in-game-voice
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Should Blizzard revamp in-game voice chat to go with the group finder?
Defective of Ysera-US emailed me recently with an interesting question -- did I think Blizzard should revamp the in-game voice chat to accompany their new Group Finder, coming in Warlords of Draenor? Yes, believe it or not there is an in-game voice chat, added in patch 2.2 to the resounding derision of the playerbase. Back in 2011 WoW Insider surveyed players, and found that only 4% of players use it. And having been in that 4% myself, they should stop. In a world where so many options exist, the WoW in-game voice chat really is one of the worst, for WoW at least. And Blizzard know, quite apart from jokingly derisive tweets from devs, that it's bad. They even said, again in 2011, that the next time they revisited it they wanted it to be a big change, similar to how LFG revolutionized dungeons.
Vivox voice chat comes to Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online is the latest MMORPG to receive the integrated Vivox voice chat treatment. While players are still a few years short of tapping their command insignias and barking out orders to their party, it's a step in the right direction. The system allows team and fleet members to chat directly without the need for third-party servers or software such as TeamSpeak or Ventrilo. Joining a channel is automatic when you group with other players, and the implementation features the usual configuration and customization options (including, of course, a push-to-talk binding and the ability to disable the service entirely). Read all about it at the official STO website.
