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Friday, January 04, 2008
Do you use WoW voice chat?
A reader asked me on my experiences with the integrated voice chat of World of Warcraft. I didn't have any. I haven't used any voice chat since TBC came out. I found voice chat very helpful when raiding at level 60, but only if the raid group has somebody willing to take over the job of "drill sergeant", barking orders at the other players. In the natural chaos of a 40-man raid, even simple commands like "start dps" or "stop dps" can improve the raid a lot. I would assume barking commands to be less useful in 10-man raids, but I don't have enough TBC raiding experience to be sure.
Before TBC I used both Teamspeak and Ventrilo for voice chat. In the TBC European beta, which mixed people from the English, German, and French servers on the same beta server, I found that most of the Germans used voice chat, even in pickup groups. I don't know if that is due to some cultural difference, or due to the fact that the "English" servers are in fact the server for everybody who isn't German, French, or Spanish, and thus has the widest mix of nationalities and languages. I've never been asked to join voice chat in a pickup group on a European "English" server. And as my current guild isn't using voice chat either, as far as I know, I never had the opportunity to check the newly integrated WoW voice chat out.
So I'd be interested to hear from you what your voice chat experiences are. Do you use the integrated WoW voice chat, or do you use a third party software like Teamspeak or Ventrilo? Do you use voice chat for small groups, or only for raids? How useful is voice chat in the TBC raid environment?
- posted by Tobold @ 3:42 PM Permanent Link
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My guild is raiding BT/Hyjal and we don't use any sort of voice chat - ventrilo or in game. However, ventrilo/teamspeak can be really useful in groups, especially raids and arena. I find that most people still use vent/TS over in-game voice chat if they are from the same guild, just because of the better quality and increased number of features.
# posted by 
: 4/1/08 16:59
: 4/1/08 16:59
The WoW in-game chat still rates below an overloaded Teamspeak channel, last time I checked. I also have a bit of reluctance to open myself up to voice chat with total strangers in PUGs and such. I can usually tell just from party chat that I wouldn't have terribly meaningful dialogue with some folks.
I do enjoy guild ventrilo servers, though, if only for casual conversation, dungeon coordination (makes a huge difference with the casual crowd, if people are rusty on boss encounters or odd pulls), or if I'm on an alt or on another server and yet still want to talk with guildies.
I do enjoy guild ventrilo servers, though, if only for casual conversation, dungeon coordination (makes a huge difference with the casual crowd, if people are rusty on boss encounters or odd pulls), or if I'm on an alt or on another server and yet still want to talk with guildies.
# posted by : 4/1/08 17:30
: 4/1/08 17:30
Sorry for a noob question, but what's the TBC you've just mentioned? Could you please give me a link?
Used vent back before TBC (only when I really had to). DO not like voice chat.. takes away form the game experience i like IMO.
# posted by : 4/1/08 17:50
: 4/1/08 17:50
WoW's voice chat drives me crazy. I'd rather use TS, Vent, or Skype (if I'm just chatting with a few people) any day over it.
It's easy to set up, but the quality is horrible. Also, you can't adjust the volume of the microphone much higher than the volume from the game. You can set it so that the game sound fades when people talk, but it's really annoying to have sound and music bouncing in and out while people speak.
I'd rather just have the music and sound turned way down low and the speech volume turned way up high, and you can't really get them that far apart.
I really wish they would work on it some more.
It's easy to set up, but the quality is horrible. Also, you can't adjust the volume of the microphone much higher than the volume from the game. You can set it so that the game sound fades when people talk, but it's really annoying to have sound and music bouncing in and out while people speak.
I'd rather just have the music and sound turned way down low and the speech volume turned way up high, and you can't really get them that far apart.
I really wish they would work on it some more.
# posted by : 4/1/08 17:51
: 4/1/08 17:51
Tried in-game voice chat on the first day I could. My friends and I hated it. At the time, we didn't have any intentions to stop using Vent. We still use Vent to this day.
It was rather garbled and the amount of tinkering it required on both ends for lackluster performance just wasn't worth it. In fact, the voice chat in LotRO was better. Not to mention, all the tinkering we did to get it to work screwed up how Vent sounded.
To tell you the truth, I completely forgot that WoW had in-game voice chat until it came up in conversation the other day. :P
It was rather garbled and the amount of tinkering it required on both ends for lackluster performance just wasn't worth it. In fact, the voice chat in LotRO was better. Not to mention, all the tinkering we did to get it to work screwed up how Vent sounded.
To tell you the truth, I completely forgot that WoW had in-game voice chat until it came up in conversation the other day. :P
I use the built in chat when grouping with rl friends and relatives.
It works well, and it IMO as clear as Ventrillo / Teamspeak.
I think it may work on a raid level, but I am not sure.
For a 5 man in which you want to talk with others it is definately easy to turn on and use without any problems I have seen.
It works well, and it IMO as clear as Ventrillo / Teamspeak.
I think it may work on a raid level, but I am not sure.
For a 5 man in which you want to talk with others it is definately easy to turn on and use without any problems I have seen.
# posted by : 4/1/08 18:02
: 4/1/08 18:02
My 3-man instance-running team use the InARoom voice chat technology, which basically means that we all crowd onto the three computers in my office and talk to each other using the medium of air-based sound transfer.
The difference that voice communication - and oddly, physical proximity - makes to the effectiveness of a group is just astonishing. Simple things, like being able to shout "aargh, get it off, it's eating my priest!", make a massive difference to speed and efficiency. We estimated it to be the equivalent of a two-level bump over a non-voice group.
(P.S. - aargh, Blogger's sign-in system is getting steadily more annoying.)
The difference that voice communication - and oddly, physical proximity - makes to the effectiveness of a group is just astonishing. Simple things, like being able to shout "aargh, get it off, it's eating my priest!", make a massive difference to speed and efficiency. We estimated it to be the equivalent of a two-level bump over a non-voice group.
(P.S. - aargh, Blogger's sign-in system is getting steadily more annoying.)
# posted by : 4/1/08 18:13
: 4/1/08 18:13
Tried a couple weeks after going live and can't really vouch for it: it's better than nothing, and has the advantage of easier setup especially for PUGs where people most likely aren't using the same Ventrillo server, but other than that, it's a sub-par feature of WoW...
# posted by : 4/1/08 18:21
: 4/1/08 18:21
Yolto,
TBC is Wow-speak for The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, in this context.
TBC is Wow-speak for The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, in this context.
# posted by : 4/1/08 18:30
: 4/1/08 18:30
I never liked it, Vent is much higher quality. The vox quality of the WoW client was bad and affected my overall bandwidth performance.
# posted by : 4/1/08 18:48
: 4/1/08 18:48
In my server (Crushridge, europe) voice is quite used also in pickup groups as almost anyone know italian (on this server).
TS and Ventrillo are good tools, but you need a server and with a pickup group you need to have everyone to setup things to work with a common server and channel.
instead, using integrated voice is easy and simple. And even who don't have a microphone can anyway hear what the others are saying.
Also in my personal case, I'm in a small guild... with a strong friendship. So we use it also just to chat each other.
Speaking of quality of integrated voice... compared to TS, WoW has more latency but it's fine and works well. Sound quality isn't good as other one vs one VoIP systems but is good enought and being integrated with WoW is good. Not to mention audio fade that is great.
TS and Ventrillo are good tools, but you need a server and with a pickup group you need to have everyone to setup things to work with a common server and channel.
instead, using integrated voice is easy and simple. And even who don't have a microphone can anyway hear what the others are saying.
Also in my personal case, I'm in a small guild... with a strong friendship. So we use it also just to chat each other.
Speaking of quality of integrated voice... compared to TS, WoW has more latency but it's fine and works well. Sound quality isn't good as other one vs one VoIP systems but is good enought and being integrated with WoW is good. Not to mention audio fade that is great.
Can't say I've used voice chat, either TS/Vent or the in-game one. I got a very casual arena team that's made up of a very bad group balance (neither my 2v2 nor my 3v3 team has a healer, for example) so we don't take it serious enough to use voice chat. When I used to raid with my guild before TBC we were in AQ40, but never felt a great need for voice chat then either. The guild always had a TS server, but that was more for conversation than giving commands, and was optional.
But I'm on an English server, so I guess it proves your point. Besides I don't want people hearing my horrible accent anyway :)
But I'm on an English server, so I guess it proves your point. Besides I don't want people hearing my horrible accent anyway :)
# posted by : 4/1/08 19:36
: 4/1/08 19:36
Absolutely I use voice chat for raiding. It adds that extra level of coordination. Its one less thing to do (glancing at the text box for commands).
Voice chat's a no-brainer for me, since I'm in a guild of people who (for the most part) genuinely like each other and are fun to hang out with. We use Teamspeak for in-guild activities (raids, 5-mans, arena, guild meetings, hopping in to chat when it's 3AM and a hunter has had way too much to drink) and Ventrilo for activities in our cross-guild alliance (raids, org PvP honor trains, our New Year's party, etc).
No one uses the built-in voice chat because the quality is so poor, but if we didn't have anything else, I'm sure we'd default to it, because voice chat makes basic group coordination trivial.
No one uses the built-in voice chat because the quality is so poor, but if we didn't have anything else, I'm sure we'd default to it, because voice chat makes basic group coordination trivial.
Voice chat is abosultely esstential for PvP, especially arenas. It's really nice for premade BGs too, but then its really only necessary if you're playing against another premade which is fairly infrequently.
# posted by : 4/1/08 21:43
: 4/1/08 21:43
Is it bad that I played TBC (The Burning Crusade) for four months and didn't even KNOW about integrated voice chat? :P
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of closed, personal systems like Ventrillo and Teamspeak. I don't want to chat with random people... nor do I want to hear them chatter while I play an MMORPG. Maybe because I'm more solo in these types of games though...
I do use the integrated voice chat in Team Fortress 2. I find it quite entertaining and fun to chat and listen to randoms on my server as I backstab people with my Spy or get lit up by a Pyro!
Also, our 8-man RvR guild used Vent in DAOC back in the day and we wouldn't have been nearly as effective without it. In the heat of battle, it is MUCH easier to bark out commands and listen for people in trouble rather than type away at your keyboard... Efficiency wins in PvP/RvR.
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of closed, personal systems like Ventrillo and Teamspeak. I don't want to chat with random people... nor do I want to hear them chatter while I play an MMORPG. Maybe because I'm more solo in these types of games though...
I do use the integrated voice chat in Team Fortress 2. I find it quite entertaining and fun to chat and listen to randoms on my server as I backstab people with my Spy or get lit up by a Pyro!
Also, our 8-man RvR guild used Vent in DAOC back in the day and we wouldn't have been nearly as effective without it. In the heat of battle, it is MUCH easier to bark out commands and listen for people in trouble rather than type away at your keyboard... Efficiency wins in PvP/RvR.
# posted by : 4/1/08 21:58
: 4/1/08 21:58
Voice chat, in any form, is the sole obstacle to my progress in both WoW and LOTRO. As a 56k user I simply CANNOT raid, pvp, or participate in any other activity that requires precise maneuvers with flawless organization and no room for error when the only form of communication is a voice client that hogs more bandwith than the game itself. My greatest wish (other than broadband availability where i live) is that game developers, i.e. turbine or blizzard, develop a raid communication/prompt system that can be used in lieu of shouting commands through ventrillo.
# posted by : 5/1/08 04:05
: 5/1/08 04:05
Nope dont use it never will
You can solo to 70 and then by then if your raiding guild isnt using ventrilo or teamspeak they will most likely suck anyway
You can solo to 70 and then by then if your raiding guild isnt using ventrilo or teamspeak they will most likely suck anyway
Snafzg, it depends when those four months were. Voice chat was only introduced in the 2.2 patch.
# posted by : 6/1/08 23:16
: 6/1/08 23:16
I raid on two different servers. On one, we used Vent before voice chat was added to the game, and still use Vent after. On the other, we didn't use voice chat before, and still don't use it after--mostly because it is a very international guild, and difficulty in understanding one another defeats the purpose most of the time.
I'd use the integrated chat for my smaller scale activities except it doesn't work very well for me--people can barely hear me at all. People can hear me just fine in Vent, so I don't know what the deal is. But I don't want to invest any time in figuring it out, so I just don't use it.
I'd use the integrated chat for my smaller scale activities except it doesn't work very well for me--people can barely hear me at all. People can hear me just fine in Vent, so I don't know what the deal is. But I don't want to invest any time in figuring it out, so I just don't use it.
# posted by : 7/1/08 16:57
: 7/1/08 16:57
Ventrilo is much higher quality then the WoW in game voice feature. Personally the only time I've ever used in game voice was about 5 minutes when the Vent server was down.
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# posted by : 7/1/08 23:24
: 7/1/08 23:24<< Home
