[MUD-Dev] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design

[Brett Bibby]

With all the posts recently on programs that allow out-of-game voice
communications (e.g. Roger Wilco, etc.), it has got me wondering if
this will severly limit the appeal of many games in the future.

For example, if I want to roleplay a female as a RL male, I wouldn't
be able to join any guilds that require voice if I wanted to
maintain my roleplaying.  And what about immersion in the world? If
I'm supposed to be an old battle-hardened Orc, or someone with a
known accent, and I'm a young female, it would be impossible to
actually roleplay.

Once that happens, just simply declining to join a guild with such a
voice requirement would generally reveal that the person in the game
is roleplaying in some way.  At some point, with the majority of
players using such a communication system, the players will roleplay
less and less.  It is already hard enough to innovate on a large
scale and make the world compelling, but imagine if everyone is
using voice chat....

Brett Bibby
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