Challenge #11 Response: Voice in SL
Dixie Starr has posted this Sunday's not-a-meme challenge. Challenge #11 asks us to consider voice chat in Second Life.
"How will voice [a]ffect Second Life and will you use it?"
Dixie's response, which is posted inline with the challenge, comes pretty close to summing up my own thoughts on the topic with a few exceptions.
First off, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, I barely ever have volume on when using my computer. At all. I mute my computer 99.99% of the time. The rare exception is when I attend a live music event in-world. At that time I have the crappy sound effect thingies muted - I just want to hear the music, man.
One thing I am sure of - I will not be using the voice chat option to supplant text chat communication with my friends. I just MAY unmute my volume in order to hear others speaking, but I don't think that will last more than a few seconds at a time as I suspect it will be even more annoying than the regular crappy sound effects.
The only thing I fear regarding using SL once voice chat is released is that others may assume that I have the volume on and can hear their voices. I see that as the biggest potential problem - one that could possibly turn me off to SL. Imagine attending an event where half the people have voice chat on and the other half do not. That means half the conversation is lost to those with their volume off. Imagine future events where the host uses voice chat only! Oh my, would that suck for anyone attending who chose not to have voice chat live. I wonder if people hosting/posting events will be courteous enough to at least point out which events will REQUIRE voice chat in order to participate. Maybe it'll be a new checkbox on the (BROKEN for me) event listing web page.
The argument that Linden Lab could be spending their time on system stability versus incorporating the new feature is weak in my opinion. I would have expected Dixie, a programmer, to skip that particular argument. Yes, LL surely has to do some work in order to get the client specific features working so it's possible that some cycles were lost. Linden Lab has mostly incorporated this feature by contracting with an outside company. That company will handle all of the network traffic for voice, etc. There are a lot of programmers working for LL and not all of them can work on a single feature at the same time. To assume that some programmers working on a feature for the website, or working with a third party to integrate a mostly external feature distracts from grid stability is reaching imho.
Comments
I agree that it's a stretch to say this is distracting LL from stability and scaling, it's primarily (and now that the client is OSS, only server changes need to be LLs doing) an out sourced, and proven concept from a vendor that already has deployed a system in use.
I will probably use it on occasion for some situations, and some of the VOIP style private chat may be very useful, but I hope most music venues shut it off at the parcel level. It might make for some interesting Open Mic / Jam session type events though, like passing around the mic and trading off ideas and licks, could be amazing for that sort of group thing (though I doubt the lag would support true collaboration / band performance).
Posted by: Kaklick Martin | March 26, 2007 12:20 PM
Merle Widget insists that he's trying to avoid getting involved in the not-a-meme fun. However, he has inadvertently responded to Dixie's challenge here: http://merlewidget.blogspot.com/2007/03/voice-beta-reactions.html. Thanks Merle, nice to have you on board.
Posted by: Dolmere Talamasca![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.lovelymachine.com/Dolmere/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 29, 2007 10:23 AM
Gwyneth Llewelyn's thoughts on this topic here: http://gwynethllewelyn.net/article147visual1layout1.html
Posted by: Dolmere Talamasca![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.lovelymachine.com/Dolmere/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 30, 2007 09:41 AM