Voice Communication & Gaming Etiquette

Goldberg's Pants writes "The BBC have an interesting article on XBox Live, regarding the voice communication used in the game. Some interesting insight into the culture, and politics of the players."

Comments

Been there, still doing that...

[Wavicle]

The points the article raises are valid. However we've had voice comm enabled in PC games for a long time and have all this is old news. The biggest reason I'm reluctant to give up my Half-Life based games is not just because they are really cool, but the built in voice chat is far superior to any external voice chat program I've seen (Roger Wilco or BattleCom).

Its More Fun

[LordYUK]

Its more fun to actually "talk" to friends while playing, and at times I have used GameVoice (pretty good) and Roger Wilco (also, pretty good), but right now prefer MCI's The Neighborhood plan to speak with friends while playing online games. Circuit City (as well as other retailers) sell inexpensive headsets that work really well (I use the Jensen model, 19.99 very nice).

Still, the voice communication software is better than typing, especially with RTS games or FPS games.

Banter and Insults...

[Shant3030]

Have always been apart of competition. Whether its on the football field, basketball court or even the battlefield, their will be some people who are more vocal than others. And yes, some will have a complete disregard for the other person's feelings.

Re:insults

[Moloch666]

There have been numerous times a good player, will start issuing 'orders'. Especially when the team is losing, since we are desperate to start winning most people listen to him. It's quite impresive how one person can change the outcome with pretty much 1-way communication, other than text here and there, or a radio command. Other half of the time people are just chatting. Then you get those people that are just annoying, making stupid sounds. I quickly and easily mute those people.

Re:From the article

[prozac79]

but as soon as they start to lose, they either kick you, or if they cant, they quit.

This is my largest pet peeve when I play NHL 2K3 using Live. I once had a night were someone quit 2 seconds before the game was about to end just because I was winning. And I swear people unplug their ethernet cables so the game goes into a "dropped" category instead of it being an official loss. I hate the pettiness of the players online that I never came across playing online on the PC. Sure there are taunts and flames going back and forth, but I think people had a better concept of it "BEING JUST A GAME!"

My second pet peeve in online gaming are those who will change the game settings during the game. To use NHL 2K3 as an example again... I create a game that has offsides, icing, and a game speed of 5. Then the first thing the punk I play against does is change the game speed to 10, and turn off the offsides rule. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE SETTINGS, DON'T JOIN THE GAME!

Sorry, I had to get those two things off my chest since my XBOX Live experiences have been rapidly going downhill.