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Monty Sharma, the VP of Marketing for Vivox, spoke to our Jon Wood at AGC about his product. Vivox brings voice communications to EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Second Life and other games.
The full article is available here. Dana Massey |
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9/18/06 5:26:41 PM#2
So the days of having to type /w or /tell may be coming to an end? I say it's about damn time, and with the continuing push of developer/publishers to bring MMO's further into the "casual" game market any quality of life change can only help. I (unfortunately) played Auto Assault for about a month and one of it's best features was its in-game voice system. Now, to buy shares of various headset/microphone companies. |
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Beatnik59
 Novice Member
Joined: 11/23/05
"Playing things I shouldn''t be playing since 1977." Now Playing: |
9/18/06 6:32:19 PM#3
Voice chat has to be one of the most contraversial topics in online gaming. Despite the best efforts at peer pressure, software integration, and marketing push, there is still a segment of gamers that do not feel it is appropriate to talk with strangers using real time voice communication for an online game. Nick Yee did a study on voice chat use. The ones who used it most extensively were not casual gamers, but hardcore achievers, because it gives them an advantage. Those looking for an immersive experience generally avoid voice. While perhaps 70% of gamers may have used a voice tool, only 30% will always or frequently use the tool. Not only that, but look at the data on the games that have integrated voice chat (DDO and Auto Assault). They are both underperforming in the subscription department, and I believe that when you look at the data on who demands voice communications, it is no wonder why the games are underperforming. The very people who avoid voice chat are the very people the games are supposedly designed to attract (older gamers, casual gamers, and those who get into MMOs for the immersive qualities). __________________________ "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." |
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Mordacai
Apprentice Member
Joined: 5/13/06
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand Binary and those that do not. |
9/18/06 7:19:15 PM#4
I disagree that DDO and AA are underperforming for that fact. I mean they have had rough starts because they have no content. I never really played AA but DDO I did and I'm a big fan of table top rpg DnD and was about the only reason I purchased it. Only thing was i didn't get a DnD feel to the game play. I could dodge out of the way etc but it didn't give me a "big adventure" feel to it. It fails because the game play experience wasn't up to par with what DnD'rs were expecting. I couldn't solo at all for experience (there was 1 mission you could take/do at level 1 which was repeatable.) Every mission/adventure in the game was repeatable and expected to be repeated many times to gain xp. I don't feel that If I kill bad X once he should be dead and have to go back in to kill him again, that breaks immerisan. Granted this game shouldn't be soloable and for the most part its not, but even while doing grouped missions they are highly repetative, break immersion once completed once there's no scalability etc. Content has killed it more then anything else and gameplay experience not on par with player expectations. The chat in it, although I myself rarely used it since in my guild we used ventrillo extensively we're also more apt to roleplay in voice chat. For me a frustrated disgruntled drunken dwarf, aye? We were the exception overall though and the voice channels I did join did not bode well for good immersion either because of all the tools (lfg) etc. Speaking of tools the group tools were suposed to be really good, I found them a bit lacking in that you had to wait around for pick up groups in front of a dungeon more then you be roleplaying or immersing and thats if they worked right. http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php |
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