EverQuest II Voice Chat!

can we announce channels in textchat like: "please join [Clickablelinktomychannel], ill auctioning a master there" ?
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Question: Will the GM's also be using Voice Chat? Would make it easier to explain a petition request then typing it all out.

adding my 2 copper, sorry for spamming multiple forums, this thread seems the longest

for people who notoriously go afk, can you guys add some sort of AFK flag to voice users window?
greying out a name? making that little chat bubble red? something like that, so that rest of the folks in channel can see the afk person probably didn't hear them ( since you cannot scroll up and relisten to voice chat like you can scroll up and read what you missed in text chat

Powers wrote:

I agree with you here, It is basic courtesy, and I appreciate players like you and like grouping with them and return the such courtesy.

Unfortunately some players aren't as courteous you, personally I play the game to have fun and avoid rude players. But I appreciate your concern and I am very glad that there are players such as yourself, thank you for adding to the game.

Xilaz@Butcherblock wrote:

It has accually been answered, It won't be available as a "stand alone" client.... pritty much ever, and definatly at launch... However, it will be available via the station launchpad(wich is a seperat client) at some point after launch, and you could run that on a secondary Comp and do your voice chat from the launch pad, it probly would not be tied to your in-game caractor though.. but then again it is not tied to a caractor via vent/ts now either.

Aeryal@Everfrost wrote:

Thanks

1. If no keys are configured in the options window, Left Control is the push to talk key. This should be apparent in the tooltip over the talk indicator on the voice bar, but granted it should be showing in the options window. I'll look into that.

2. It's a good suggestion!

Hello,
I'm looking forward to this feature. I'm wondering how this will work when more than one person is keying their mike at the same time. This creates delay sound feedback issues as well as make it hard to understand what people are saying. Will there be any sort of "priority" function incorporated that will recognize someone is already talking, and therefore block another from talking over that person?
Also, since there is surround sound in the game, will the voice chat take advantage of that and place the voices at various locations rather than being mono and always coming from the same sound space?
Thanks. (I'm gonna go onto the test server and check this out.)
Rawl
Alpha Legion Officer
Blackburrow Server

ZachSpastic wrote:

I know this wasn't directed at me, but this was totally uncalled for, Zach. Despite your rudeness, I thought it important to respond to your larger point.

I've played plenty of tabletop in my time. For me, it's different. Tabletop, I'm already looking at my fellow players and so the voice doesn't change anything about how I perceive their characters. In a video game, it's the dichotomy between the image on the screen and the voice assigned to that image that causes my concern.


Powers &8^]

I believe they are also going to have a "Voice font" either just before or a little after this goes to the live servers. this should allow you to alter you voice to an extent.

Zabjade wrote:

True, but unfortunately it remains to be seen how effective that is. =)


Powers &8^]

I find the whole idea very intersesting. If it can really fix my mic at the same time? Priceless
I also find the posts here interesting. Basically I'm hearing two concerns and they are mutually exclusive. One is the griping about the fact that you will disconnect when you switch characters, the other is that it will kill the immersion experience. To my thinking, the disconnect is perfectly inline with immersion. Switch characters, change your tone, method of talking etc. (Yes I know the voice fonts are down the road). I'd think you'd want that, for the gameplay aspects. And I believe I read that guild chat will still be available from character select, since I'm guessing they a guild affiliation as a sort of immersion layer too.
So maybe for raids you continue to use Ventrilo, for generally grouping and game play, youi use this system. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

more random musings:
since escape keeps closing my Voice Users window I kinda learned to do without it, the only thing I miss when it's not up is the ability to mute or change volume on individual folks FAST, you need Voice Users box for that to click the chat bubble or right click person's name
what if you could add that click/right click ability to voice bar? then we might not need the voice users window up all the time, unless someoen wants to see the list of people in it
all other options can be accessed via icons on voice bar, except muting/volume

For those out there that just can't do without the "voice font" you can try VoizGame software http://www.audio4fun.com/voice-game...game.htm. It's not free but if you can't wait, its out there. I've done some initial testing and it seems to work well with Vivox.

Also, I am interested is something I here a lot of talk about needing "Voice Font" or the voice chat will mess up the immersion in the game. I have no Idea how this question will play out but I want ot ask it:

Is it an issue about hearing the wrong voices in the game, or is it that there are some of us that like the unanimity that a fantasy MMO gives?

For me I have am internet persona and a real life persona and the two rarely meet. I want the "Voice Font" because it gives me the felling that I am still anonymous, I can keep my alts separate so that players don't know that they are the same player.

Also there are the players that like to play a different gender and wish to keep that fact hidden. Is it that it's disconcerting to hear a very sexy female voice come out of and Big bad male Shadowknight Ogre, or is it the play would rather not have every one know that she is not a male?

It would be interesting to get reactions to this.

Regarding Voice Fonts and role playing.
There are those who really like to role play their characters, and of course there are servers dedicated to that, so voice fonts that match your character's voice make a lot of sense and of course add to the immersion in the game.
Using a voice communication system rather than a typing communication system isn't the same thing though. Personally, the people I play EQ2 with have become my friends even though I haven't met many of them in person. The medium through which we've developed these friendships is the audio communicaiton software we've been using which happens to be TeamSpeak. For me, it is much more immediate to say something rather than have to type it out especially when you are in the middle of a battle where seconds of attention to what you are doing and trying to type instructions at the same time can easily lead to groups or raids dying. So, for me, voice communications systems are a practical tool which enhance the timly communications within the game play.
Also, while there are many people who play EQ2 who want to remain anonomyous, who don't want to make friends with the people they play with as real live people sitting on the other side of the world perhaps in front of their own computer, I do enjoy hearing the voices of those I play with, and I do enjoy the ease of conversation and communication that is much more readily available with the spoken word rather than the typed word.
Additionally, none of the people I play EQ2 with are deeply immersed in role playing, so my experience of this all is sort of like a bunch of people getting together to play a game where we not only chat about the game but other stuff just like a group of people meeting in someone's living room would, except we don't see each other, we see the characters they are playing.
Whether this feature is hailed as a great success or a total flop, I know we, the people I play EQ2 with, will continue to talk to each other more than we type to each other.
Armous/Rawl et al.

Pitt Hammerfist wrote:

ROFL Pitty

Ok tried it out and it set itself up easily. Though I did have to ask how you join a channel as there are no instructions. (I am sure there will be a writeup about how to use it when it hits live)
Durring the test I dont get any feedback noise, but I do get a low annoying hum in the background durring the mic test. I used to get this with vent while using certain codecs and bitrates, will there be a function to change these options as well? If so, how?
I also noticed that durring my palytime theer are usually around 45-50 on test at the same time and nobody showed up in the test channel when I was there, so I have to ask, when 2 people try to talk at the same time does it mute the second or third person or does it give a bunch of garbled noise like I have experianced with other programs?

Ennia wrote:

Escape will no longer close the Voice Users window. This is something I fixed yesterday (or Wednesday I don't remember) along with a bunch of other polish fixes. However, I don't think they are on Test yet. Also, I've modified the /voice command to give you the ability to mute and set volume from the command line. You could always do this instead of opening the window. The command syntax is:

/voice mute <name>
/voice unmute <name>
/voice volume <name> <1-100>

Setting the volume probably isn't quite as helpful from the command line, but its there in case anyone wants to use it.

Some of the other polish changes include:

- The select channel button on the Voice Bar now flashes when a new channel is available.
- If you add a custom channel from the Voice Options window, it will no longer switch you to that channel automatically.
- Overhead chat bubble when someone is talking. This has been fixed so players can't get it stuck on if you leave a channel or they leave in the middle of someone talking.
- Saved channels will now save correctly between sessions
- Fixed a bug with custom mute and volume settings not persisting when users switch channels.
- The popup window for muting/adjusting volume now only goes away if you hit escape or click outside of it. This allows you to keep running, using spells, etc without closing this window.
- The voice windows should now work inside the arena
- Fixed a bug where master volume and mic sensitivity were getting reset back to defaults on logging in.
- Fixed incorrect error message when you try to talk and not in a channel

I'm currently working on fixing the issue where dropdown boxes and list boxes absorb keystrokes when you don't want them to.

Thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming!

Need to ensure those of us with multiple sound options have options to push this voice to a sound device of our choice.

IE on vent now I can have my game come out of my Speakers that plug into my sound card. I have my Vent voice come out my USB headset. This is very important feature so that you don't get looping feedback and have to choose between the two for me. (My headset only covers one ear and has the mic (PS3 headset).

Rastod wrote:

This should already be available through drop-down boxes in the Voice Chat Options (Alt-O and pick the Voice Options tab)