WoW Insider's PTR voice chat hands on
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 13th 2007 at 5:30PM
Voice chat is now available on the 2.2 PTR, so I downloaded the test realms, rolled up a gnome Warlock, and put on my Logitech headset to try it out. What I found was a pretty intuitive voice chat system that does most everything Blizzard promised to do, and will likely replace Teamspeak or Ventrilo for a lot of smaller guilds.
Unfortunately, it's complicated enough that it probably won't be extremely widespread-- players who haven't found the need to join up on voice chat yet probably still won't feel a need to do so. But for guilds who don't want to pay for a separate server and friends who group together often, the ingame voice chat should work just fine.
The rest of my impressions, including a complete walkthrough on how the chat system works, are after the jump.
Unfortunately, it's complicated enough that it probably won't be extremely widespread-- players who haven't found the need to join up on voice chat yet probably still won't feel a need to do so. But for guilds who don't want to pay for a separate server and friends who group together often, the ingame voice chat should work just fine.
The rest of my impressions, including a complete walkthrough on how the chat system works, are after the jump.
The feature itself is easily set up, as long as you've got a microphone and drivers hooked up to your PC already (I only tested the chat on my Windows XP box, but Mac should work pretty much the same way). To set it up, you go into the newly retitled "Sound & Voice" menu from the options screen, where you're presented with two panes-- the old Sounds pane, and the new Voice pane.
Unfortunately, that tooltip covers up the two other meters down there, but those are Sounds and Music meters, so you can separately adjust those options as well, if you like.
Finally, you can see that the voice chat can be set as either Push-to-Talk or Voice Activated (ie, anytime you start talking, it will send your voice out). Personally I prefer Push-to-Talk, and I was glad to see that was the default option-- nothing bugs me more than hearing things I don't want to over voice chat. You can also check the box to have the game play a sound when you hit the Push-to-Talk button, and you can bind that to whatever button you want-- the default is the ` button, and that worked well for me.
At this time, there is no General chatting, so either you have to be in a raid, group, or a custom channel. Once you get in one of those, voice chat is automatically enabled, and you can see that an icon appears by each group members' portrait. When you talk, a larger icon appears by your portrait-- you can see it near my gnome's portrait above. All in all, it works very smoothly (talking came through quick with my green connection), and sound quality is about the same as Teamspeak. There were a few issues-- I had no problem talking with someone who already had their mic setup, but Triunemoon here (who is actually WoW Insider's Ryan Carter) couldn't get his mic working, even though it did work over Ventrilo. So Blizzard still has a few problems getting certain mics to work-- I'd imagine that will continue on the PTR, and might even continue once the patch goes live, since there are just so many different mics out there.
So while it's easy to use if you get it working, getting it working is still not a super easy thing to do. And that, I think, will be enough to keep this from becoming a universal thing-- people in PUGs, whether they actually can't voice chat or whether they just choose not to, will still have an excuse for not having it set up. Guilds will be able to require it, I'm sure, but for makeshift groups and PUGs, I don't see this voice chat happening universally.
There is also a new Chat tab on the Social windowpane-- it shows all the chat channels you are in (not just voice chat, although that is shown by the little speaker icon next to the group you're voicechatting with), from Party to General to your own custom channels. It also shows everyone in that channel, so while a lot of people may not have been aware of the /chatwho command, people will now easily be able to see who is in which channels.
Strangely enough, even though the LookingForGroup channel is listed there, you can't join it by pressing the "Join" button-- you still have to actually flip yourself LFG to join that channel. But you can, for some reason, see who's in that channel without joining it. Not sure I understand the reasons for that, but maybe Blizzard is still working on it.
So while it's easy to use if you get it working, getting it working is still not a super easy thing to do. And that, I think, will be enough to keep this from becoming a universal thing-- people in PUGs, whether they actually can't voice chat or whether they just choose not to, will still have an excuse for not having it set up. Guilds will be able to require it, I'm sure, but for makeshift groups and PUGs, I don't see this voice chat happening universally.
Strangely enough, even though the LookingForGroup channel is listed there, you can't join it by pressing the "Join" button-- you still have to actually flip yourself LFG to join that channel. But you can, for some reason, see who's in that channel without joining it. Not sure I understand the reasons for that, but maybe Blizzard is still working on it.
And if anyone causes a problem, muting them is as easy as opening the Social window, and right clicking their name. I'm a little disappointed that there aren't other options here as well-- we should be able to report and ignore players directly from this interface also. Maybe that will be added before the realms go live-- in the FAQ, Blizzard actually says that you should be able to ignore people from the menu, so maybe that's not done yet as well.
And creating a custom channel (you can see my "custom1" channel above) is as easy as hitting the "New" button. When you create a channel, you can name it, create a password for it (if you want), and you can choose to enable voice chat on it.
As far as I can tell, there is no way, however, to invite people to your custom channel from the Chat interface. So you still have to tell your friends to join the "nerfwarlocks" channel, and then they have to hit the "Join" button, and type the name in. It would have been really nice if you could right-click the custom channel, hit "Invite" and then chose the players you want to bring in, but there's no way to do that right now.
So what did I think overall? It's a good, robust system that will very likely keep a lot of midrange players from using separate programs for voice chatting. Super casual players who haven't jumped into a voice chat yet probably still won't feel the need to-- setting up the mic correctly (even before you get into the WoW client) is still going to be a barrier, and of course there's the social barriers of having your voice be heard by other players. If you haven't jumped that rung yet, the new voice chat system probably won't encourage you to do so.
And for bigger guilds (as in guilds with more than 40 players, like mine), my guess is that this system won't be enough. Sure, there's almost no reason to have more than 40 people in the same channel (and the Guild channel itself doesn't have voice chat), but one thing I like to do on Teamspeak is run around to the different groups and see how they're doing-- check in with the Karazhan group and see who they got for the Opera, or ask the Shadow Labs group how things are going in there with the new guildie. With this voice chat system, I can't chat with those groups at a glance, since you have to be in a group or raid to voice chat with the people in there. Not to mention that I can't tell you how many times someone's WoW client crashed on them during a raid, and we only knew what happened because they were still chatting with us on Teamspeak.
So Teamspeak and Ventrilo, in my estimation, have nothing to worry about. What's the point of this voice chat system, then? I think it will be huge for people who don't already have their own Teamspeak server, or for smaller guilds who don't want to pay for one. Good PUGs (as in, PUGs that consist of a few friends, or of a bunch of knowledgeable players from different guilds) will only get better, as people won't have to share their Vent info and coordinate all that madness. Some casual players may get more involved (and become better players), if they do make the jump to voice chat.
Players on both ends of the spectrum (super casual, and fairly hardcore) won't have a need for it. But at worst, WoW's new voice chat system will at least help midrange players coordinate their groups and strategies. And at best, just like Xbox Live, this voice chat system will be just another brick in the wall for bringing new types of social interaction into online gaming.
And creating a custom channel (you can see my "custom1" channel above) is as easy as hitting the "New" button. When you create a channel, you can name it, create a password for it (if you want), and you can choose to enable voice chat on it.As far as I can tell, there is no way, however, to invite people to your custom channel from the Chat interface. So you still have to tell your friends to join the "nerfwarlocks" channel, and then they have to hit the "Join" button, and type the name in. It would have been really nice if you could right-click the custom channel, hit "Invite" and then chose the players you want to bring in, but there's no way to do that right now.
So what did I think overall? It's a good, robust system that will very likely keep a lot of midrange players from using separate programs for voice chatting. Super casual players who haven't jumped into a voice chat yet probably still won't feel the need to-- setting up the mic correctly (even before you get into the WoW client) is still going to be a barrier, and of course there's the social barriers of having your voice be heard by other players. If you haven't jumped that rung yet, the new voice chat system probably won't encourage you to do so.
And for bigger guilds (as in guilds with more than 40 players, like mine), my guess is that this system won't be enough. Sure, there's almost no reason to have more than 40 people in the same channel (and the Guild channel itself doesn't have voice chat), but one thing I like to do on Teamspeak is run around to the different groups and see how they're doing-- check in with the Karazhan group and see who they got for the Opera, or ask the Shadow Labs group how things are going in there with the new guildie. With this voice chat system, I can't chat with those groups at a glance, since you have to be in a group or raid to voice chat with the people in there. Not to mention that I can't tell you how many times someone's WoW client crashed on them during a raid, and we only knew what happened because they were still chatting with us on Teamspeak.
So Teamspeak and Ventrilo, in my estimation, have nothing to worry about. What's the point of this voice chat system, then? I think it will be huge for people who don't already have their own Teamspeak server, or for smaller guilds who don't want to pay for one. Good PUGs (as in, PUGs that consist of a few friends, or of a bunch of knowledgeable players from different guilds) will only get better, as people won't have to share their Vent info and coordinate all that madness. Some casual players may get more involved (and become better players), if they do make the jump to voice chat.
Players on both ends of the spectrum (super casual, and fairly hardcore) won't have a need for it. But at worst, WoW's new voice chat system will at least help midrange players coordinate their groups and strategies. And at best, just like Xbox Live, this voice chat system will be just another brick in the wall for bringing new types of social interaction into online gaming.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Features, Guides
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Finnicks Daerkhiv Aug 13th 2007 5:50PM
The question is: Was your friend Triunemoon able to hear the voicechat even without his mic working?
Because quite honestly, the biggest potential benefit I can see coming out of this is that players will no longer have an excuse to not tune in so that they can at least listen to what's going on in voicechat, IE what the party/raid leader is saying. Even without a mic, players should be able to listen to the voicechat so that the leader can better coordinate encounters and give split-second instructions.
People saying, "i dont have vent an i dont want to dl it bcuz im lazy" won't be able to use that an excuse to not at least listen in, even if their paranoid and insecure about their voice.
Which in and of itself I don't understand, because I sound like a girl over voicechat, but that doesn't stop me. :D
Mike Schramm Aug 13th 2007 5:52PM
Finnicks, yes, he could hear me. So you're right, there is still potential for those who don't want to speak to at least listen.
Arb Aug 13th 2007 6:26PM
Being on a mac i kinda want to know how this works. Having my music play in the background while on Vent is just a pain because Vent on mac cant turn an individual person up or down. So we're forced to keep the voices low or high. I keep mine low cause there are some loud people that scare the crap out of me. The problem is while music is turned as low as it can be before being shut off I still cant hear everyone and im forced to pause my music to listen in.
With iTunes built in WoW (on the mac) Im wondering if it fades out the music along with the WoW sounds while someone is talking... either way im looking forward to this!
Rich Aug 13th 2007 6:28PM
I am sooooooo not looking forward to this...
Khallah Aug 13th 2007 6:33PM
How is the quality compared to Ventrillo? Lord of the Rings Online had integrated voice chat, and the quality was dreadful comparatively. If WoWs implementation is anything like that, I can see Ventrillo still being the tool of choice for guilds.
Ryan Carter Aug 13th 2007 6:37PM
The sound quality was good and I could hear just fine and see the on-screen indicator when Mike was talking. For some reason the mic testing feature doesn't seem to work, or the operation of it is not obvious. It records then plays back a sample, of which I could get to do neither, so it is hard to tell at this point what exactly is wrong with that part of my mic setup, though I tried 2 mics that work with Vent daily.
-Triunemoon
pokute Aug 13th 2007 6:54PM
I hope people on PTR test this on raid situations before the patch hits
Deus Mortus Aug 13th 2007 7:08PM
Can you also use it whisper style, so simply talking to one person outside any channel or group you are in?
Kyrra Aug 13th 2007 7:41PM
@7
Oh, they are. Every time I've logged on, people are spamming in general "LFM for SW/IF raid". One time I joined the channel, it was mainly a guy singing the Rick Roll video.
I'll be interesting to see how well Voice Chat works in raids (to see if multiple people are talking at the same time). I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
Lori Aug 13th 2007 8:06PM
So how do you adjust individuals volume? Must you rely on them adjusting it properly? Vent allows for adjusting others volume for them and will normalize everyons volume which is even better.
Kryptonls Aug 13th 2007 10:53PM
I have also tested the Voice Chat on the EU PvE Test Realm, with others that had microphones and those that did not. The sound quality was very good, and all players could hear me and vice versa. This is a great boost for pug instance and raid groups, but I think that larger guilds will still continue to use their Vent/TS servers, in additon to this great new feature.
MightyGiant Aug 14th 2007 1:33AM
I think this is great. And anyone who doesn't use it is a loser.
dekulink Aug 14th 2007 12:40AM
For those who tested it: Why are you all saying Raids will still use Vent or TS? From what I've read it's just as good.
Eclaire Aug 14th 2007 1:10AM
Then don't just read. Get the PTR client and try it. The voice chat quality isn't as bad as, let's say, lotro or XBox Live, but listening to this on a 5 hour raid on Friday evening can and will make your brain melt.
I definetly prefer Ventrilo or TR with a proper codec set up.
rcdan Aug 14th 2007 12:31PM
This may be a dumb question but will it cause any additional lag?
daniel Aug 14th 2007 2:55AM
oh god, voice chat in a 40-man AV run...better make that 40-kid AV.
Varus Aug 14th 2007 3:09AM
@12: It's because if someones WoW client crashes or they get disconnected during a raid (or a boss fight) they can still report it on TS/Vent - the in-game chat dies with the WoW client, I suspect.
Dack57 Aug 14th 2007 4:55AM
I Think it's decent, but report AFK is sooooooo much better...
therandomguy Aug 14th 2007 7:13AM
Not to pick on you or anything, but are all the bloggers here completely biased against casuals? "Some casual players may get more involved and become better players." Because someone's casual doesn't mean they are crap players.
Kryptonls Aug 14th 2007 7:25AM
^ I must have missed that comment - but you are so right. Pfft, silly bloggers :P