Slashdot Mirror
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."
I guess the world isnt ready to hear:
"n0 way I k1ll3d u d00d! u c4mp1ng f4g!"
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
From the article:
.strong opinions... the idea of voice chat in massively-multiplayer online role-playing games..
Okay, here's the scenario:
Strong opinions: All Slashdotters have them
Voice vhat : Vow! That'd be cool over here...
Massively-multiplayer : The very definition of Slashdot.
Online role-playing: Yeah, we have the MS shills, the Apple astro-turfers, the GNU devotees, the FSF freaks, the trolls, the GNAA folks...
Let's get this chap to write Slashcode I say!
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Not only would voice destroy the ROLE PLAYING element (as he nicely puts it: "Hey, this elf babe is from England!". Hello reality."), but they present a number of technical problems. Just how would you log these chats for abuse? What about bandwidth and processing power? Even MUD servers never seem to have enough bandwidth, in graphical MMO's lag is always a huge problem, but instead of fixing those problems they go and intruduce a whole new dimension based on the presumption that it's going to "attract newbies". Well guess what? It's going to turn away long.time players.
Voice chat is especially useful on consoles, because most do not have a keyboard to type with.
I don't see anything wrong with it. You can set aside some game servers for voice, and some for non-voice, depending on demand.
To each his own!
The unofficial
Perhaps I'm the only one, but when I'm playing a MMORPG, I don't want to role play. Sure, it's in the name, but I'm _playing a game_. Why should I have to pretend to be an stupid ogre? I just want to get my levels/money/items/etc and have fun doing it. Many people already use external programs like Roger Wilco, Battlecom, or Ventrillo to voice chat within guilds, so why shouldn't the newbies be able to also?
bananas like monkeys.
I think slashdot should have voice chat. Imagine hearing people yell fr1st p0st.
I can just see it now, "I'm humping you, see my character going back and forth, oh yeah, finger yourself babe, I want to hear you moan, oh yeah, oh YEAAAAAAAH, OH SWEET JESUS THANK MICROSOFT FOR GIVING ME THE CHANCE TO GET LAID!"
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
He's not realizing the fact that many people that would use voice chat in MMO's would only do so between friends and established guild members people can stand to talk to. I've played Asheron's Call with voice chat in the early days with 3 or 4 players and I can tell you we worked like a well oiled machine while in combat. You hurting just scream MEDIC! hehe..
But seriously I can also understand the other side who thinks it's a problem. If they allowed everyone to hear everyone in the bazzar that may be cool only in a perfect world where little johnny has his gag in place. Otherwise you'll have some of the most annoying things going on. I would give such a system 10 minutes before someone started playing the soundtrack to a pr0n or worse. And the bad part there is in that type of situation how do you find out who's doing it?
Private chat channels YES.
General chat NO!
The main problem I have with the article is that it ignores the basic principle of choice . As in some first person shooters, I imagine MMORPGs would come with the option to disable voice ... so you can choose not to broadcast/receive real-time voice communication.
This option would keep most parties happy: the newbies who are drawn to the promise of trash-talking, the tight-knit group of friends who like to chat while they explore and conquer, and the veterans who would rather not have voice interfere with their virtual world immersion.
While Marx (maybe Lennin? I get the modern Socialists mixed up) complained about the tyranny of choices, I think most contemporary people find choices to be a good thing.
I think Richard Bartle has lost touch with what role playing's origins. If we apply his logic to pen and paper games we see how flawed his argument really is. Afterall how many of us sat around the table throwing dice passing written notes back and forth explaining what our chacters were doing/saying? I think "voice communication" was as acceptable then as it remains now. I think people are becomming a little TOO immersed in the digital world and forgeting that there are analog analogies to some of these problems. Think people. I doubt that most people in these games are concernied about character development anyway... its all about the amount of "stuff" you can gather. Those geeks that are into playing out their bvirtual cahracters arent going to be disuaded by the fact that voice has been introduced into the game. I wasn't when I role played my Theif in 1988...
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'.
:) ).
/while you're listening to his lecture/!
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
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.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I do wonder if he's ever played a tabletop, or freeform, roleplaying game? If he did, did he and the other players sit there passing notes instead of speaking so they didn't have to suspend any disbelief for voices?
Roleplaying has a history far longer than MMORPGs, and it's mainly a vocal one. I consider it much easier to manage to get into a character if you speak what they say, and the fact you're typing on a keyboard isn't there to get in the way. I'd say that was a far greater intrusion of reality than someone sounding 'wrong', I don't normally communicate face-to-face with people by typing.
Some players do change their voice, put on accents and so forth, but most just use their normal voices, and it still works if the player can roleplay. If they can't roleplay then it doesn't matter if they're speaking or typing- what's said will still not feel right.
I have played some MMORPGs, admittedly though not to any great extent each. I generally found the worlds to be repetative and also many people just didn't act in the world at all, much metagaming. I remember trying Ultima Online for a bit, spending a few hours digging and lugging stuff so I could make a few low-quality daggers, then going off to the bank to deposit the new-found fortune I'd made.
The bank was absolutely packed, the machine slowed to a crawl. It looked like everyone in the town had come to the bank, and bought their horses, pet dragons, etc. with them.
Whilst some were idly wandering against the tide of lag, many were standing there shouting prescripted offers of items and so forth.
I'd say it takes less suspension of disbelief to imagine the gruff Scots voice coming out of the headphones to be the Elven swordswoman than it does to imagine r0X0r the Ranger going "So, what shall I do today to help serve the Good? I know, I'll take my horse ScreamingDeff and my enchanted rust turtle ScreamingDeffII and go and shout '****Enchanted Axxes to SELL!***** Offers?' in the bank for a few hours.
I know many of the games have come a way since then, but I still think MMORPGs have a loooong way to go before they could consider voices to be a major problem.
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
anyway, how many games has this guy designed since 1979?
Other than MUD2? Try his website
The unofficial
Morph the voices.. English kid turns into female elf, tough barbarian etc. depending on who he's playing the game as.
Galstaff, you have entered the door to the North. You are now by yourself, standing in a dark room. The pungent stench of mildew eminates from the wet dungeon walls ... "Where are the cheetos??"
The Red Pill
I find it very hard to take anything seriously published on gga after reading this
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Here are some reasons why:
1. People will speak all kinds of languages.
2. People will scream.
3. There will not be any 1337speak (that way we can't decide who's a newbie or not)
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
"Who the HELL wants to hear actors talk?" H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
Is this article just the online equivalent?
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
Well, I hate to say it, but I agree with the man. I never cared much for voice chat in games, much less voices in games. Anyone like the voices in FFX? I know I don't. Because it ruins the imagination. The experience. Well, lets extend this concept to voice recognition in games. Same thing. Ruins the entire virtual aspect of MMORPG. I think I'll eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich now...
...for someone to turn on their stereo while playing his favorite MMORPG, only to find the RIAA busting the entire player population of Everquest for listening to pirated music.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
The last thing I needed is some lamer in Everquest shouting 'OMFG YOU KILL STEALER'. These games have poor role playing environments as it is, don't make them worse.
I'm just wondering what brought some women to the point where they felt they needed their own voice in video gaming. Was it because of sexism in ads? (I can remember an ad which had a bikini-clad babe lathered in soap draped over a sports car... to sell a videogame!) Is it the violent nature of some game genres? The lack of strong female representation as a whole? Does addressing sexual content like trance vibrator's fulfill this gaping intellectual chasm?
Girls, to my limited knowledge gleaned from being the father of three daughters (2 of whom game on the PS2 and PC), enjoy games that test problem solving spatial skills like Tetris, Pac Man and The Sims among many others. These are the same games guys play. Sex has nothing to do with it.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Voice chat for an mmog is a decent idea, provided that: A) Everyone you're going to be grouping/associating with has access to it B) You're not playing in a roleplaying environment. (Hey, that elf chick is really an old dude from Alabama!)
Voice comms in a game like CS is almost an absolute must.
Team-work is essential, and it's so fast paced that communicating via the keyboard is not an option. The only type of non-voice communication I used was moving the mouse to produce quick visual gestures to tell my team-mate things like "you go first", "duck, so I can climb over there", and stuff like that.
No way are you going to type those. Getting your hand off the mouse for any length of time is not a good idea (unless you're a camper).
Counter-Strike is not a role-playing game.
I see the point of the article when it comes to role-playing games. Even then, when playing EQ I rarely met people actually roleplaying. When camping for long periods, everyone in the parties would chat about real life stuff. People would exchange email addresses and stuff like that.
As everyone knows, the roleplaying element is the most important part of CS. Voice just reminds me that I'm getting mopped up by 14 year old kids, not the "l33t krew" they purport themselves to be!
I think that the "not-the-heck-yet" response is the correct one. Now, I only play text-based muds, and those only occasionally, and am confident that those will never, ever have voice. Yes, you could write an extended Telnet that included voice (sort of like what was done with Pueblo), but I think it would only prove to ruin the experience.
Graphical MMORPGs on the other hand could benefit from voice. When you are interacting in a graphical world, actually speaking to each other just makes sense, more sense than chatting through text. I do not think the bandwidth is here yet for thousands upon thousands of people to be talking away in games, but it will be someday, probably soon.
I do not think that voices will ruin the roleplaying experience, for the simple reasons that a) they can develop voice filters to make you sound like a troll, or a dwarf, or whatever, b) that you can speak in an altered voice all by yourself (the best solution, IMHO) and c) hearing people's natural voices in table-top RPGs never ruined it for anyone before, as at least one other person has mentioned.
Logging voice to prevent abuse could be a problem, but perhaps not in a couple of years. It may be that they will then have enough computer power and HD space to record all voice exchange. Hell, logging all voice conversations on the client side shouldn't be a problem now if you have a good enough system.
Bottom line is that some ideas sound great, but just don't work in practice. The technological constraints are such that you end up with something worse than not using that idea at all.
Richard Bartle is an expert on these issues, by the sheer amount of time and effort he has spent on developing MUD. I'd be very cautious about simply dismissing the guy's thoughts. Sure, his idea of commercializing the MUD engine didn't work out. IMHO, though, that gives him more practical experience in what works and what doesn't. He's been on both sides.
Voices in MUDs are bandwidth-intensive and OOC (Out Of Character) unless you've speech synthesis. And, while Festival is a decent system, I don't think it's quite at the point where it can support the quality you'd want.
Speech synthesis requires only that the text be transmitted. Transmitting voice-over-IP, at any kind of quality, requires digitizing the speech and transmitting the result. Even if you assume 10K/sec/voice, I've seen MUSHes with 40-50 people in the same room RPing. That's 500K/second, just for the sound, with one hell of a mixing desk on the other end to merge those streams.
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure there are enough MUDders out there with that kind of bandwidth. Not many home owners have their own T1 line, and DSL at that kind of bandwidth is often sold to businesses only.
So you drop some of the voices, perhaps. And then what's the point of having the VoIP link? If what you get is inferior to plain text (which loses nothing), then who is going to use VoIP for anything other than a novelty?
The final problem is the lack of multicasting. If you've 50 people in a room, the server is going to have to multicast to transmit the volume of data to each user. However, "Internet Providers" don't generally offer multicasting. Unless you're rich. Not for technical reasons, but because they don't know how to bill it, so opt for only providing it for really expensive lines.
Why do you need multicast? Let's look at the numbers. 50 users x 500K/sec/user = 25 M/sec of data, if you unicast it. If you look at the times that there have been unicast transmissions - say of the Leonid meteors - the server rapidly collapses from the load. If multicast were deployed, you could have as many recipients as you liked, and there wouldn't be an issue. But because ISPs are cheapskates and the admins offering public services often aren't as clueful as they could be, the system fails very rapidly, offering nobody anything.
REAL broadband (ie: gigabit to the home) plus multicasting plus good speech synthesis would make audio MUDding a real, practical, possibility. As things stand, the idea is going to be tried (as with Abermud), it will fail, and when the technology does emerge people will remember only the prior failure, not the future possibility.
Some things you just have to wait for. If you want to cut the waiting time, then pressure your ISP to enable multicasting. If you're using DSL, then pressure your ISP to make SDSL available to home users for a reasonable price. But if you do nothing, expect nothing. ISPs are happy to provide you with the smallest scraps of service that you'll tolerate, and that'll never be enough to do quality VoIP MUDding.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Unfortunately, this isn't always an option.
Unreal Championship on the Xbox has, quite possibly, the worst voice set up ever. In team based play there are 2 channels for each team, and only 4 out of the possible 8 players can be on any one chanel.
And even in the games where the entire team can talk to each other, actually getting the other players to follow a strategy or even just basic teamwork is near impossible.
You either need to play with people you know, or hope you have found good players.
In MMOGs, I can see the voice as actually being a hinderance, unless they limit how many voices from around you you can hear...imagine hearing hundreds of EverCrackers or Ultima Onliners in the center of town at all times....
Thursdae
I prefer the semi-neutral "greetings". I could just be polite, or an RPGer. I think the best is a compromise - be polite. Personally, I think people who use abnormal (old or l33t) english in games are like americans who try and speak mock-british accents when performing shakespeare or reciting Monty Python - it just sounds stupid.
Um, the last time I remember, online RPGs are simply an extension of "offline" RPGs like D&D. And as I recall, people playing D&D don't write down what they want to say on little pieces of paper and show them to everybody. They talk to each other.
In my experience of playing D&D, people are way more into the roleplaying element when they're talking out-loud. My (brief) experience of MMORPGs is that people break character all the time.
Sure, not every case is the same, and everyone breaks character eventually all the time, but seriously, how will voice destroy the role playing element when voice comes from roleplaying's very foundation?
tommer
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
The gaming culture is still very hostile/patronizing to women and girls. This isn't because all male gamers are immature, sexist pigs who run around EQ yelling "A/S/L?" and offering magic items in exchange for a quick cyber. Basically, the gaming culture started out as a very male-dominated one (as was I.T. at the time) and the remnants of this still linger as sexist advertising and attitudes.
So... if somebody thinks GGA is a good idea, more power to them. If it's an oasis of female-positive gaming journalism in a desert of sexist mags like PC Gamer and testosterone-pumped rocket-launcher-happy FPS sites, that's great! If it's just another website with a slightly different outlook, that's great too. I find many of their articles very interesting, for instance the one on gender construction in gaming, which I'm re-reading right now. Would PlanetQuake run the same article? Probably not.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Voice chat really only works well with small groups of friends, or with small groups of players in fast paced games where you dont get much chance to type. Thats why Roger Wilco and such work so well. MMORPGs dont really fit.
I've tried running a voice server for my old EQ guild. At first, a few people would log on and chat about the weather and whatnot, but after a few weeks nearly everyone stopped using it. Except during the few high-intensity raiding situations, it was just another way to chitchat. Even during raids only a few people used it, with too many it was just too crazy. I think most people just decided it wasnt worth the bother to use voice.
Personally, I think if I started talking to my computer regularly, they'd finally put me away. "It talks back! Really!"
I think there was one idea presented that, if taken a bit further, would really enhance role playing. Since voice is filtered through the machine, you would now have the ability to implement languages into the game. So to go beyone making a troll's voice gruff, what if you just made it unintelligible alltogether (at least to non-trolls)? Language could be a skill you can learn, and if you don't have a particular language the system garbles the voice of anyone speaking it. Going to a new area that was populated mainly by a different race could be a truly adventerous experience if you couldn't speak to many of the inhabitants. Trying to get your point across or finding a translator could be an adventure in itself.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine