Voice Chat

[Akaimizu]

Hey. I always have said that, in the past. You know, that little simple mute and invite only chat (while they are always options) seems to always get ignored. I can probably find over a thousand folks who don't like Voice chat that simply ignore that whole function.

But since that always falls on deaf ears, I don't bother even bringing it up anymore. It's pointless. But I've yet to find a single typing aspect that beats the experience of useful folk on Voice Chat. But on slow games like MMOs with auto-combat features and stuff, typing easily gets all the work done. Then again, most of them are much better on that censorship deal than PSU. One could hope they don't repeat that in PSO2, but given they may not see anything wrong with how they did it before, there's always a good chance it could also suck. (Crosses fingers that they removed that idea from their heads) Without VC, PSU's chat would've been far worse than PSO. It was saved by VC.

[Jinketsu]

As long as it were an option I would say I'm for it - so long as it's not as low-grade as the XBox360 chat servers, otherwise most people will just stick to Vent/Skype or whatever.

[Blueblur]

An in-game voice chat option would be great.

[Malachite]

Hey. I always have said that, in the past. You know, that little simple mute and invite only chat (while they are always options) seems to always get ignored. I can probably find over a thousand folks who don't like Voice chat that simply ignore that whole function.

The fatal problem with mute is that if you mute someone, you lose vital information to what's going on just because you don't want to hear their voice. Then, you have other people talking to them, and you donno wtf they're talking about. It's all rather disorienting.

Then there's the aspect of people who don't have mics, or who don't want to talk having to type and keep up with everything, and while that isn't really 'fatal' it sure is annoying as fuck. Mic lag, people who you actually want to hear not coming through properly, etc.

I really doubt PSO2 will include voice chat.

[Mike]

An in-game voice chat option would be great.

I would expect in-game voice chat to not exist.

[Malachite]

Another thing I dislike about the idea is that, while it may be more convenient, it lowers the immersion and makes the fact that it is a 'just a game' become more apparent. Now, I'm no RP loser, but I do love a game that can suck me into its world.

[Enforcer MKV]

Another thing I dislike about the idea is that, while it may be more convenient, it lowers the immersion and makes the fact that it is a 'just a game' become more apparent. Now, I'm no RP loser, but I do love a game that can suck me into its world.

I'm just curious, but how does it break the immersion? You mean something like, for example, playing with a girl character but it really being a guy? That's the only way I can really see it breaking immersion. Plus, at least with a voice chat system, you don't have to worry about an over-zealous censor.

Now, if you have the option to turn said censor on or off, then I'd be willing to type. But I found voice chat to be a heaven-send simple because PSU had the god-awful censor.

EDIT: Actually, after reading your post a couple more times, I can kinda see where you're coming from.

But I digress - what's wrong with RP, anyway? XD

[Akaimizu]

I think the bigger problem is is how well does the game really suck you into the world? I mean, it certainly wasn't Voice chat that broke it. If Phantasy Star was any kind of consistent, these days, perhaps it would suck you into its world. But we already have many arguments against all kinds of stuff that break the atmosphere with the whole "Why can't we just represent our characters any way we like? Who cares if the outfits and other stuff are grabbed from stuff outside of this mythos?"

Sure, it worked for WoW, in which every character look and everything was WoW specific. Now of course, what we've seen of PSO2 so far, seems consistent with the look. But if they go all over with the funky anime costumes as the norm, afterwards, I think the point would be lost a bit.

Funny enough, even when the voice was distant from the character, I noticed no real issue of the immersion, because character-specific quotes for RP would usually be done in text. When someone is often typing like themselves, they already use their own voice filled with plenty of Pop-culture, and other references that are completely outside of Phantasy Star. So that's why I fail to see the point when the immersion is lost right in text. Unless the person *specifically* attempts to role-play or their regular typing behavior luckily falls into something that could be Phantasy Star specific.

I know. Heck, when I played FFXI, I was often pretty much the ONLY person with typed words that even fit as if they even belonged there. So good on you if you can possibly take most non-RP text and still feel immersed, but I certainly can't. Every MMO I've played, and there's barely a folk on this site that can say they've dabbled in more over the years, this was the issue barring few exceptions. The very early days of Everquest, and the early days of WoW RP servers.

[Malachite]

It's not about playing with girls, or about any degree of RP (I think RP is pretty damn stupid). It's more about feeling like you're actually playing in that world, with that character. When communicating through text, it feels like a part of that world(imo), regardless of whether or not they're actually speaking truly to what the world represents. However, when you bring voice into it, it tends to become a less believable atmosphere.

One way you can look at it is like watching an anime with terrible voice acting. Even if everything is done right, when you hear someone speak and it sounds like they're just some random guy who was plucked off the street (which is basically anyone online) then it tends to have a negative impact on immersion. That's how I feel about it.

There's also the fact that a large amount of people online tend to have less-than-pleasing articulatory abilities, that I personally just do not want to hear. Though, that doesn't mean I don't want to play with them, and rather than muting them completely it can easily be masked through text. However, I agree that an option to turn the censor off is very welcome, and would not cause any problems at all.

There's also the problem that most voice communication in videogames sounds like shit, whether it be the game's fault, or the person's mic.

[r00tabaga]

Agree with Malachite in that voice chat reminds you that you're NOT on Ragol. I too like to feel like I'm in the world when playing. Games like CoD are different b/c of the fact that it is more realistic.