Ventrilo: Did it progress or destroy the MMORPG experience?

[aubie]

Pay attention. If voice communication is required to be successful, it's not the type of game I'm looking for (or at least not community-wise). Focus is on consuming content at the fastest pace possible = no fun. Ventrillo in; I'm out. But, it's probably a good method for separating play styles.

[Mardur]

Curious what classes you guys play. Especially the ones that are adamant that typing doesn't affect your playing abilities.

I'm assuming all you immersion people are just cripplingly antisocial and using that as an excuse.

There's zero negatives to voice communication besides like the $15 you have to spend on a headset. Communicating with other players is fun. That's why we play EQ.

[Arrisard]

I used to have the same bias against voice, but then I realized I was talking to people I interacted with ingame as actual friends and not just characters in my little fantasy immersion. How's school/family/work, play any other good games lately, see the game the other night, etc etc.

So, I guess it just depends on what you play for. EQ has evolved for me from a fantasy immersion to playing a game with friends, and with that, my expectations, desires, and playstyle has evolved along with it.

For groupage and raids, most anything can be done in text no question - however there is also little question, imo, as to what advantages voice brings to the table over text. Not to mention, playing a bard it's been a relief as well.

So I can understand while people don't like it. I can understand why people desire, and sometimes require, it. The only stupid thing I can see in this whole thing is "NO, YOU CAN'T BE HAVING FUN LIKE THAT BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HOW I HAVE FUN". Then again, that seems to be the basis for a lot of stupidity on these forums, anyway.

[Ceros]

So based on the responses here, if you like using Vent, you're lazy and unfocused; if you prefer guildchat, you've got some sort of social disorder, have no friends and will never get anywhere in life.

Or maybe different people may enjoy the same thing in different ways, and in this case, completely unreflective of their value as human beings.

[SirAlvarex]

I greatly dislike voice communication in MMO's. I dealt with it in EQ2, mostly because the guild I was in was enjoyable to speak with. Same with the clan I competed with in Counter Strike: Source and Rainbow Six.

However, every other time I've used voice outside of my EQ2 guild and FPS clans, it's been filled with obnoxious people. Hell, I've been that obnoxious person in chat before as well.

Is it good for organizing? Sure. But just like my problem with the initial use of twitter, I don't need to hear about that awesome dump you just took. Or become intimately aware of the fact that your kids are extremely loud. Or the heavy breathing that I'm sure makes you great on those old 1-900 lines.

[Tappin]

Some of the best gaming experiences I've had, come from Vent... I feel like I know more than a person's character when I become good friends with them across vent. Their character doesn't really exist, they are just avatars in a video game that I won't be playing in a few months anyways. I have friends to this day that I haven't gamed with in years, yet we communicate on a daily/weekly basis, and I consider some of them to be extremely close friends.
Would I ever have formed that sort of relationship without Vent? I highly doubt it. In most new games, especially a game like WoW, people do not play only one character, most have multiple, like 3+ easily... So you care much less about the player's character and a lot more about the actual person who plays those characters.
I've been in guilds in certain games in the past that, I'd log onto Vent before I'd even launch the game. If particular people weren't in Vent, I had no interest in playing. For me, a good gaming experience or memory doesn't come from the game, it comes from the people you play that game with.
A good example for me is LOTRO, that game is pretty much trash. It has fun aspects, but compared to other MMOs, it's... just lacking. I knew the game was garbage during beta when I first started playing it, but I have more good memories from that game than every other MMO that I've played combined, and it's because of all of the people who I played with. It was FUN to get on and play with them and do the same boring stuff with them.

I love Vent, and I can't imagine playing any game without Vent, at least not a game in which I play with others on a regular basis.

[Rukku]

Originally Posted by Mardur [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm probably within the top 1% of fastest typers in the P99 community and I absolutely cannot text-communicate and play the game effectively. It's impossible. Once you begin typing, you lose your ability to do anything useful besides like, auto run.

By the way, everyone who in one way or another told me I was wrong, never gave any evidence supporting how I'm wrong. Blanket statements just make you look dumb.

I take it that your first experiences on these games involved using vent. Really it's just what falls into people's comfort levels.

A lot of people play this game for the role playing aspect, even if they don't specifically role play their character. You don't really want to hear some 50 year old's deep voice when they're playing a female wood elf character, even if you already know it's a dude. And you don't want to hear someone talk about their personal issues during the massive downtimes of EQ play.

And I don't know what class you play, but if you type as fast as you say you do, I don't see how you could have any issues with communicating via typing in this game.

Certain moments may get a little overloaded/stressful, but you adapt. And you can adapt without having to make yourself realize you're not really IN the game. That's the biggest reason why people were addicted to this game. You were your character. These days there are people that are their entire guild.

And all this I hear about how vent makes raiding easier... I go back and read all the comments on raiding and it doesn't make sense to me. There's information out there where everyone should know pretty much exactly what they're supposed to do in raids, even if they had never played this game before. Then take into consideration the long length of time between classic and kunark for people to get overly geared. Yet they still struggle on so many aspects of the raid scene.

Back on live for classic/kunark, people didn't know crap. It would take an hour to get 20 people to zone in one at a time and get to a certain spot on the wall in fear. You wait in the verant chat room for everyone to get there, then everyone logs back in. That's how we broke fear originally. I heard stories here that it takes 5 hours with 50+ people to break it. I don't care what guild it is... that's insane.

By what I can judge on the year and a half I played originally versus the 4 months here, and the raid scenes I've played on both.... people were far better 12 years ago, and that was without voice chat. So personally I don't see how it helps your groups in this specific game. It just takes away from the feel of the game.

[Aesop]

Mardur is just some opinionated idiot.

Vent is cool, I use it sometimes, sometimes I don't. You don't need it for encounters as they exist now PVE but for PVP it has the potential to be good (just as much potential to be bad though) as in PVP shit changes so rapidly - but enough macros really circumvents that (assist macro, etc. etc.)

Vent is a crutch a lot of times for people who don't have general awareness. But when people are all badass and pay attention anyhow vent is a great tool - but who knows depends on your ratio of chiefs to indians.

[visage]

Vent = High pitched and very low pitched nerds masterbating to eachothers voices while playing vid games. Did it ruin the MMORPG exp? Well it sure made things more homosexual thats for sure.

[Lovely]

When playing games like HoN, LoL, Dota and FPS games then it's a must to use some kind of voice communication (Every 1/10 ofa second is crucial). Also in fast faced MMO pvp games such as WoW arena.

In EQ pvp I wouldn't say it's a must, it's so freaking slow paced and spells got like 5 second cast time. You'll be fine with using a few macros for moving, assisting, targets and calling out when important spells land.

For PVE I've never prefer using voice communication even if I have for the last 5 years. It makes players/people dummies, they get so used to following your orders that they can't think for themselves. The ideal situation in a raid is that everyone know beforehand exactly what to do in every situation. If you have to tell people what to do mid fight then it's often to late already and they might not be fast enough to adjust to the situation. Telling people what to do in text is also an advantage since people understand text easier then voice, they can also re-read it if they aren't sure or if they went afk for a short moment.