Not really an MMO, yet..

[ironhands]

When most people feel they need to communicate via 3rd party programs I honestly believe that should be considered broken.

Everquest introduced voice chat many years after it had been released, people still continued to use Vent. It's just easier, and usually superior to the in-game voice tools. The makers of Ventrillo put 100% of their effort into their product, where a game developer won't; they'll put the bulk of their effort into the actual main gameplay. Also gives them more control over who can access it, and allow people to communicate even if they aren't in the game - to chew the fat or if the game crashes.

[Skeety]

My own opinion is that when they have PTT working properly then this game will fully qualify as a MMO. I don't think a bunch of people in the world is what makes a MMO of any type, I think communications do. And I think Trion agrees, they have part of the voice framework in place but, without activation being only by PTT, people avoid the noise that PTT would alleviate. But it will still fail badly if they don't also have a way (another keybind?) to ignore a currently speaking jerk. And hopefully they'll have more than just very local to other people chat, or it won't be very useful overall.

They tried to get PTT working on the 1.02 patch but it failed embarrassingly and they had to disable it again, that's how I know they recognize the importance of being social in this game, how it can make money for them, and they're trying and did try to make it happen. Some of you will find in the Menus tab of keybinds a disabled PTT entry, others won't find it listed at all. But they are working on improving the social aspect that people want, and I think voice is probably better for that in a shooter than is text chat and maybe easier to implement too. I don't know how long it will take, I just know Trion has been trying to make it happen.

[Tyger]

Everquest introduced voice chat many years after it had been released, people still continued to use Vent. It's just easier, and usually superior to the in-game voice tools. The makers of Ventrillo put 100% of their effort into their product, where a game developer won't; they'll put the bulk of their effort into the actual main gameplay. Also gives them more control over who can access it, and allow people to communicate even if they aren't in the game - to chew the fat or if the game crashes.

!>.<! ..again with the logical answer to incoherent blather... Seriously ironz... stop it. You're gonna' get in trouble, :P

[ironhands]

!>.<! ..again with the logical answer to incoherent blather... Seriously ironz... Stop it. You're gonna' get in trouble,

zomg i nos. I stop nao.

[brandileigh]

Everquest introduced voice chat many years after it had been released, people still continued to use Vent. It's just easier, and usually superior to the in-game voice tools. The makers of Ventrillo put 100% of their effort into their product, where a game developer won't; they'll put the bulk of their effort into the actual main gameplay. Also gives them more control over who can access it, and allow people to communicate even if they aren't in the game - to chew the fat or if the game crashes.

I agree but the ingame text chat capability shouldn't be ignored/half assed just because some other company provides a service that some people can use to communicate as well. I don't think things like basic communication so be so jacked up in a game where you interact with others.

I like this game, heck I bought it recently, but I really believe that how chat is being handled will do very little to attract/keep new players.

[ironhands]

I agree but the ingame text chat capability shouldn't be ignored/half assed just because some other company provides a service that some people can use to communicate as well. I don't think things like basic communication so be so jacked up in a game where you interact with others.

I like this game, heck I bought it recently, but I really believe that how chat is being handled will do very little to attract/keep new players.

it's not being ignored, or half-assed because other companies do it better, it's because the overall majority of the players are using controllers, not keyboards. That, and the fact that being a fast paced game, it's not really expected that people would want to stop moving and/or shooting to chat or thank people, which is why voice is the default and expected communication method.

[brandileigh]

Voice may be the preferred method for shooters but they still included a way to text chat in the game. And if you don't feel that current chat feels that was just an after thought, thats going to have to be an agree to disagree kind of thing cause I'm not going to change my view on that.

I stand by what I said before and I do truly believe that improving the text chat will go a long way in making new players (on PC ) feel like there is something massively multiplayer interactivey about the game.

[ironhands]

Voice may be the preferred method for shooters but they still included a way to text chat in the game. And if you don't feel that current chat feels that was just an after thought, thats going to have to be an agree to disagree kind of thing cause I'm not going to change my view on that.

I stand by what I said before and I do truly believe that improving the text chat will go a long way in making new players (on PC ) feel like there is something massively multiplayer interactivey about the game.

because it probably was an afterthought. it's expected people won't be standing around taking the time to chat, it's an action game, it's assumed they'll be too busy shooting to type out a long message, especially for the massive portion of the population that plays this game without a keyboard

[Arsenic_Touch]

it's not being ignored, or half-assed because other companies do it better, it's because the overall majority of the players are using controllers, not keyboards. That, and the fact that being a fast paced game, it's not really expected that people would want to stop moving and/or shooting to chat or thank people, which is why voice is the default and expected communication method.

That excuse doesn't work on the PC and they've said they were going to fix the chat many times now. So yes it's being ignored and half assed, there is no argument against this. They even screwed up PTT on the PC.

This is an mmo lite with no social features and no end game.

[ironhands]

That excuse doesn't work on the PC and they've said they were going to fix the chat many times now. So yes it's being ignored and half assed, there is no argument against this. They even screwed up PTT on the PC.

This is an mmo lite with no social features and no end game.

I think you misunderstood what I said. I said it's being half-assed and/or ignored because because most use controllers.