I hate voice chat and avoid it like the plague as often as I can.  Since Im not a raider, most guild members dont seem to mind. 

I also prefer typing and if I had to use voice chat it`s with people I know well/irl. I stopped using voice chat though because of the way people treat me because I`m female. I know not EVERYONE acts different around females but you know most do even if they don`t mean to. I have though run into some really nice girls that I didn`t feel uncomfortable talking to in voice chat and became good friends with.

I dislike voice chat as well. When some dark elf you've known for years turns out to have a cheerful, southern accent it can really ruin your immersion and the mmo-reality you've created for yourself. This makes a game a lot less fun for me.

I've also had a friend's MMO experience totally ruined by this. He was a serious MMO transexual whose wife helped him in his transformation. He could live his wife as a woman and be treated as female with minimal physical investment. He was a power player, always in one of the best guilds on the server. Once voice chat came of age, his current guild required it. Since his voice gave him away as male, everything was totally ruined. Lots of people were angry and his outlet was gone. As far as I know he quit playing MMOs after that, even with a massive amount of energy expended. It upset me that this had to happen, I really feel bad for the guy... = (

Hear, hear, Isabelle!

For ALL the reasons you mentioned, I do not use voice chat!

Also, I tend to immerse myself in MMOs and RPGs; I don't really WANT to separate the Real Person from his avatar.  I am playing as a character in the game, not as myself.  I expect Joe Orc to be just that, not some bloke from Essex or Iowa.  It more or less ruins the game for me to mix the two, actually.   I am not a hard core roleplayer, but I am in that particular game to play there, not in familiar surroundings.

Keeping away from voice chat helps maintain the illusion of the world--and I like that.

I agree.  Death to voice chat.  If I can't play a game without voice chat, then I don't need to play that game.  Problem solved.

Sometimes I want to pay attention to what people are saying, and sometimes I don't.  With text chat, it's easy to ignore the text.  Not so much with voice chat.  And I don't care to have my neighbors hear what I want to say, either.

I hate voice chat like a passion.  I don't mind using it for instances where you got to have communication,  hit the lever now, don't attack that mob.  So forth so on.

What I hate is guild voice chat.  I did not mind it so bad as sometimes it helped those folks who cant type well.  However you usually wind up with some rear end know it all who chats all day long and all night long about stuff that don't matter.  Then you get the person who voice sounds like grating nails on a chalkboard. 

I use it only when I need it,  but your not going to see me sitting around in guild vent or ts just to listen to those folks who will not shut up.

Yeah, I also find voice chat to be something I do not like.  If someone requires it, I leave.

Voice chat for me depends on the game.  Overall I dislike using vent or teamspeak.  When I play with my friends we usually get on a google voice call or something similar, because these are people I know, and that way I can completely turn off voice chat in games that have it as a standard. ( Like Global Agenda).   

I'm somewhat social in game, I like to help others and get in on some conversations, but I prefer to know the person a bit more before I get into a voice conversation because much of the time it ends up being awkward sitting in a conversation when not much is going on.  

I'm not against voice chat,  but its not something I just jump into willy nilly.  I mean, can they just buy me dinner first?  Maybe a movie?  Whats with all of this pressure?  

I love voice chat, especially some newer clients coming out (like Dolby Axon).  Personally the ability to hear laughter, tone, and speed to speak vs type (given type time, latency, and read time) I find it more fluid and enjoyable overall.  It's not to say that text chats weren't great back in the day, nor that terrible people voices or terrible microphones cannot ruin a chat...I just personally have had so many great vent & axon moments, I'll never turn back.

Give me text chat during the work day and voice chat during the game night, on everytime.  Kudos on another decent article though :)

A great topic!  Thanks for bringing it up! 

I too and an old speed typer who never had a need for voice comm in MMO's. 

Then again I'm also an FPS player and for a while I was in some competitive groups (WAY back in the Q2 days. :) ) so voice comm was a big thing for me.  So at least I had early experience in using those things. (We set-up conference phone calls on in the dorm.  It was hilarious.)

Now a days I have two voice comm programs (Vent and TS) for WoW and WoT respectivly.  I turn it on for Raiding and training and that's pretty much it.  Luckily there are voice overlays (so you can see who's speaking. Thank god!) and chaps I get used to hearing so I don't get lost so much on the "Who needs what now?" 

As for the Accents and Gender things my Wife is an Aussie. (Yep that Brittish but not Brittish accent. ;) ) So everytime she is heard on vent she had folks wondering what she was saying etc. (Luckily we have several women in our guild so the "ooh your a girl" thing was a non-starter.)  So she mostly lets me do the talking.  It really annoys her that we yanks don't understand what she's saying even though she's speaking English.  What's even funnier is she speaks fluent Spanish (lived in South America for a few years) and she complains that the Mexicans can't understand her either! ;) 

In WoT most of my Clan are Europeans and Russians. So I've learned to deal with a LOT of wierd accents.  Hell they make Voice comm FUN!  Especially when one of the guys sounds so much like Chekov from Star Trek it's not even funny!  (Seriously! He had us guess where he's from and he sounded so much like a characature of Russian I didn't have the heart to guess it! :) ) 

Though for daily use typing is my prefered method and it doesn't wake the daughter up from a nap. ;)

I only voice chat with the people I've known for a long time, my guild is both funny and mature so voice isn't a problem. I'll listen when it comes to raiding but I wont participate, luckily the raids I've attended have been strictly quiet except for the raid leader so very few experiences of  audio excrement in that setting thankfully.

There is one big problem I have with VoIP - cliques forming amongst the users, those who don't voice chat get left out of decision making, I've seen it happen a couple of times.

I used to avoid voice chat, but now I see the benefit.  I don't mind not having to type, even though I'm very good at it. What matters most is that I am comfortable with everyone on the mic, so as long as the people I am teamed with are friends or at least close acquaintences, I'm happy to voice chat whenever possible. I'm not really looking for the level of immersion that comes from RP typing or envisioning a girl toon as an actual girl.

I prefer text chat too for most things.

Also if there is an issue with harrassment or similar its much much simpler to report it as its all logged. But with voice chat you have to be activly recording.

I am Partially Deaf. Voice Chat for me, is something of a nightmare. really dont like to use. THAT SAID, I do recognise, it sometimes needed and damn useful to have. I will use it in group ops, but that only if proper protocol is followed. which can be a bit harder. Nothing like trying to figure out what the FC is trying to say, while some git going, OH WTF! I JUST GOT KILLED, THAT STINKS! at the top of his voice.

Well  I cant Type or spell if my life depended on it and yet I wont use voice chat either.  I will log on to hear instructions but that is it.  If the chatter gets too inaine I turn it off.  For me its more about the disconnection it brings to the game.  Its hard to feel like I am in a different world when some IDIOT is talking about Glenn Becks latest rant!!

I usually log into voice, talk only when needed. I tend to tank and as a tank it really helps to be able to call things out, but I rarely talk. And I do tune out blabber until I hear my name.

Heck, there are plenty of occasions in which I'd prefer to type to someone sitting in the same room as me than to speak to them. Sometimes its just easier. Not much needs to be said and the answer should be short? Just type.

Though, I can honestly say I've always found it "cool" to play with a female gamer. Its really mostly that I like to listen to female voices over male voices. Its less about the fact that you're female for me and more that your voice is more pleasant to hear. Accent or not.

And I flirt only if flirted with.

Voice chat has its benefits but it also has disadvantages. For example, the quality of the mic people uses can vary greatly so where as some you hear just fine, others are barely audable.

Then you have the issue with some people having one volume set so high that you get ear damage where as others so low that you can barely hear them.

Finally there is the issue of non native english speakers, like myself, that can type just fine but their accent is so bad that you can barely understand them.

So I personally prefer typing and reading...

During our raid having to listen to a screeming married couple go over their divorce proceedings because of him getting to involved with a fellow female guild member ..

(After taking several aspirins).. I decided that voice chat is not for me at this time, if ever again!

Another point-on read.    I couldn't agree more.

   If I am going into a large raid and there is a set leader(s) in place I don't mind Vent but I definetly don't want to live there. As said, Vent can be useful but for general gaming I have zero use for it...and I'm not a speed typist by a long shot.

 I can't imagine having to listen to a bunch of people from 12 tp 70 jabber on about things I have no interest in while I'm trying to play a game. I'll take the typing path  thanks.

   Had to chuckle reading about the early phones. Whew! Those puppies were huge..and heavey. It would have been more accurate to call them and the early 'portable' PCs, lugables. 

I agree 100%.  Maybe it's because I'm older now, but I really don't like listening to people babble.  In fact a lot of time I just turn the sound off completely.  I know i lose a lot of the immersion, but the extraneous sound really bothers me.  It kind of reminds me of talking to my daughter, non stop blather, oops did I just say that.