Van Hemlock

Why does everybody suddenly want to hear what I have to say these days?

And by that, I don't mean it in a figurative sense, as in read my blog and consider the ideas sometimes presented here. No, I mean literally, hear my voice. It's always been a constant low-grade irritation for me, probably dating back from my first days in a proper Planetside outfit. Those didn't last long mind you, but often I'd be nagged at to 'get on TS', as if me suddenly being able to hear the vague and general non-specific warnings and orders would in some way suddenly knit our band of half-arsed evening-class ground-pounders into some kind of gestalt hyper-conciousness, thinking and acting as one entity and OFMGBBQing all who oppose our hive-mind by sheer virtue of our superbly heightened awareness and reflexes.

Not wanting to get all Stapledonesque about it, lets just say that the move from chat-text to TS, Vent, whatever, didn't seem to reap the hyper-awareness type rewards I was led to expect. Using the Old Silent Ways, you a see a blinking mini-map number, flashing squad-bar item, and chat box text or voice-macro starting with the character's name each time the random stranger in your team types. It's not that cumbersome as a form of communication, even if the requirement to actually do a bit of typing slows things a little bit, and far more important, is the ability to actually point the damned gun at the Bad Guy and not miss when you pull the trigger! Priorities! lern2type, n00b.

Teamspeak is quicker, certainly, but in a hectic indoor base defence, hearing a strongly-accented, and quite possibly drunk Scotsman (I think...) mumble something along the lines of "He's be-hiiiind you!" (At a guess...), raises a number of important questions.

1) Who said that? I'm in a team of up to 10 people, none of whom I know, have ever heard before, or am ever likely to meet in real life. Sebastian, is that you? Did you just say something Killx0rb0y187?

2) Now I know who, I need to work out where. I cross reference Sebastian, who is in fact NCSuperSniper586, in-game. A quick scan across the squad window at the top of the screen reveals that NCSuperSniper586 corresponds to the number '6'. I open the map, and see that '6' is indeed in the same bit of the base as me, along with seven other squad members.

3) You talking to me? This question is going through seven other minds as well at this stage, and we all spin about in a comical fashion. Many of us may even simultaneously respond with 'Who...me?', exacerbating the problem and adding to the hilarity. Meanwhile, the Enemy that the first chap was trying to warn one of us about, has made life a lot simpler, by indicating which person should be heeding the warning, in a very succinct manner indeed, and is probably by now, seizing on the confusion, and killing the rest of us.

Anyway, grumbling aside, I can see how in some situations it might be useful, largely those where there are a large number of minions all supposedly following The Leader, who is the only person that ought to have a microphone. Mind you, from what I read, one chat macro bound to F10 would probably do the job just as easily; 'Go DPS now!'

Mostly though, I get the impression that Teamspeak (or Ventrillo, or whatever), is perceived by many as a quick fix and short-cut substitute for simply learning to play your class well, and regularly playing with a known group of others, whose styles you also have to learn, and more often than not, merely ends up as a way for the group/guild/squad's most attention-whoring clown to share his/her bodily noises with you all, which I'm sure you'll all agree, we can do without, on the whole.

There are a number of other reasons why I don't want to talk to you. I live in a flat with fairly thin walls, and at least one of my neighbours has a somewhat alarming penchant for hurling televisions out of their upstairs window. They're probably a bit of a mentalist, but even so, I like to be a considerate neighbour, and keep the noise to a minimum. Bellowing abuse at my PC out loud, (as opposed to the silent cursing I often indulge in), is not going to help foster Community where I live, and might possibly be mistaken for bellowing abuse at the dividing wall between the mentalist, and me - a Bad Thing.

Then there's the occasional crossdressing adventure - hell, why not! I don't get to wear nearly enough satin IRL! While there's a fair amount of comic potential to be had from having a body like a cheerleader and a voice like a lumberjack, it's a joke that's likely to wear a bit thin quite quickly, eventually just leaving the tiresome necessity to patiently explain to every new guild member that shows up, that sometimes, on the internet, there are women who aren't actually women, especially in World of Warcraft and such. My own casual deviancy aside, with silent avatars, you tend to imagine a voice that fits the shape, so seeing The Rock and hearing Frank Spencer is likely to be just as disruptive to everyone's immersion, I think.

And of course, I'm shy. An actual conversation with any of you folks is a step too far - a bit too real for my liking, and I'm terrible on phones as it is, tending to be very brief, abrupt and have a tendency to get right to the point of a phone call, rather than idly chat and gossip.

So all in all, Voice Chat in MMOs is something I've got by fine without, don't really have a need for, as I solo much of the time anyway, and can't say that I'm that excited about, so it's quite alarming to see a recent two-pronged assault on my silent way of life, from EVE Online, and Second Life.

Voice chat in EVE is certainly nothing new, and all the most successful big-fleet 0.0 folks swear by it, and indeed, swear on it too, but it's largely an outside affair - TS, Vent, etc. Now CCP are offering a $14.95/year extra subscription deal, to be allowed to use their own hosted voice server system, integrated into the game itself; details here. To be fair, it does seem well-thought out, addressing some of the problems above. What it'll do for overall bandwidth consumption remains to be seen once it's going full-swing.

Of course, any voice system is only useful if everyone is using it, so the optional extra subscription is likely to be a bit devisive, and already the pressure is on in my own current corp. I expect I'll just be evasive, and if it becomes an issue, well, I could probably do without a corp, but not sure I could do without the silent privacy I currently enjoy while playing online games. It's not just that I don't want to talk to you...I don't especially want to listen to you either! Anyway, I doubt it'll come to that...the corp are a fairly casual and easy going bunch, and are unlikely to insist too strongly. Mind you...having any members of the team who can't hear you means that the stuff needs to be typed out anyway, making the whole thing redundant. That's the trouble with Voice - it's all or nothing - half-participation just won't do.

Not wanting to be outdone, and hell-bent on gadjet-tech as they are Linden Labs are also in the process of 'voicing up'  Second Life too - PR Spiel here. This one is a bit more alarming to be honest, because while EVE is largely going to be short barked military instructions for the most part, there a great many residents of Second Life I'm quite annoyed at being able to see, let alone hear. One day, an MMO will have an ignore list that not only hides the target's chat, but makes them invisible too, and I can't wait - a real ignore list that eradicates any trace that the target ever existed - avatar, auction items, guild membership, the lot. Heaven!

Not quite sure on the cost, but presumably, since it's a third-party hosted extra, they'll need paying by someone. The system is opt-out based though, and given the colossal bandwidth merely existing, and walking about consumes, I'm dubious of their claims that a thousand furries all chittering away (with lumberjack voices) won't affect performance. The transhumanists of SL seem quite frenzied about the idea, but I'll be one of those with the 'Talk To The Hand...' indicators above my head, or whatever. I guess in the brave new world of Web 3.0, that will make me effectively a disabled person - deaf and mute by choice, which is all a bit odd.

Mind you, as with all SL development, I'm both amused and dubious, as in the last seven days alone - a fairly arbitrary, yet average week - the following subsystems have been in various stages of broken; Inventory, Group Announcements, Support Emails, Gift Cards, XMLRPC, Logins, the Website, Land Transfers, Instant Messaging, the Linden Exchange, Friends List, Teleporting and Script-based Email. Personally, I had a 33% success rate on the few occasions I actually thought I'd log in this week. They've also had to add a special new forum where you need to report if your server has been offline for more than half an hour (don't they have any way to tell themselves? Control room? Server Monitor?), and this weeks update removed the live help system entirely. But voice is going to be A-OKAY, so at least we'll be able to hear everyone complaining about the rest of it not working. Biatch where's my Havok 2?


Anyway, stalwart old-timer of the online realm that I am, I shall be keeping my silence for as long as possible, despite this rather Orwellian invasion of microphones. Do what you like, I won't talk! The Tide of VoIP-Based Senseless Prattle surrounds the Rock of Text-Based Contemplation, forcing me to climb higher and higher to escape the Wet Feet of Unwilling Involvement, and it would all be such a noble cause to fight, if it were for the fact that most people I meet online type so much bollocks too...

Ho hum. Do not expect a Van Hemlock Podcast any time soon!