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Voice Communication & Gaming Etiquette

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the new-developments-in-gaming dept.

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."

13 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. insults by poil11 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it is quite funny when you play couter strike and most of the comments that come out of voice comm are you suck you nub. but that is mainly in pubs only. voice comm is key in team play, much like it is in real life. but in counter strike you can ignore, which is also a very key feature.

    1. Re:insults by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The problem is that voice chat isn't widespread enough in CS to make it feasable as a means of communication. Which means only a few people got it, and half of them do it to piss you off.

      When it's standard, like in SOCOM, guess what, it actually gets used, and used well.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
  2. ok people are bashing the by burninginside · · Score: 2, Interesting

    noobs and people are insulting each other and this is supposed to be surprising? look at any game and it happens there...why should they think it would be any different just because people can actually talk in the game...

  3. Re:Voice is good by easyfrag · · Score: 2, Interesting
    For instance multiplayer games like Castle Wolfenstien and CS can really use this type of technology.


    I agree, but the games you cite are team-based, does the Xbox Live system allow you to filter who gets to hear you? No need to give info to the enemy.

  4. Reputation systems by GeorgeH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I suspect that reputation systems like http://www.gamertagdatabase.com/ will go a long way to keeping the service clean (at least as clean as eBay :) ), but that depends on them being integrated with the gamer matching system.

    --
    Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
    1. Re:Reputation systems by GeorgeH · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Doesn't have to be as centralized as moderation, it could be a friend-of-a-friend system, where the fewer friends between you and another person the higher the person's score.

      It could also be a percentage based system, where if I rated you as 80% cool and you rated Alice as 50% cool, she would show up in your list as 50% cool but in my list as 40% cool.

      Instead of establishing baseline scores for people, you would be creating gaming social networks.

      --
      Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
  5. Free(?) advertising by gdeacon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's a shame that this seems to be blatant advertising for Xbox Live - 8 counts in the article. Online gaming and voice communication has been around for quite a while now!

  6. Some insight into this article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    MSNBC had an article covering something similar to this a while ago. Good read, somewhat insiteful, and includes a link that shows reviews on the best and worst X-Box players.

  7. Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Even Maraton(which is at -least- 10 years old now) had voice communication support- there was a 'mic' key you hit to transmit. Since every Mac had a builtin speaker and came with a microphone...of course, it was kinda silly if everyone was in a computer lab(it was fun to use sound to try and figure out where the other guy was hiding) but if you were spread out across a campus, it was sorta neat.

    What's so new/exciting about the Xbox stuff? Big enough to appear on someone's radar screen?

    I miss marathon. The multiplayer levels were awesome- simple, but elegant, never tried to do too much. And who could forget "Frog blast the vent core!", or whatever it was the Exploding Bobs(what a great name :-) yelled. The frustration of wiping out all your friends but then walking smack into an Exploding Bob cannot be described :-)
    "WaAAaaaA!"

  8. The Game often dictates the behavior by WaysideWeasle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've played on Xbox Live since it went Beta. The options of available games during Beta lended itself to trash talking at worst. Most of the players were pretty civil, and I rarely had a game where someone had to be booted. There would be the occassional biker on Moto GP that would race backwards to piss people off, but for the most part I liked the voice communication aspect of Xbox Live. Then came November 15th. Unreal, Ghost Recon, and Mech Assualt went Live. Immediately I noticed the difference in player communication between games. Courtesy seemed to be non-existant in Unreal and Mech Assault. However, I found it rare to run into someone who was rude or childish on Ghost Recon. My theory is that this game involves more strategy, thought, and patience to play. In most scenarios, you don't see instant action, and you can often wander a map for 3 minutes before seeing anyone. Communication is key to victory so people spend more time calling out strategy or locations of the enemy than they do chatting or trash talking. This also seems to be the same in pretty much any gaming environment, whether it be console or PC.

  9. From experience: it's cool by frumiousbar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The quality of the voice chat you get in these games is directly related to the kind of people you play. After a few nights of playing xbox live, you'll start to see the same gamertags and you'll learn who the "good people" are, where "good people" = skilled AND nice. Playing these people with voice enabled can be amazingly fun. For example, if you want to ratchet the fun level up on Ghost Recon, play with a bunch of people who cover and call out targets to each other.

    Communities of "good people" have sprung up around particular types of games such as Not It! in MechAssault, which is a favorite of mine. This makes finding fun opponents much easier.

    I personally don't mind the noobs because you can turn them into "good people" if you lead by example. There is a small group of idiots that can ruin any game, but at least in some circles the community has come up with ways of dealing with them, such as "regulating" Not It! offenders in MechAssault.

  10. World War II Online Voice Comms by Mittermeyer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    World War II Online has built-in text for a variety of channels based on squad, mission, objective, channel, individual player-to-player, etc. But many players do opt for the voice comms as the reaction time is crucial, especially for stopping truckloads of infantry or coordinating air groups or AA.

    Two interesting side effects happen in this game that don't happen in most MMORPGs or FPSs, due to the large organization/military nature of the game. The first unique thing is that conferences, classes, training exercises are held on voice comm systems. The second is that the battle voice comms get picked up as part of 'movies' players make from action in the game, and thus becomes a sort of art form.

    --
    ________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
  11. Re:I troll when I play counterstrike! Yo modpoints by t0qer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone with modpoints...

    If you look at the post I am responding to, it's my own. It was somehow modded as "redundant"
    I thought redundant meant that a comment close to or equal to mine was posted prior to mine, and from all accounts on this story no such comment was made.

    Since this story is on Game Voice culture, I thought I would chirp in that yes, trolls do exist here, and the tactics described in my parent post could be backed up by any number of gamers that play either counterstrike or the MS Xbox live thingy.

    One more thing to say on the aspect of in game voice communication trolling, then i'll end this. I talk differently than normal when I play. Sometimes I can be heard telling my teammates, "YOU WORTHLESS BUNCH OFF MAGGOTS! I'VE SEEN BETTER RUSHING FROM COLLEGE BOYS" in a voice that resembles the drill Sargent from Discovery Channels "Mail Call" tv show.

    It makes people laugh in the very least.