raid content or quick coordination is the key to success.

So I wondered. Why do game developers design content that is difficult or even impossible to master without the help of voice chat and at the same time do not even offer support for voice communications in their game? Why do they design encounters the way they do even though a large number of people are still using dial-up to play and are therefore not even able to play these encounters?

Well one could argue that with broadband this might no longer be a problem, but why rely on third party tools to offer support for something the game company should have done in the first place?

To top it off, do you people have any ideas on how to make communication and coordination more efficient without the reliance on voice chat?

[El Gallo]

Because lowband, no-quick-communication-required fights are boring.  EQ1 had "clerics hit their CH macro every x seconds, melee hit autoattack and go afk for 10 minutes" style boss fights.  So, WoW went with the "lots of adds, some unpredictability, quick decisionmaking required" goal (not always achieved, of course) for their fights.  The players respond with voice chat, which makes that stuff much easier.  Just like the players responded with addons that essentially play the raid for you.  I don't know that the developers believed that teamspeak would be used on such a wide scale.

My ultimate goal for the genre is voice-to-text.  It's (a) not as immersion-destroying as voice chat, (b) is workable with large groups of people, and (c) does not require me to wear a headset that effectively cuts me off from the real world while I'm playing (the thing I hate most about vent/ts).  The problem is that the technology does not exist yet in non-sucky form.  Haem doesn't like it because you still have to look in a chat window.

[Sky]

I like voice chat. Been a big fan of it ever since I played BF1942 in a clan. I feel it really elevates the gameplay, at the expense of immersion. But immersion usually sucks in mmo anyway, so it's probably worth it. I really dislike the chat box, but then I'm an old skool UO player...I liked that style. Games are getting a lot better about showing info in the gamespace instead of the UI, though.

That does suck about OSX/Unix support (either would be fine imo) for the voice apps. Of course, you could slap together a bits box and run winders on it just for voice comms...But until you can figure out telepathy, voice comms will rule the day.

[tazelbain]

Very true in GW, if you want to compete at all beyond a certain level you must have voice chat.
I don't know if voice-to-chat is so good, too easy for text to get lost on the screen.

[HaemishM]

However this doesn't change the fact that a certain percentage of gamers, who might be capable and have enough time, are excluded from endgame content because they might not be able to use voice-chat. People on dial-up or isdn for example or those playing their game on an exotic  platform.

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec, why are people who don't always have enough time to put 2-4 hours per night to a game excluded from endgame content like dragon raids? Because it's easier to make the encounters take asstons of time than make them challenging or thought-provoking. 

No, I don't like voice-to-text because the genre, especially in WoW and CoH, have moved outside the chat box. There is no real need to look in the chat box moment to moment like there was in EQ and DAoC. Most of the important stuff happens on the screen between the combatants, including buffs, debuffs and situational things like dodges or parries. That is a GOOD thing. Of course, a bigger problem with WoW that makes the game require voice chat for such an occurrence as those high-end raids you speak of is that the action happens too goddamn fast. I've noticed that in the instances I've been in. The speed seems just about right for solo combat, but you start adding groups into it, and there's really very little time to react in any way other than a kneejerk way. Combat in WoW groups really just feels like uncontrolled chaos, and I end up having to focus on just my own actions or I get lost. This may be because I'm mostly playing solo, but still. I think WoW (and CoH) would both benefit from combat that wasn't quite so frenetic. Or built in voice-chat, but I imagine the fact that they still get loot lag and server queues would mean Blizzard isn't close to being able to make voice chat that works, even with all their money hats.

[Nija]

I loved the text to voice feature of ut2k4. You never really had to look at the text box, ever. It would get backed up if you were on a pub server and everyone was spamming, but you could set it to be team-only and that rocked in RO.

Also, Mr. Kelly, if you want to do more than edit videos, load photoshop, and play WoW and Shadowbane, I'd buy a PC.

[Fargull]

Haemish,

Never though tof that.. Damn, good points.  I know that COH felt like a better game because of the chat bubbles.  I would love to see a game instigate Voice Chat automatically (with in the game environment) when a group entered an Instance (this could be enabled or disabled in the UI).  Not outside of it, but in the instance.

[Nebu]

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec, why are people who don't always have enough time to put 2-4 hours per night to a game excluded from endgame content like dragon raids? Because it's easier to make the encounters take asstons of time than make them challenging or thought-provoking. 

I'd also argue that many people don't want a challenge.  Look at all the spoiler sites, hint books, and cheats available for games these days.  People want the immediate gratification only available from the shiniest new DING generator.  Challenge in a game would be stuck in a niche and even that would be eventually ruined by spoilers.  Though there are different types of challenges.  I like steep learning curves and lots of decision making.  Others like reflex-based challenges.

As for voice chat, I'd say that PvP games really prosper with it.  I'm not sure that I feel good about this addition, but a voice program does help a lot. With all the freeware available game designers really have no need to make this available as part of the game itself.  Most gamers are savvy enough to find a program of choice (ventrillo is mine) and get a server setup for gaming. Yes, it does break immersion... it also breaks the monotony inherent in so many games in this genre.  For me, it's about the social interactions anyway.  MMOG's are like a chat room with distractions.

[tazelbain]

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec, why are people who don't always have enough time to put 2-4 hours per night to a game excluded from endgame content like dragon raids? Because it's easier to make the encounters take asstons of time than make them challenging or thought-provoking. 

I'd rather having MMOGs by more like a movie experience than a sitcom experience, but thats a  personal preference.

[HaemishM]

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec, why are people who don't always have enough time to put 2-4 hours per night to a game excluded from endgame content like dragon raids? Because it's easier to make the encounters take asstons of time than make them challenging or thought-provoking. 

I'd also argue that many people don't want a challenge.  Look at all the spoiler sites, hint books, and cheats available for games these days.  People want the immediate gratification only available from the shiniest new DING generator.  Challenge in a game would be stuck in a niche and even that would be eventually ruined by spoilers.  Though there are different types of challenges.  I like steep learning curves and lots of decision making.  Others like reflex-based challenges.

Fuck them if they don't like a challenge. Why are they playing a game anyway if they don't want a challenge to overcome?

See, that's where the whole world vs. game thing gets muddy. A game provides a challenge, a world not necessarily so. MMOG's being thought of as chat rooms with distractions are for people who don't want a challenge. But we're talking about WoW and games like it, so anyone who doesn't want a challenge should just go masturbate furiously in the corner while someone rings a bell every 10 seconds.

[Nebu]

MMOG's being thought of as chat rooms with distractions are for people who don't want a challenge.

I think you missed the point.

MMOG's are thought of as chat rooms with distractions exactly because they don't pose a challenge.  THAT'S THE PROBLEM.  The mass market doesn't want a challenge.  They want to sit in front of their computer and be part of a movie. They want to throw down their $15 and be entertained in a mindless sort of way.  Run a cartoon around, hear a DING, log off.  I made the comment about mmog's being like a chat room with distractions because that's pretty much all they are at this point.  There's almost no depth and gameplay so mindless that any drooling mouthbreather can get to the end successfully. I think that what we've seen in MMOG's is the transition from games to a form of entertainment.  I'd personally rather be engrossed in the game than to use a voice program to discuss politics while whacking foozle #2589 or waiting on some raid to commence.

This is where voice chat could actually play a constructive role in the genre.  Make the game so challenging and involving that I don't have time to articulate my thoughts by typing.  We get this in FPS all the time. Of course in FPS it's because we need our hands doing other things (targeting, running, shooting).   Raids can be this way to a point, but I think most of us agree that this isn't the kind of endgame we're looking for. 

[Zane0]

You're pretty lucky that Apples play WoW.. Sorry about your situation. :/

In regards to the challenge spiel, many high-end instances, BWL especially, require a fair amount of skill to overcome.  One could argue that these raids are just about "finding the right strategy", but we have failed with established strategies because of personal mistakes in the heat of battle.  In reality, it takes a quite a lot of practice and time to become familiar with your skills, and build the optimal UI so that it gives you the information you need and the ability to react to that information as quickly as possible.  Some players are better at this than others.

Does this not sufficiently meet the definition of 'skill'?

[Pococurante]

I say this in complete innocence and naivete but can't you run Windows Teamspeak through an emulator?  Pretty sure two of my friends do exactly that with their powerbooks.

[Soln]

No, I don't like voice-to-text because the genre, especially in WoW and CoH, have moved outside the chat box. There is no real need to look in the chat box moment to moment like

One aside: getting things outside the chat box is important to also cripple cheat macros.  Not sure, but I presume there is still local chat logging which allows for system messages to be interpreted.  It probably is more inclusive to use voice. 

[Xanthippe]

I'm looking forward to the time when there is little text to read at all.  Integrated voice chat.  NPCs that speak to you.  I don't want to look at a text box ever.  I want to see an uncluttered screen in front of me, instead of having six different channels to keep track of.

Although I'm not sure how that could be implemented in Ironforge where the noise would be deafening.  I suppose the same way people can filter the text channels.

[Sky]

Why are they playing a game anyway if they don't want a challenge to overcome?

Because it's fun? To blow of some steam after work? Some mindless diversion? To get a break from the challenges of daily life?

I agree with the overall point, I don't care much for spoiler sites and 'strategy guides' that basically usurp the role of 'game manual', but I do see how people wouldn't always want a challenge. Have some challenging games for when folks are in that mood, some easy fun games for when they aren't.

Oh, and the whole timesinky uber end to WoW can bite my nuts. But I thank Blizz for freeing up my dance card.

One aside: getting things outside the chat box is important to also cripple cheat macros.

That worked well in UO.

[Morfiend]

Up until now, I dont believe that any MMOGs offered Mac clients. So we are hitting a new problem with WoW. Before every one in the MMOG had access to the voice programs, so it was no problem. With no Mac client for TS or Ventrillo we suddenly has a small percentage excluded for what is fast becoming a major part of any MMOG.

We have several people in my guild that play on Macs, and its much harder for them in raids. Some of them have actually build or otherwise gotten hold of crappy PCs just to run vent on. Others make sure they really really read up on what is required, so they know how to react to the different situations with out hearing it.

On my server it makes it harder to do raid content with no voice chat, but we try to go out of our way to accomidate people who cant use it, and hope that the vent people finish their mac client really soon.

[jpark]

Because lowband, no-quick-communication-required fights are boring.  EQ1 had "clerics hit their CH macro every x seconds, melee hit autoattack and go afk for 10 minutes" style boss fights.  So, WoW went with the "lots of adds, some unpredictability, quick decisionmaking required" goal (not always achieved, of course) for their fights.  The players respond with voice chat, which makes that stuff much easier.  Just like the players responded with addons that essentially play the raid for you.  I don't know that the developers believed that teamspeak would be used on such a wide scale.

My ultimate goal for the genre is voice-to-text.  It's (a) not as immersion-destroying as voice chat, (b) is workable with large groups of people, and (c) does not require me to wear a headset that effectively cuts me off from the real world while I'm playing (the thing I hate most about vent/ts).  The problem is that the technology does not exist yet in non-sucky form.  Haem doesn't like it because you still have to look in a chat window.

How about...

Choosing a character voice to translate your own into?

If TS were built into the game, I wonder if it would be possible to choose a voice/persona that we would speak into into.  No offense to some of you guys - but when I hear our big Tauren tank on a raid speak with all the testosterone of Woody Allen it loses it for me lol.  In other words rather than use our real voices - we could choose a voice type from the game.

I want to see voice ---> Character voice

[Venkman]

Not that I'm any sort of paragon of knowledge nor experience, but I just wrote about voicechat vs text.

Anyway, to the plight of Jeff, I feel for ya. Have you tried running Teamspeak in a Virtual PC shell? I don't know your system Specs, nor which version you're up to in OS X, but Teamspeak seems to have a relatively light resource load.

You could join a more casual guild too, one that raids but not at the pace of elite PUGs.

I'm looking forward to the time when there is little text to read at all

I'm looking forward to a time when numbers are so irrelevant there's no need to read at all. I personally feel the continued reliance on chat boxes is based on a combination of old skool "I don't want to lose my anonymity" disbelief (as if someone who heard me talk would be able to divine my social security number  ) and the continued iterating of Diku in this genre. I haven't parsed log data, well, ever really, except when I was building EQ2 maps and spamming /loc (among other things).

Up until now, I dont believe that any MMOGs offered Mac clients

Shadowbane and EQ1 both had Mac clients, though barely supported and rather buggy if I recall. Second Life's and A Tale in the Desert's work pretty good though from what I hear. Except for SB though, none of thse really require TS.

[Shockeye]

The mass market doesn't want a challenge.

That's the same reason why the mass market does not want a skill-based (as in player skill) MMO because deep down people are afraid they won't be any good at the game and will not have any fun. Hotkeys anyone can do, hell, look at me!

[Margalis]

The mass market doesn't want a challenge.

That's the same reason why the mass market does not want a skill-based (as in player skill) MMO because deep down people are afraid they won't be any good at the game and will not have any fun. Hotkeys anyone can do, hell, look at me!

Cases in point: Pacman and Street Fighter 2.

Oh wait...

[Nebu]

Cases in point: Pacman and Street Fighter 2.

Apple meet Orange. 

[HRose]

Raid parties plowing through MC, Zul'Gurub and Blackwing Lair laugh at me when I tell them that I want to join but do not have the ability to use Teamspeak. I have been kicked out of countless Scholo, Strat and BRS raids because I have no Teamspeak and even battlegrounds are now closed to me because even pick-up groups now use voice-chat after they repeatedly got their asses handed to them by groups using teamspeak.

Guilds are RETARDED. Players in WoW are generally retarded.

I had similar problems and luckily I've been able to find a guild on my server that does MC, Onyxia and ZG successfully and is on the way for BWL without using any kind of voice chat.

The problem is just about having people accept to do that without being babysitted through voice chat.

It's a problem of PEOPLE, not of the game.

Many of these people say that instances like Blackwing Lair or Molten Core are very hard or even impossible to master without voice communications. These are valid reasons and I can hardly argue against them.

No, these reasons are childish.

It's true that the voice chat may help to react quickly in some situations, but for sure it isn't required and not as important as these spoiled kids think. WoW raids are NOWHERE hard or more complicated than what you can find in other games. It's the people that are retarded and unable to follow orders without you yelling right in their ear.

Again. A problem of people.

Finding a decent guild is hard to impossible, but once you are set you'll be happy.

[shiznitz]

If you have a Mac and are complaining about gaming, then you have no one to blame but yourself. You should be thanking the gaming gods that Blizz deigned to make a Mac version and stop complaining.

Possible solution: buy a cheap Windwos desktop for $300 on eBay and run Teamspeak through it. You probably paid a $500 price premium to get a Powerbook so maybe money isn't a big issue. Yes, this will make it impossible to use TS when you are "mobile" but raids aren't conducive to being mobile anyway.

[Rhonstet]

After my Planetside year, I'm amazed anyone can play a PvP game without Teamspeak or Ventrilo.  I thought that was one of the reasons why many MMOs never go to Macs, because the endgame addicts almost always use Win or Linux.  .

WoW raids are NOWHERE hard or more complicated than what you can find in other games.

I don't recall all that many scripted raid encounters before WoW.  WoW raids may be _smaller_ then other games (I'm fairly certain they top out at 40 people in WoW), but given how soft certain classes are, managing hate/threat in a raid encounter is a performance art.  If you don't have voice to coordinate that, you better have one hell of a pile of macros.  WoW might not have the 'hardest' raids, but they aren't exactly easy. 

[Merusk]

WoW raids are NOWHERE hard or more complicated than what you can find in other games.

I don't recall all that many scripted raid encounters before WoW.  WoW raids may be _smaller_ then other games (I'm fairly certain they top out at 40 people in WoW), but given how soft certain classes are, managing hate/threat in a raid encounter is a performance art.  If you don't have voice to coordinate that, you better have one hell of a pile of macros.  WoW might not have the 'hardest' raids, but they aren't exactly easy.

You never did any EQ raids.  Starting with PoP, maybe Luclin, all the bosses had scripts.  At x% of life y happens.  If you don't do abc before xyz you can't kill the boss at all. 

I did the first ZG boss with my PvE guild on Monday.  Aside from the fact that they've never raided, Vent didn't help anything for the exact reason Hrose mentioned, and the scripting wasn't any harder than what I saw in EQ.  It is, however, outside the realm of experience of most WoW's players, since for a large portion of them this is their first MMO.

[Polysorbate80]

No voice chat for me.

A) I'm not sure I could keep from waking up my wife and child at night while I shout profanities into a headset, and

B) I often sneak in a little playtime during slow periods at work (C'mon, who among you doesnt?), and my boss would get a wee bit testy with me if he heard me going on a raid during office hours, and

C) My brain would melt down from trying to telepathically explode people's heads in an effort to shut them the fuck up

[Rhonstet]

You never did any EQ raids.

My hypnotherapist has blocked out all memory of EQ.

Seriously, most of EQ's scripted encounters, IIRC, were only during boss battles.  I thought EQ was garbage long before I got to endgame (during 98-99, which I think is pre-luclin and pre-planes anyway), so all I have are secondhand accounts.  But even then, those stories mentioned use of macros for actions.  WoW's threat model means that you have to focus enemy attention on the tanks, which really throws most macro schemes out the window.  Your casters can't macro when they want to avoid threat, and your tanks can't macro because they need to be able to react when a monster's attention shifts.

In WoW, the nice thing is that you can get up to the level cap without ever touching voicechat: most of the instances up to the 'training for endgame' ones (Zul'Farrak, Sunken Temple, Mauradon) don't need voicechat at all.  But once/if you start seeing the 20-40 man instances, there's too much going on.  You notice a big shift when you go from a pickup raid group where people are typing like morons to a reasonably-disciplined voicechat channel in an invite-only raid.  The same holds true for most WoW PvP, especially in the population-controlled battlegrounds.

I guess that's a difference then.  WoW doesn't require you to do raids that same way EQ assumed you would.  But just because you can avoid something doesn't make it simple.

[HRose]

My point isn't that voice chat shouldn't be used. Just that people who cannot or doesn't want to use it should be ALLOWED TO PLAY ANYWAY.

The problem is that from what I saw there's NOTHING in the endgame raid in WoW that is sensibly harder than what I found in other games. There's a better and polished use of the structures you see in other games but I hardly found something directly new or different. It's really all just about positioning, aggro management and some timed spells you have to react to.

What THE SINGLE PLAYER has to do during one of these encounters could be summarized in one line of text. In fact I could doze off in a raid thanks to the minimal impact of what I'm supposed to do. The problem is about NOT DOING something that can break the raid.

This is why 95% of the actual difficulty of a PvE raid is about making 40 people *behave* properly and not decide what to do on their own. The Voice chat is a slightly better way than text to do so but it's NOWHERE an actual requirement. Having 40 scripted puppets would be infinitely more easy than having 40 *real* players with you. This is the reality.

Chances are that those who cannot use voice chat will naturally pay more attention and follow orders precisely because they are conscious about their limit. If the encounter goes wrong it's for completely different reasons.

The only reason why the voice chat is *obligatory* it's because people are lazy and usually want to impose that lazyness on everyone else. Then they made up excuse to justify that. Like that WoW requires "skill". Hahaha.

[Polysorbate80]

Rhonstet,

Regarding raids, nothing there is substantively any different than EQ's raids.  

That said, PvP does give a major advantage to the voice-chatters, since "live" combat situations lack the predictability of raid encounters (which can almost be done in one's sleep, once the gimmick is figured out and strategy set for it)

[HRose]

That said, PvP does give a major advantage to the voice-chatters,

In WoW?

Come on. In AB I could build 4 macros for each spot if I'm really THAT lazy to not be willingly to type the few letters to define a location. And I would be set.

The problem is again about taking decisions and have people *follow* to them. NOTHING ELSE.

[HRose]

most of the instances up to the 'training for endgame' ones (Zul'Farrak, Sunken Temple, Mauradon) don't need voicechat at all.

Another commonplace absolutely false.

It was really harder to do those 5-man instances at the *proper levels* with even parties than every other raid I joined.

5-man instances need a lot more initiative and attention from each participant. They are directly HARDER gameplay wise. They don't result harder in reality just because you don't have the added problem of babysitting 40 unruly kids.

In fact raids are the opposite of 5-man. You *don't want* players to take the initiative.

[Polysorbate80]

That said, PvP does give a major advantage to the voice-chatters,

In WoW?

Come on. In AB I could build 4 macros for each spot if I'm really THAT lazy to not be willingly to type the few letters to define a location. And I would be set.

The problem is again about taking decisions and have people *follow* to them. NOTHING ELSE.

Depends on how you're pvp-ing.  If you just need to say "reinforcements at X", then a macro is fine.  If you need to say something on the spot like "Lone rogue stealthed near Mor'shan rampart, engaging...no, wait, full group coming out from behind terrain (yes, I'm a sucker), fighting anyway...dead, group heading towards Ashenvale" (my last ganking, fwiw) then it's a fuck of a lot easier to just say that *while continuing to fight* and have someone respond in time to be useful.

[HRose]

If you need to say something on the spot like "Lone rogue stealthed near Mor'shan rampart, engaging...no, wait, full group coming out from behind terrain (yes, I'm a sucker), fighting anyway...dead, group heading towards Ashenvale" (my last ganking, fwiw)

Inc Morshant. Full group.

Regroup Ashenvale.

You don't need to describe the colors and textures on your enemy while you PvP.

[Polysorbate80]

And then something else happens that requires a spur-of-the-moment change.  Yes, I *can* type all that shit out through all the combat spam, and then hope someone else is able to read it through their combat spam, and hope something more-or-less useful gets done at a vaguely appropriate time.

For a scripted event of timed button-mashing, it doesn't matter what the hell you use.  Trained monkeys pushing buttons for bananas might even be superior to thinking people; at least monkeys only fling poo IRL instead of on your raid.

But for a fluid and random situation (read: not WoW BGs), voice is superior, allowing you to react to unscripted, unpredictable elements without compromising your own performance.

Now, if all you truly want to argue is that it's not absolutely required, then I agree with you--you can do without it.  I don't have it, and won't, and I take the performance hit without griping.  But you will do better with it, don't pretend otherwise.