Voice Chat - make it good!


Pathfinder Online

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

many games come with voice chat but for some reason they all sound terrible. I play DDO and alright its not the best voice chat example its certainly typical of poor chat implementation.

As a result I use Skype running in the background to chat with a regular group.

Voice chat should be linked into gameplay too. One word commands to broadcast chat strings, actions tied to voice, even chat linked to NPC interaction!

Goblin Squad Member

Quijenoth wrote:

many games come with voice chat but for some reason they all sound terrible. I play DDO and alright its not the best voice chat example its certainly typical of poor chat implementation.

As a result I use Skype running in the background to chat with a regular group.

Voice chat should be linked into gameplay too. One word commands to broadcast chat strings, actions tied to voice, even chat linked to NPC interaction!

I do agree with you, though I find it unlikely to really be possible. I like DDO's system, I agree it is nowhere near as good as skype or other dedicated voice chat programs, but I have to say it was a nice touch in that you could join a PUG entirely of people you've never met, and be able to communicate without typing. though really I doubt it is plausible for an MMO to handle a high quality voice chat, factoring in some 10,000 people chatting, in addition to everything else the game servers are already handling adds up fast.

As far as voice recognition, that is very far outside of any MMO developers expertise. Heck google has a hard time with it and they have been dabbling in voice recognition for years, yet still can't recognize many accents and voices. Apple got lucky and had very deep pockets to buy siri to give them a huge head start.


Onishi wrote:
Quijenoth wrote:

many games come with voice chat but for some reason they all sound terrible. I play DDO and alright its not the best voice chat example its certainly typical of poor chat implementation.

As a result I use Skype running in the background to chat with a regular group.

Voice chat should be linked into gameplay too. One word commands to broadcast chat strings, actions tied to voice, even chat linked to NPC interaction!

I do agree with you, though I find it unlikely to really be possible. I like DDO's system, I agree it is nowhere near as good as skype or other dedicated voice chat programs, but I have to say it was a nice touch in that you could join a PUG entirely of people you've never met, and be able to communicate without typing. though really I doubt it is plausible for an MMO to handle a high quality voice chat, factoring in some 10,000 people chatting, in addition to everything else the game servers are already handling adds up fast.

As far as voice recognition, that is very far outside of any MMO developers expertise. Heck google has a hard time with it and they have been dabbling in voice recognition for years, yet still can't recognize many accents and voices. Apple got lucky and had very deep pockets to buy siri to give them a huge head start.

Ya voice chat to MMOs as MS Paint is to Windows. It is there, and it works well enough, but, it is nowhere close to being a feature which identifies the product. That is partly why Scype has been so successful.

I actually have never used voice chat (I was always trying to keep quiet in the house). How much extra processing power does Skype take? Does it bog down the MMO at all?

Sovereign Court

LOTRO did this very well.

Dark Archive RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

EVE Voice, which is part of EVE Online, is an excellent in-game voice chat system and places no real extra strain on the host machine beyond simply running the game itself.


Mumble works well and offers positional audio to those games (WoW, for example) that support it. It's got pretty good "am I really talking or just breathing into the mic" detection.

Goblin Squad Member

The VOIP chat system in Global Agenda also works pretty well. I haven't had any problems with it and you can tweak a lot of things (voice input/output level, Push to chat or voice level activated etc.).


Bumping this to plug my "Idea", requesting such mechanics.

Do you guys think it can be done? It sure would be nice.

Pros: Opportunity to chat with strangers, easy to manage conversations when in situations where it's hard to hop windows to work with Teamspeak, and inviting for people who don't want to download a whole separate product.

Cons: Might be, like, hard to do and stuff.

Goblin Squad Member

I'm opposed to spending a lot of resources developing a feature that so many others are focused on and doing a better job? Why have Pathfinder development time spent on something that Skype and Mumble and Teamspeak (among others) are already committed to doing well?

(edit) Now, on the other hand, if we're talking easy ways to embed your preferred chat mechanism and hook to it, so that Viewing a character profile can provide a hotlink to their preferred chat, that's a different thing.

Goblin Squad Member

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Bumping this to plug my "Idea", requesting such mechanics.

"Idea Not Accessible "

Goblin Squad Member

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If you are running things outside your own group/clan/guild/whatever, it is a hassle to get everyone on some 3rd party VOIP. Voice chat makes running with PUG's much easier.

Just whatever you do, don't even look at how SOE does their in-game VOIP, It had bugs when DCUO came out, then they used the same system in PS2, and signals were still getting misdirected years later. It's great playing for an hour with someone else's voice comms coming into your channel.

My guess is that hosting it in the game would be a bad idea(and probably why some games have such poor quality), it should probably be some external system that plugs into the game.

Goblin Squad Member

Mumble is an open source product and thus could actually be integrated into the PFO client at no extra charge in terms of licensing. And, as mentioned, it supports positional audio.

For a game whose purported goal is to maximize meaningful human interaction, being able to hear the actual human voices of those around you would go a long way toward furthering that goal.


The link works for me, Cal. Sometimes the site is iffy.

Goblin Squad Member

My only concern with voice chat is being able to silence those who would poison the environment by continuing to broadcast, non-stop, something like this:
Please never let this happen.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The developers at Riot, the makers of League of Legends, actually made an interesting post about built in voice chat in the last few days. Their conclusion from datamining (something they are very good at) was that built in voice chat increases the toxicity of players, and decreases game enjoyment.

Not entirely applicable to this discussion, but worth a read none the less.

Linky Link


Thanks for sharing that, Gol. Like you said, I'm not sure how applicable it is here, but it was an interesting read.

Goblin Squad Member

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
The link works for me, Cal. Sometimes the site is iffy.

Still not working for me. Tried it both logged in and not logged in, and in Chrome, FF and I.E.

Have you tried opening it in a browser where your account isn't logged in?

(edit) when I look for ideas by you, I see only this one

Goblin Squad Member

Thanks for sharing that link, Morbis; interesting reading. Especially the comments.

Goblin Squad Member

League of Legends is a very different game than PFO. A small-scale, team-based game that revolves around constant, head-to-head competition is bound to attract a very different audience. What we can take from the League of Legends example is that integrated voice chat is not a good fit for a game like that. I think it would be a mistake to say that the same conditions apply to PFO. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Goblin Squad Member

Proximity based voice chat like in Rust would be *amazing* if done correctly.

Goblin Squad Member

Uthreth Baelcoressitas wrote:
Proximity based voice chat like in Rust would be *amazing* if done correctly.

It sounds that way, until you walk into the settlement and it's like fifty people trying to talk on Teamspeak at once.

Goblin Squad Member

Yeah, personally I'm not keen on opt-out voice chats. I much prefer opt-in mechanisms. If I can invite nearby people into a channel with me, then I wouldn't mind. That lets me invite people that I am SAD'ing, or trading with, or partied with, into a channel and talk away, without being subjected to the random chatter while in town.


I've also spoken in favor of opt-in. It shouldn't be the default to speak—or listen.

Goblin Squad Member

Dario wrote:
Uthreth Baelcoressitas wrote:
Proximity based voice chat like in Rust would be *amazing* if done correctly.
It sounds that way, until you walk into the settlement and it's like fifty people trying to talk on Teamspeak at once.

There is no reason you couldn't scale the range at which you hear others based on the number of others talking nearby.

Having said that, I think opt-in would be the way to go.

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