Teamspeak Pro's and Con's

I would like to start a discussion on team speak. I understand that it is used so commonly now that it is basically integrated into any game out there. I have a few questions about it though:
1. Does it affect immersion?
If the majority of people are on teamspeak does it add to an empty world, and make everyone look like npc's because everyone is chatting on teamspeak and not in game? A whole area can be full of people and no one is visibly talking.
2. Does it affect combat and present an advantage?
In order to play the game are you basically forced to use teamspeak to compete in these events?

I pretty much know the answer to these and just wanted to address this as food for thought. We live in an age of so many options to choose from. I understand non of this is wrong and I know it has greatly sped up the combat rate and increased coordination for teams. But the question is: Is it cutting out a major part of the game and bypassing all the systems in place to make people interact in game? It in my opinion turns the game into one big silent motion picture. I know that this post will not make anyone change their minds, but I just wanted to point out this, because what good are all the systems in game for if they are just bypassed. A moral dilemma I guess. this is just a philosophical discussion

 

I don't have strong feelings about TS, Vent or the others like it. It is useful for coordinating parties around time sensitive content. I can't say how many times I started an in-game chat, got attacked, and found all my attacking key presses in the chat window.

I have seen many guilds use it just to socialize which is probably the best use case.

That said, I really do not like to talk while playing because I am usually in the company of others watching TV and stuff.

 

What If you character was hooked into the microphone and you could talk through your character?

 

That would be pretty cool. But I bet in most cases, there would be a face-2-voice mismatch. There is that human instinct to expect a certain voice from people based on how they look.

 

Ya, all the boys playing female toons would be not liking it haha!

 

There was one guy that made the perfect excuse for running girl toons. He said "if I have to look at a butt all the time, I want it to be female". That was convincing as I recall playing a druid once and I hated looking at this fat bear butt on my screen all the time.

 

haha I used the same excuse also. In UO the female toon actually had an advantage being that they could wear female and male armor, but the males could not wear female armor.

 

The topic of gender-bending (playing a character of the opposite sex) is always fun. An article on quora.com lays out some interesting thoughts on the topic. In addition to the preference to stare at a better-looking backside, the author offers some other reasons males will sometimes prefer to play female characters:

• Female avatar design is given more attention than male avatar design (because most games are made by men). Thus, female avatars end up looking more fluid and attractive. This also helps explain why women don't prefer to use male avatars.
• Female avatars are treated better, given more free gifts, invited to groups more often, and kicked out of groups less. But many players have also noted that female avatars aren't taken seriously and sexually harassed, so it's not clear there is a net gain here.

Personally, I usually play male characters (I'm a male in real life), but have tried out female characters. I generally prefer playing a character that is more like me.

 

I agree to this also because when I have played female characters before. It is an odd feeling getting hit on lol. It is true that they want to get you things lol.

 

If you're a dedicated role-player where you think it would hurt immersion, then you can opt not to use it, or only log into a channel for a location where you are present.

If multiple people are able to discuss tactics and coordinate in a large brawl with multiple people, it can provide an advantage.

There are many chat programs, btw. Teamspeak is just one of them. There is also Ventrillo and Mumble.

 

1. yes because people outside of the Team Speak can't hear you, so it equates to telepathy

no because the people in the Team Speak are more immersed than if they had to resort to typing.

even people who use TS all of the time must often use chat to communicate to people outside of their channel. The only way to use TS with 10 people in a channel is if everyone except for a couple of people are muted. So most of the time you are only in TS with a few players anyway.

2. yes only in group PvP combat does TS give an advantage, and it is significant.

I am 99% certain no player will ever be forced to use a third party program to play the game. There will likely be good incentive to use TS to do many fun things in game, but I am sure many will do well without it. People who strictly RP, lone wolves, people who will exclusively be playing single player mode, etc.

 

I understand this, and thank you for your response What do you think about the emptiness of the world in relation to no chat in game? Richard wanted people to mingle and meet.

 

When I played SWTOR voice chat was basically used just for talking to my guild and any other communication with everyone else was typed out. So it didn't remove visible chat, only chat that would have been typed just in the guild channel anyways.

I can't say how others will use such tools in SotA.

 

I'm with you up until the last sentence. People who strictly role play will be in it for the social aspect and not single player. Lone wolves have always been common in online games also IMO. I am not trying to judge anyone with this topic, just want to point out some of the things that do overpower.

 

I logged into ultima online tonight, and went to luna on the atlantic server. It was packed in there, but not one person was chatting. The bank area must have had 30 people there.

 

The other thing to consider is that someone has to host a server for TeamSpeak, and they will have only so many connections. It isn't like 10,000 players can all file into the same server at once. It isn't unusual to see a TeamSpeak server capped at 25 or 50 users.

So a roleplaying group that wants to meet in one location may want to use a voice chat server, but I'm guessing we'll see 100,000+ copies sold total by the time this game launches. Right now we're near 50,000 in pre-alpha. Wait until we have a finished game that really sells on Steam.

So it isn't like a handful of Teamspeak servers means no one will chat in game with text.

 

I guess one of my points is how do we promote in game chat and make it less of a lonely world feeling.

 

Ya, I am not trying to argue points here, I am trying to discuss a problem I see, and how to approach it.

 

Ever go into an elevator and don't want to talk?

 

only when I pass gas and blame it on the next guy!