Ventrilo: Did it progress or destroy the MMORPG experience?

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think if vent was full of Morgan Freemans, Sean Connerys and James Earl Joneses I might enjoy it a whole lot more. Alas, it's usually full of whiney nerds on MMORPGs.

implying that your voice is some kind of gift from God?

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

Also most people playing video games are huge nerds and I normally I don't have a single common interest with them beside gaming. That's why I often dislike using vent/skype with random people on the internet. Then it's easier to just type since it will most likely only be in game talk then. Compared to voice communication where most of the talk won't be gaming related.

it honestly sounds like the people who are dissing ventrilo here are the very same whiny judgmental crybabies that are being singled out as the reason why ventrilo destroyed their gaming experience.

[Lovely]

I'm not judgmental, I'm a realist! I played in the same World of Warcraft guild for almost 6 years and I was the leader the whole time. Over the course of 6 years I probably talked to over a thousand people on Ventrilo and I can honestly say that I only liked around 5-10 on a personal level that went past the gaming. Sure I had tons of fun with the other thousand people and we had a blast in game but outside gaming I shared almost no interests with those people.

We even had real life meetings several times in various countries. I always wanted to go to a warm place like Spain, France, Greece etc to hang out at the beach, go party, do sports and other social things. Do you think the majority wanted things like that? I can tell you maybe 1 more or person if any at all wanted things like that. Most people wanted to go to cold countries like Germany, Sweden, England and hang out in pubs and then go hang out at a internet cafe and that's what we always ended up doing to my displease. Therefor I don't prefer using voice communications because 95% of the time I just sit and listen to talk that I have absolutely no interest in and it just become annoying as fuck. I rather sit and listen to music and relax or just talk to a friend on skype while I play.

[Snaggles]

Mardur,

First there is nothing "bad" about using absolutes. The problem is if you use them on an easily debated statement regarding how "all" people opposing vent are nostalgic larpers it makes you look extremely ignorant. Im giving you the benefit of the doubt assuming sassy hyperbole. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Second there are plenty of reasons not to use it (in a non-pvp game). Here are some opinions and some facts:

* It adds a layer of complexity (initial set-up) to an easy game.

* It for some (ie twice as many per the poll) ruins the RPG element, thus making a game less fun. The benefit better be painfully obvious.

* The spoken word is often more difficult to understand due to mic quality and accents. We all dont have broadcasting training.

* Vent was created a while after the game was launched. That means classic Fear raids and Trak. My guild was raiding Ssra w/o it prior to PoP. No clue if the officers used it...they were pretty bright tho.

* Having open mic night for the guild rarely brings people together. High stress makes people irritable and chatter is less annoying in text. People often like to to hear there own voices which can negatively impact morale.

* The game isnt that hard with hotkeys. Pulling, CH chains, etc. Its faster to bang a button and have people read than to yell a phrase. You can also scroll back up if things go wrong, "i said to fucking camp out...read it!"

* Voices carry inherent character judgement. Deep voices more trusting, squeaky frantic less so. It's not fair for a person in a mmo to be judged for their RL age, voice, or appearance. Its why we dont always choose humans.

* Some people are shy and dont want to talk who would type otherwise. Likewise people who lose tempers and yell can turn people off of the experience.

I have friends in RL and friends i meet online. Often the genres mix and occasionally i have met gamers outside the pixels who are very cool. We have other things in common besides loot and dragon killing, often not.

Personally, for me, voice chat doesnt build or progress friendships. Content over delivery of words. If i knew people would abstain from impersonations and squeaky yelling Vent would be fine. As it hasnt held back my gaming experience or goals in EQ I dont deem it necessary.

EQ is a game of skill for each player and strategy as a team. It's not reliant as much on timing. Build right, buff right...and wear the target down. MT transitions and CH chains come down to timing and often luck. The rest is just dice rolls and subtraction over a long fight.

For the record I've been a dps, off-tank, and puller on raids. Your opinions will vary and Im sure half of you have done things Ive never seen. I wouldnt dare think my experience is superior or the final word. The game has too many ways to accomplish the same goal [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.].

Edit: I forgot the great point by Lovely...music! I would rather pump tunes through a headset than voices. Arent we tryin to escape the boring 9-5 grind of life? (or trading it for the boring grind from 1-60 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.])

[pickled_heretic]

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

I'm not judgmental, I'm a realist! I played in the same World of Warcraft guild for almost 6 years and I was the leader the whole time. Over the course of 6 years I probably talked to over a thousand people on Ventrilo and I can honestly say that I only liked around 5-10 on a personal level that went past the gaming. Sure I had tons of fun with the other thousand people and we had a blast in game but outside gaming I shared almost no interests with those people.

We even had real life meetings several times in various countries. I always wanted to go to a warm place like Spain, France, Greece etc to hang out at the beach, go party, do sports and other social things. Do you think the majority wanted things like that? I can tell you maybe 1 more or person if any at all wanted things like that. Most people wanted to go to cold countries like Germany, Sweden, England and hang out in pubs and then go hang out at a internet cafe and that's what we always ended up doing to my displease. Therefor I don't prefer using voice communications because 95% of the time I just sit and listen to talk that I have absolutely no interest in and it just become annoying as fuck. I rather sit and listen to music and relax or just talk to a friend on skype while I play.

and i'll bet you are just a ray of sunshine compared to all of these people.

[Tadzi]

fuck I hate vent.

mumble on the other hand, that shit's awesome.

[pickled_heretic]

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

fuck I hate vent.

mumble on the other hand, that shit's awesome.

well yeah, mumble is clearly better. but i think what is meant by "vent" here is voice communication over ip in general.

[Lovely]

I am THE ray of sunshine that's for sure!!!! Loved by all beside those jealous of my awesomenessss

[Mardur]

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

I take it that your first experiences on these games involved using vent.

You were wrong here so I didn't read the rest of your post.

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

Mardur,

First there is nothing "bad" about using absolutes. The problem is if you use them on an easily debated statement regarding how "all" people opposing vent are nostalgic larpers it makes you look extremely ignorant. Im giving you the benefit of the doubt assuming sassy hyperbole. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Second there are plenty of reasons not to use it (in a non-pvp game). Here are some opinions and some facts:

* It adds a layer of complexity (initial set-up) to an easy game.

There's lots of things in this world that take a small amount of effort for a payoff. Doesn't mean you should be lazy.

* It for some (ie twice as many per the poll) ruins the RPG element, thus making a game less fun. The benefit better be painfully obvious.

That's fine but I don't actually believe that I'm a 7 foot ogre hauling 8 backpacks full of weapons and armor across magical lands to meet with my Elven friends.

* The spoken word is often more difficult to understand due to mic quality and accents. We all dont have broadcasting training.

So what? Do you live in some caucasian utopia where you never have to talk to a non-American? For six months my job was heavy phone communication with people from Asia-Pacific. I didn't give up because I couldn't understand someone from Dubai.

* Vent was created a while after the game was launched. That means classic Fear raids and Trak. My guild was raiding Ssra w/o it prior to PoP. No clue if the officers used it...they were pretty bright tho.

So what? There's dozens of things on this server that weren't available in classic.

* Having open mic night for the guild rarely brings people together. High stress makes people irritable and chatter is less annoying in text. People often like to to hear there own voices which can negatively impact morale.

Again, stop playing with tools and you might have some enjoyable conversations!

* The game isnt that hard with hotkeys. Pulling, CH chains, etc. Its faster to bang a button and have people read than to yell a phrase. You can also scroll back up if things go wrong, "i said to fucking camp out...read it!"

You can't macro the millions of things you may type over the course fo the game. And not everyone is going to be focused enough to see everything that was typed, even with the ability to scroll up. "I said to fucking camp out...read it!" takes me about 3 seconds to type, and less than 1 second to say. How many times have you been killed < 5 seconds to camp out?

* Voices carry inherent character judgement. Deep voices more trusting, squeaky frantic less so. It's not fair for a person in a mmo to be judged for their RL age, voice, or appearance. Its why we dont always choose humans.

I'm not a piece of shit human being so I don't judge people based on their voice. Dunno about you.

* Some people are shy and dont want to talk who would type otherwise. Likewise people who lose tempers and yell can turn people off of the experience.

If you're too "shy" to talk over Ventrilo than you have serious life problems. However, it's not necessary to communicate, just beneficial. All that's required is to listen to officers/leaders.




By the way, I'm not sure what all the personal attacks are about when I did nothing but give my opinion on the original post.

I don't care if someone uses vent or not. I've agreed with many points of people who prefer not to use vent in this thread. But if you say something stupid like "I can't make believe that Ohugrok isn't really a powerful Ogre warlord when I hear his voice" I'm going to feel compelled to reply.

Here's something to think about. Goobles and I were both members of the top raiding guild on The Sleeper (2006). Ventrilo wasn't required in this guild, and I didn't use it. We still dominated content and by the time we broke up (with server merge), we were in Uqua and the #2 guild didn't even have an Emp Ssra kill yet.

Inglorious Basterds, although a great group of people, didn't exhibit the same level of skill as that guild. Even so, Goobles was guildremoved. Why? Because we were able to deduce that he was a hindrance to the guild mostly through his antics in Ventrilo.

Some players don't care if they're bad at the game or whatever, they have fun. That's fine. But for anyone who wants to make the best of the game, Ventrilo is a boon. And I tend to favor those who want to make the best of the game. But this is how I am in real life as well, I'm okay with people without drive, but they're generally not the people I respect and befriend. Everyone has preferences.

[SoulLeech]

I don't think there's any question that voice was a boon to online gaming in general.

That said, I have a love/hate relationship with it. Love the all-around utility and more personal nature. Hate what it can potentially reveal about the people you're playing with.

I don't know if it's that the players are simply socially inept or the relative anonymity makes them forget all the filters and social graces they would normally employ face to face?

[stormlord]

I can't vote because I don't like the options.

Here're some points, some of them repeated by others here:
1) A voice that's irritating or distracting or misplaced
2) People talking when they shouldn't or being a dumbsh**
3) Not being able to tell who said something (have to memorize the voices)
4) No record of what they've said like how a text window stores previous messages

Bah. I got to do something. But anyway, this is what I can think of.

Some things that would help would be .... I think that 3d-voice chat helps solve this problem somewhat. And maybe if they could show a symbol on the character that's speaking; both the 3d model and the name in the window(s). That would probably require it to be an in-game voice chat rather than a 3rd party. Things like this can help you to identify who is speaking. Another thing is to have a voice-to-text converter so that what people say in voice is stored in a chat window for future reference - in case you missed or didn't hear them right.

Ok, I have to go.

EDIT: void modulators can fix the distracting or irritating voice