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Voice in Second Life

The Second Life Voice Viewer is Live! Voice is now part of the main Second Life Viewer. I have participated in Second Life voice tests since the very beginning, first with the Vivox external service (in 2006 we organized the first events with live Vivox voice chat in Second Life with the collaboration of Vivox staff), then in the closed beta, and finally in the open beta (First Look viewer with voice). Now the voice subsystem, based on Vivox technology, has been integrated in the standard Second Life client. I can testify that there has been a huge improvement since the first voice beta releases and now the voice subsystem is solid and user-friendly.

Those who do not wish to use the voice option can, of course, disable it and continue to communicate by text chat. I think I will use a mix of voice and text chat like I do on Skype.

I welcome this development and think it will help unleashing the full potential of Second Life as a communication platform. I am mainly interested in non-gaming applications of Second Life, in particular distance learning, conferences, events and collaborative workspaces, for which voice is definitely a plus. Using a recent but popular terminology, I am an augmentist rather than an immersionist - I am not interested in a parallel “Second Life”, but I am very interested in enhancing (augmenting) my “Real Life” (RL) and think being able to attend a remote meeting or event without traveling is definitely a powerful enhancement. This point of view is shared by most business and educational users of Second Life.

We have enabled voice on all metafuturing sims. Of course, this does not mean that everyone will have to use voice. On the contrary, those who prefer to use text chat will be more than welcome and I am sure most other users will adapt to their preferred communication channel.

Understandably, there are some users of Second Life who, for many reasons, prefer not to use voice. Most of them are primarily interested in Second Life as a role playing game (I am not going to expand on that because I believe the reasons why they do not want to use voice are their own business). Some of them feel that the integration of voice in Second Life will gradually lead to discrimination against them. This is, I think, true in a certain sense: role players will tend to congregate in “role playing sims” where voice is disabled, and I am sure there will be plenty of sim owners who will choose to disable voice and cater to role players. At the same time, role players will certainly miss much of the educational and business action.

I fully understand the frustration of role-players who, in a certain sense, see their magic carpet pulled from under their feet. At the same time, I have always been in favor of voice because I am persuaded that having more options to freely choose is always a good thing, and that removing options because some people prefer not to use them is not acceptable. In other words, live and let live. This principle goes, of course, much beyond Second Life. Live your life as you wish to live it, as long as you don’t do concrete harm to others, and let others free to live their life as they wish as long as they don’t do concrete harm to anyone. I am stressing the word “concrete” to explicitly exclude “moral harm”. Those who do not like the lifestyle of others for abstract “moral” reasons unrelated to any concrete and factual damage should, simply, look the other way.

Posted by on 08/03 at 06:20 AM

Social News Site: http://publicame.corank.com.
Enjoy the web 2.0 social experience!

Posted by publicame.corank.com on 08/03 at 01:10 PM
YAY! I’m very excited about voice in SL!!!!!

I can’t wait to talk to all of my old friends!

RMin

Posted by on 08/03 at 04:22 PM
Yes, voice is finally in and not only that we are going to have the new feature to play with, we+re going to watch how our little society is developing. Lot of worlds have been written so far about voice: from protests to praising, and all the pro and con arguments in between.

I cannot stand on either extremist’s side. Hardly that I will use the voice, but I cannot say it won’t be usefull or that it won’t improve some areas of our world. One thing that I can’t understand is that separation into sects (either pro or contra). One side is very into forcing everybody to use it. One of main points is accusation of gender and identity bending with staying out of voice. Like there are no ways to morph voice with a bit of additional software. Other side is “defending” their right to stay with typing. Point is, world is big enough for all of us. And, nobody is forced to communicate with all the other residents. Funny thing is that it seems lot of us forget that. Terrifying fact is that one group is really into forcing the other into something they don’t want while other feels so insecure about their right to live the second life the way they want to. Beta period is over. Technical things will be done very soon. Now the social period is coming on and it promises a lot of interesting moments.

Posted by dandellion Kimban on 08/03 at 04:27 PM
Hi Dandelion,
I will use voice when it is appropriate, and I will not use it when it is not appropriate.
Yes, the social adaptation period starts now. I am sure the crowds will find the best ways to use voice in VR worlds.
I am also far from either extremist’s side and against forcing anyone to use it or not to use it. There is a new option, and everyone can make her or his own choice. I only wish making new options available in RL were than simple.

Posted by on 08/04 at 07:44 AM
*giggles merrily*

Well, it can’t be that long now, for an affordable voice mask that actually works - and soon after that an affordable voicemarks that actually works and isn’t recognizable as being a voicemask.

The issue is moot for me anyways. I have a Logitech surround sound system on 3 reprogrammed old windows speaker plugs, so I have no space to fit my mike, if I had a working mike that is. But I have this nagging intuitive buzz I may have some money to spend later this month, which will allow me to buy the starting frame for a new PC. By that time I am sure I will be squawking my unbearable voice, ruining all charismatic appeal I built up over the last year.

Posted by on 08/06 at 08:22 PM
Same here!

Posted by Pinoy Money Talk on 02/22 at 04:54 AM
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Posted by trade show displays on 02/22 at 11:03 PM
Voice always gives that extra added dimension to the game, definitely enjoyable.

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Great post dude.. keep it up…

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