SOE has announced that heir partnership with Vivox is beginning to bear fruit, as Vivox's integrated voice chat system is now available on the EverQuest II Test Server.

You've heard the buzz, and now you can check it out for yourself! SOE has partnered with Vivox, the integrated voice chat system, to bring a whole new dimension to EverQuest II and the rest of the SOE family of games.

Right on the heels of last week's game update, this great new in-game feature is now running live on the EQII Test server, and the team is anxiously awaiting your feedback. EQII Technical Director, Joshua "Autenil" Kriegshauser, has posted two related forum threads, one for discussion and Q&A, and one for feedback only.

If you'd like to try it out, log on to the Test server, click on the tutorial trigger that appears on your screen, and follow the simple instructions. All you need is a microphone to chat, and those without mics can still listen in.

Read more here.

Another fine tool I will not use. Thanks SOE.

Now, about that guild housing and skeletal revamp you have promised since time began!

Woot Vivox....

OK now go huggles with MS and do DirectX 10 and I might be impressed.

No word on the skeletal revamp but Guild housing is aimed for September - early October.  Rumors about the skeletal revamp - they were talking about skirts as part of the clothing options forthcoming and either skeletal revamps are so far in the future they're just going ahead with the planning for new clothes without considering the revamp since it won't be for some time, or the skeletal revamps are so close that they have the info they need and are in testing now with the new clothing.

Great news.  They are now finally coming into the 21st century.  I never really used WoW's voice chat, but i thought LotRO's was pretty good.  And i'm not surprised AoC didn't have one, because they have more important issues to work on, like umm content.

This is the future Roleplayers, like it or not. 

Voice chat sure ruins the roleplay for all the guys playing female characters, lol

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Voice chat sure ruins the roleplay for all the guys playing female characters, lol

it wont for SOE

this will allow players to have their voices be masked

sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20080220/LAW01220022008-1.html

 Need standard chat for groups and raids? Check. Don't want to tie up your own bandwidth? Roger that. Want your voice to sound completely different? Done. Late for your raid but want to take part in the group setup by cell phone? Can do. Dream of having in-game voicemail? There ya go. Playing a non-SOE game but want to use this service, free of charge? Aye.

These powerful community building features and tools are coming to SOE games at no additional cost to players and go far beyond basic real-time chat with the usual headset and microphone setup that is commonly used today.

www.massively.com/2008/06/20/vivox-voice-integration-previewed-for-eq2-game-update-47/

Voice masks (which Vivox calls 'fonts') are planned for future updates.

Voice masks should be in from the start, not part of a future update. Once I know that badass fighter is a squeeky pimply faced kid, I won't forget once the voice masks are introduced. Too late for immersion sake.

Is the voice chat going to totally replace keyboard chat though? I mean when I am talking to strangers, not known friends or people I am grouped with, will voice chat be set up for common close vicinity conversations?

The real problem I see with voice chat is that it's geared for isolating groups of players in private chatrooms, and eliminating any public speaking, which i like to see in a game world. You can learn a lot by overhearing public conversations about what's happening in the game world and sometimes jump into the conversation if you have some useful information to add. It can be a great way to meet other players. But if everyone is speaking only within their private chatrooms, the world will grow very quiet and lonely.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

Voice masks should be in from the start, not part of a future update. Once I know that badass fighter is a squeeky pimply faced kid, I won't forget once the voice masks are introduced. Too late for immersion sake.

Is the voice chat going to totally replace keyboard chat though? I mean when I am talking to strangers, not known friends or people I am grouped with, will voice chat be set up for common close vicinity conversations?

The real problem I see with voice chat is that it's geared for isolating groups of players in private chatrooms, and eliminating an public speaking which i like to see in a game world. You can learn a lot by overhearing public conversations about what's happening in the game world and sometimes jump into the conversation if you have some useful information to add. It can be a great way to meet other players. But if everyone is speaking only within their private chatrooms, the world will grow very quiet and lonely.

 

Never used voice chat and never will. The most I've ever been willing to do is listen, but I respond by typing. So, there will at least be one person typing in the public channels.
 

According to what my guild snoop has been reading, they are attempting to make it audible to all, so you can have group talk, public talk and private whispers - just like what we  have now. 

I have always resisted speaking just in group or guild but now its habit - its rare to see anyone actually talking in /say.  Often you cannot even get people to reply except by private message.  Maybe this will help.

According to what i read, they will have 'public' area based chat, so that could be a good thing and maybe encourage people to talk more.  They'll have mute features so you can get rid of someone annoying, just like /ignore. 

I'm slightly hopeful about it and i'll be trying it on the test server friday, when i'll have time to both download and mess with it.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

Voice masks should be in from the start, not part of a future update. Once I know that badass fighter is a squeeky pimply faced kid, I won't forget once the voice masks are introduced. Too late for immersion sake.

All you really need to know is that he is a badassed fighter, Does it really matter if the person on the other side is actually a 12 year old girl? I would hate to see perfectly good ogres shunned because people don't like the fact that they are a soprano instead of a baritone. 

Now if only they had a way I could mute the kids / tv / wife I have making noise in the background while I'm playing. That is the primary reason I refuse to hook a microphone up to my computer.

I agree with *that* 100%.  I was trying to play AoC using Xfire with someone and their baby shrieking in the background - not untended, mind you, i could hear the woman talk now and then who was taking care of him/her/it - and i was ready to turn it off.

I also cannot convince people it is not meant for a constant monologue of their stream of conciousness, nor is it meant for them to sing, neither under their breath nor loudly, nor that we want to hear them breathing so heavily its like having a darth vader leaning over each shoulder.  I do not want to hear their children, their TV, their dog or their spouse, i do not want them to try to answer the phone without muting.  I especially do not want feedback squealing and such caused by thier not paying atttention to where they're putting their mike when they get up to take a leak and forget to mute it.

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Originally posted by Ozmodan
Voice chat sure ruins the roleplay for all the guys playing female characters, lol

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I suppose this is coming across with a bit of sarcasm as Role Play has been completely stripped as an acronym from MMO's all together. I've played in Team Speak and Vent for a number of years, what I'd be interested in is whether this will reduce in-game Lag. I notice that when I play EQII with Vent I lose as much as 8 FPS and encounter a good bit of stuttering while in major cities. I do have an older system 2.8Ghz, Pen4, 3G RAM, 7800 GeForce and SounBlaster X-Fi, however I hope this new system helps with performance.

I've not tried this out on the Test Server, but I do like that it will have multi channel capability and hopefully distinct channels for Private Chat and Guild.

I feel like I am reading some of these replies in the year 1998.

Voice chat is already an integral part of MMO'ing. I've been in MANY games and we always use Ventrilo if there's no in-game voice function. Will it replace text? Yes. It already has. I'm not sure who you've been playing with (or where). People use text for random small talk in guild chat, selling, question asking, or in other channels, but voice chat is where the bulk of communication remains in most  communities.

its very nice that you can talk to the rest of your guild in vent.  Too bad we dont' all have vent so if we group with you, its done in silence while the rest of you talk to each other.

  This is a little bigger than that - in theory, anyone who joins the group can use it.  We don't have to try to mesh to whatever the other person's using, its built into the game. 

I have been in test - both group and guild work very well.  we experianced framerate drop when someone joined or left the voice channel, so don't try to add someone in the middle of a fight - add them and wait for the game to settle down first - it does.  We didnt' test out private message chat yet - we both only had a few minutes to jump into the game.  its surprizingly clear and fast, no lag while talking once the connection was established.  You can adjust someone's volume from clicking on their 'personal' tag - so just the same way as you would inspect or mentor by right clicking them.  you can do it apparently by slash command too, but we didnt' have time to mess with it yet.