Wired: Voice Chat Hurts Immersion

Clive Thompson over at Wired put out a good article this week on voice chat in games like World of Warcraft and how it can "kill the mood". This is something I've long thought and is the number one reason I completely avoid voice chat in any kind of online game. I will be thrilled when voice fonts get to the point where this is no longer a problem, but even they cannot moderate content, only sound.

Recently I logged into World of Warcraft and I wound up questing alongside a mage and two dwarf warriors. I was the lowest-level newbie in the group, and the mage was the de-facto leader. He coached me on the details of each new quest, took the point position in dangerous fights and suggested tactics. He seemed like your classic virtual-world group leader: Confident, bold and streetsmart.

But after a few hours he said he was getting tired of using text chat -- and asked me to switch over to Ventrilo, an app that lets gamers chat using microphones and voice. I downloaded Ventrilo, logged in, dialed him up and ...

Read more of this quality article on Wired.