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

[Brett Bibby]

Richard A. Bartle wrote:

> I wrote an article on this subject last year for Game Girl
> Advance.
> http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2003/07/28/not_yet_you_fools.html
> 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.

Nice article. These are the issues I'm thinking about.  There are so
many ways to look at the problem, so I will look at some of the
common assumptions.  I'm just thinking out loud here, but I'm hoping
to gain some insight from others who have real world experience
rather than my conjecture.  Sorry for the long post!

  Assumption #1: RP'ers can easily differentiate/switch between
  non-RP OOC voice chat versus RP text chat

Is it possible that this is correlated to the player's previous
gaming experience? If I spent my youth playing D&D and RP'ing in
front of RL people, then perhaps I learned the difference between
RP'ing and RL and respect both.  Conversely, if I only ever played
CS/Unreal/Quake it wouldn't even occur to me that I could RP, and
the voice chat is simply a speed-typing tool: What I say would be
closely correlated to what I would have communicated via text
without voice.  Someone such as myself has never played D&D or any
live RP game, but rather only online games and I was definately in
the latter group.  It was only after reading Richard Bartle's book
on Virtual Worlds that I tried any sort of RP'ing, and I'm still
uncomfortable sometimes.  But ultimately my comfort comes from the
idea of anonymity. Without anonymity, I wouldn't dare to RP at all
and I still decline invitations to live RP games.  I haven't seen
any RP guilds that use voice, although surely there are, but are
they perhaps a minority of players?  And aren't they experienced
enough at RP'ing to use voice more successfully than non-RP'ers?
Couldn't there be a correlation here too in that the experienced
RP'ers _not_ using voice widely indicates that it doesn't enhance
their RP'ing experience?

  Assumption #2: People who use voice (or join voice required
  guilds) aren't interested in RP'ing anyway

This is probably valid, but is it good?  If a newbie looks at their
first game as the standard, and the k3wl k1ds recommend game X with
voice, it can be assumed that the newbie will probably end up
playing their new virtual world like a game of Unreal or Quake:
log-in, meet-up with friends/guild/clan, thrash-n-trash,
rinse-and-repeat until a new game comes out.  This is much different
than being introduced to the idea of virtual worlds as an experience
distinct and different from RL, let alone the idea that they can
explore who they are by RP'ing.  Won't this skew game designs over
time?  Won't we in the end actually make it harder to RP even for
those that want too?

In Asia, there are _lots_ of MMORPGs that emphasize short, rapid
ascension and completion of the game rather than long-term
persistence.  As a result, the games are marketed more like
publisher-as-brand, rather than the merits of the game.  Both of
these factors make the games not immersive at all and RP'ing is hard
(and adding voice will make it worse).  My point here is that
anything that is done that speeds up gameplay seems to reduce
immersion, and voice seems like just such a thing.  Why use your
brain to think about something when you can just ask?  You can use
text to achieve the same thing, but still the act of typing does at
least provide a moment of reflection and present a barrier (albeit a
low one).  During that brief moment, choices are made and seeing
your words before pressing "Enter" can encourage you to RP more.
Sadly, peope will always take the path of least resistance, even if
it's bad for them.

  Assumption #3: The voice technology is good enough to allow you to
  change your voice, thus allowing RP

I think the voice modulation things I have heard are good, but they
don't fool anyone.  Also, if you use a system where you can here
yourself the experience would be surreal (maybe in a good way?!) and
if you can't it would be hard to remember what you sound like to
help consistency of your RP.  Typing and seeing your text (and being
able to edit it before sending) allows a subtlety that is a long,
long way off using voice chat.

Brett
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