VOIP in online games
Today, it is quite a common scene to see the players using VoIP in order to communicate
with the other teammates. Voice communication has become a popular tools used during
the game play because it is known to be a fastest way to exchanging data (such as
strategy planning, combat situation, etc.) between players.
Nevertheless, voice is somewhat convenience since there’s no need for using the
keyboard to type the message, which is somewhat slower than speaking. Voice also
eliminates problems such as spell mistakes and no need to spend time inventing code or
short words for a long sentence.
Though voice is viewed as an effective tool, and to some people; the best way, to
communicate between teammates in multiplayer, but for online game pioneers, voice
communication technology is still a concern. Richard Bartle have expressed this opinion
over this issue. As a father of virtual world, Bartle thinks that though today’s technology
allow the players to be more engage in the game and make the game like Counter Strike
become more effective gameplay, yet it is still lacking the ability to let the player be
immersed in such a way that it should be for online gamming; especially in MMORPG.
Bartle’s article
-Short description on his article
In Bartle’s article “Not Yet You Fools!”, he comments on the voice communication
feature in the new Xbox console. He stated that voice can be good for games that focus
largely on the players’ tactic and teamwork. For games that the players are suppose to
take a role of
If you introduce reality into a virtual world, it's no longer a virtual
world: it's just an adjunct to the real world. It ceases to be a place,
and reverts to being a medium. Immersion is enhanced by
closeness to reality, but thwarted by isomorphism with it: the act of
will required to suspend disbelief is what sustains a player's drive
to be, but it disappears when there is no disbelief required.
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Though the use of voice communication in the game is popular at the moment, but it is
not the feature that everybody are so excited about; at least not in the opinion of the
virtual world pioneer like Richard Bartle. Bartle is one of the people who are not so fond
of the idea including voice communication in online games. By adding reality present in
the player’s voice to the virtual world, the virtual world is no longer ‘virtual’ as in his
quote;
“Adding reality to a virtual world robs it of what makes it compelling - it
takes away that which is different between virtual worlds and the real
world: the fact that they are not the real world.
Voice is reality.”1
Though the technology of vice cloaking can solve this issue, there are still other issues he
pointed out, in which haven’t been able to deal with, such as accent;
“...instead of sounding like I do in real life I can sound like someone in
real life does after they've had their voice put through a processor. It
fools no-one. Besides, even if the pitch changes were good enough to
make men sound like women and vice versa (which they aren't), it
wouldn't alter accents. "Hey, this elf babe is from England!". Hello
reality.”2
-Comment on his article
When we look on article’s the timeline, Bartle wrote this back in 2003. Since then, the
technology of voice communication has improved in such a way that it is user friendlier
and ability to handle a large data.
Bartle, ’Not Yet You Fools’2003, Game+Girls=Advance website
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2003/07/28/not_yet_you_fools.html
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Bartle, ’Not Yet You Fools’2003, Game+Girls=Advance website
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2003/07/28/not_yet_you_fools.html
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We believe that Bartle is looking at this issue from the point where suspense of disbelief
means the entire player’s identity must be changed to fit their avatar profile.
However, as we can see what is happening in the game play at the moment, the obstacle
of using the player’s real voice does not prevent them from playing, and they do not seem
to care. In fact, many people today are using VoIP while playing MMOs and the number
keeps increasing everyday. The use of voice in in-game communication does not limited
itself to only cooperative type of game like Counter Strike, but there are significant
number of MMORPG players who use VOIP during the game.
Analyzing bit by bit on a way to creating “believable world” containing voice
communication after Bartle’s point of view
According to one section of his article, he suggested that if the technology permit, the
players can choose to ways of communication after their requirement, as he stated;
OK, the technology to do this isn't quite there yet, but suppose it
were. You'd have something that converts speech to text and
something else that converts text to speech. So in theory, I could
say something in my male, English voice, it could be converted
into text, then replayed to listeners in a female, New English voice.
It would be real-time voice communication, but no more "me" than
my graphical avatar: just clothing for an alternative identity.
In this section, we will investigate different technologies exist today, in which he
described in his article. We will look into both advantage and disadvantage side of them.
text to speech
The text to speech software is working by transfer text document into wave file where the
user can just listen to the content instead of reading it. The basic process is done by
scanning the text and match the word to the pre-defined sound before combine them
together and make the software “read aloud” for the user to listen. There are many
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commercial text to speech softwares such as 2nd Speech Center, AT&T Natural voices,
Cepstral voices, and Neospeech
-speech to text
-speech to speech
Analyzing bit by bit on a way to creating “believable world” according to us
-Voice in the real world
-Voice in spatial world
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