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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

"Richard A. Bartle" <richard at mud.co.uk> writes:

> The follow-up discussion went the usual way, with more and more
> people getting it into their heads that the article concerned
> something it didn't. The (current) final comment, dated May 18th,
> says as much.

Yes, but the final comment also got things completely wrong
regarding social versus MMOs and how voice chat fits in. Voice chat
is of course excellent for socializing!! It hurts roleplaying, but
the majority doesn't care about roleplaying anyway. So voice chat is
also for virtual worlds in the long run when bandwidth costs get
lower. Let's not pretend that social=roleplay or that immersion is
an either/or thing. People get used to stuff. Keyboards are
immersion breaking too, but you learn to live with them.

Fortunately that leaves a new marketspace aiming for roleplaying
gamers. I don't think the roleplayers are the ones to loose out on
anything. The loosers are the systems that no longer get event
staging roleplayers.

-- 
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/
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