MUD Co-Creator Bartle On Voice Chat in MMOGs

Fusty writes "In 1979, Richard Bartle co-created a MUD, the first system for players to share adventures online. Aside from veteran game coding skills, Bartle has strong opinions about game design. He recently examined the idea of voice chat in massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). His opinion? Not Yet You Fools! - on Game Girl Advance."

Comments

The guy doesn't get it....

[Mac Degger]

He, and everyone else who is against voicechat in games, just don't get what voice really means. Their argument always goes: 'it will break your suspension of disbelief'.

It won't, and I have proof: everyone who has ever played a tabletop roleplaying game knows what I'm talking about. If a voice is enough to destroy your suspension of disbelief, it wasn't very strong to begin with.

Not only that, but voice filters can (and will) make you sound like a troll ( :) ).

The only halfway valid argument he makes is the 'difficulty' of having to deal with two streams of communication, text and voice. And the only people who can't cope with that aren't too bright; we've all had school here where you read and write down what the teacher has written on the blackboard /while you're listening to his lecture/!

Fact is that voice is just the best/fastest comm system available. The only problem it does have, which mister whiskers didn't even address, is that sometimes people don't speak the common carrier language well enough...in which case they might have to type, thereby communicating slower than others.
Which means they'll either learn better english (or mandarin, whatever) or go adventuring with people who speak the same language.

And as for abuse; even a basic personal kick/ban system will take care of that.

In short: the guy might know his MUD's, but I think he should have stayed there.