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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."
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A more reputable online news service, Penny Arcade, has their own take on voice communication in gaming.
The Strip: "So, Com?" - Enjoy!
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
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).
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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.
Don't bitch at me if I happen to frag them for camping, though ...
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.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
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.
100% Insightful
You can be kicked off a game for a variety of reasons, from sheer whim to acting as a punishment to cheaters.
"Kick him, kick him, kick him," is the tribal chant of those gamers tired of another's childish antics.
There's no "cheating" on Xbox live, which is why they banned modded boxes from the service.
You get 'kicked' when you win. The same thing happens on all the free services like xbtunnel. The online gaming community is chock full of kids with l337 names talking about 'm4d sk1llz0rz', but as soon as they start to lose, they either kick you, or if they cant, they quit.
It's pretty much why I dont bother with online gaming anymore, except for stuff where I'm playing peer to peer with a (real life) friend, or my kid brother, or something like that.
Too many idiots in the world, and it's just no fun. MSFT should have looked at human nature before they sank so much into Xbox live, because it's going to fail. I know 3 people who've bought it, and none played more than two weeks, and none plan on renewing the subscription, pretty much for the same reasons I've said.
It's really annoying to be accused of 'cheating' because you fragged someone in Unreal.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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"?
I'd like to see this with CounterStrike! No, I don't play the game, I think it's retarded and dull, but can you imagine the interesting voice communication?
CS'er 1: Oh-em-gee! Oh-em-gee! Oh-em-gee!
CS'er 2: Dubbleyou-Tee-Ef???
CS'er 1: Jay-zero-zero wallhacksor! Yur mother is a fag!
CS'er 2: En-zero-zero-bee! Es-Tee-Ef-You! Jay-zero-zero just sucksors!
Hate me!
Now I get to hear that 13 year old screaming in his pre-pubescent voice "take that faggot! I owned joo!" while I play against him. They should include, by default, a voice modulator that drops them a few octaves so they at least SOUND like they are males.
Oh, how I love being the commander in a public game of Natural Selection (linkie linkie). It usually goes something like:
Okay team, build those two infanty portals!
Nice, now build this armory!
NO, DON'T ALL HUMP IT AT ONCE! THE SKULK RUSH IS COMING! THE SKULK RUSH IS -- OH DEAR GOD, NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!
On second thought... maybe I don't enjoy it as much as I thought. =P
Put away that ipecac syrup and induce vomiting with this choice quote from the article:
"I have had the privilege of having been graced by an angel through Live," wrote Ico on one of the Xbox Live forums.
"It was the golden gate to my soulmate," he added.
Sorry if this ruined anyones upholstery.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
A friend of mine, known as Jfragment on Xbox Live, started the GamerTag Database. It's a site where you can comment on the etiquette of other XbL players, and rate them accordingly.
:-)
The site has gotten a surprising amount of attention, considering that it's all done in Jay's spare time It's been featured in Penny Arcade, Forbes, and MSNBC.
So, if some 13-year-old from Prague has been talking trash, you can log in and kinda 'mod him down'
OK, in lew of my blunder I went the extra mile and found:
1) A working link.
2) And a bonus interview with the creator.
Please forgive my unl33tlinkingness.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
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.
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.