I’ve been addicted to the beta grid for the past two days. I can only imagine how much worse it will get when the main grid gets the capability to speak. One of the guys at the avastar emailed me asking about my experiences on the beta grid in regards to the new voice client. I’ll just post my reply over here as well.
A few of us are hanging out in the beta grid. There are usually about two groups of people hanging out just talking. You can talk at the same time that others are talking. A lot of us are finding voice chat as being quite addictive. Other times, the buzz seems to wear off - usually when no one is talking. I’ve had a few interesting discussions already on social issues. Many people I find, are saying everyone else’s names wrong. As voice comes to the main grid, we will probably be finding out quickly just how you do say each others names. Voice adds a whole new level to communication in SL. You can put emphases on words and play with sarcasm much easier. The interaction between residents and lindens are much fuller and you get a real sense of who everyone is. Some residents sound rite with who there avatars are. Others - you could never imagine fitting the voice to the avatar, so you start to separate the avatar from the person behind the avatar. Adding in voice morphing is more of a fun toy then an actual application. Although some sound ok, you can still tell that the voice is modulated. I’ve only played around with one piece of software so far (MorphVOC Pro).
Rite now, the camera is your ears, and your head is your mouth. Your voice comes from your head rather then the pelvis (the position of your avatar according to SL servers). You can move your camera around to listen to other peoples conversations. Soon, the distance that you can hear will be capped at 30 meters, although the camera can still move around. This is so that people will be able to visually see anyone who may be able to listen in around them. If you are more then 30 meters away, then they know you can’t hear them.
When I first log on and see a group, I approach them by walking towards them. At first, the voices are low, but as I get closer, everyone becomes clear and I can follow the conversation. Other people at a distance can still be heard, but not as loud. The servers can take up to 100 voices, combine them depending on your camera location and everyones head, and then send the sound to you in one stream. I haven’t been able to test the theory of 100 voices, but it was just a number mentioned to us as the limit. It was stated the closest 100 people would be heard, but I can’t imagine getting more then 100 people in a sphere with a diameter of 60 meters, as well as differentiating between each individual voice. I can also make out what one person is talking if others are talking, but for easier listening, I can just move my camera up to there face.
We’ve had a lot of fun on the beta grid. One thing I love is the flash mobs. We see a couple of people talking in the distance and a group of us decide to run up to them screaming. The result is that the people we saw hear us approaching and the screaming gets louder. It’s just a ton of fun as everyone just laughs uncontrollably for the next few minutes afterwards. We’ve had fun testing out the distance features with animations and rotating objects. One animation “Rave3″ by Plastic Duck, had our avatars animating all over the place very quickly. By constantly yelling and screaming, we found that our voice does travel where the animations place our avatars rather then the physical location that our avatars are actually standing. We have had fun flying away and screaming while we fall back into our groups. We’ve had several conversations such as - how do you pronounce LOL? and say things like, “I Less then three you!” Which is a sideways heart <3.
There is still much to be done with the voice. Muting, Group chat, IM’s, etc. Rite now, everything is still pretty early. The voice servers are separate from the sims, so when the voice servers go down, you are still connected on the sim. The payment for voice on sims is still being determined. There is rumor that it may come with the new sims already paying the higher fees, but educational and grandfathered sims may have to pay extra. Still - everything is rumor. No one knows yet. While we were there, many questions were raised such as recording people, machinima, how to abuse report people due to voice, and more. It’s all exploratory and the lindens who were there were pretty much the ones working on integrating the voice rather then the ones who could look into these issues. They did however say they would bring some of our concerns to the other lindens who could look into them.
