Chat in restaurants, cafes, etc. -- chaos?

[Edmund Broek]

I'm curious about a problem that seems to me must be very frequent but I can't find any solution for it.

Let's say in real life I go to Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks, and there are other customers there. The experience I want and I get is that basically I can't hear what customers at other tables are saying, so my reading isn't disturbed and I'm not embarrassed or distracted by hearing others' conversations. Likewise I expect to be able to hear what people at my table are saying but not what those at other tables are saying. It's not some sort of total blockage -- I can hear individual words or phrases sometimes from nearby tables -- but on the whole it's not an auditory fishbowl.

My experience in Second Life with a cafe is that I hear with perfect clarity everything said by anyone chatting within 20 m. of me. In a two-story cafe I recently visited it meant that I could hear anybody anywhere in the cafe.

I'm trying to imagine solutions to the problem.

1. That a venue owner or Second Life can change the shout, chat, and whisper values within the venue, perhaps to 20, 1.5, and 0.5 m. respectively. I could find no evidence this is possible. It could be like one of those pop-ups that asks whether the venue can control one of your display settings.
2. That a venue owner or Second Life can automatically turn chats into whispers. This would reduce the default chat distance from 20 to 10 m. Not great, but better than nothing.
3. That a venue owner can establish a separate chat channel for each table or couch area and have avatars sitting within it automatically chat or whisper on that channel. Shouts would still be public.
4. Some sort of setting like that for voice, in which one can set volume settings for different people.
5. Some sort of "cone of silence" device on the table or built into the table.
6. Some sort of HUD that visitors would wear that would do something. Dunno.

???

 

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

Okay, am I missing something? Are you talking in voice or text? And if it's text, why don't you just talk to your dining partner in IM and ignore local?

[Love Zhaoying]

If you have K.A.O.S., then Get Smart! 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Smart#KAOS

Edited February 9, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[Edmund Broek]

Theresa's solution works for these purposes.

If people around me start shouting that the building is on fire, in RL I would hear it, in this solution I won't. The point is not that this is a situation I'd encounter in SL, but rather that this solution is really artificial and dents the feeling of immersion in the virtual world. It doesn't break it, but it dents it.

The venue I was in has an NPC at the counter downstairs. I went upstairs. The NPC continued to chat with me regardless. One can't IM an NPC. Yes, another edge case.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Edmund Broek

[Orwar]

Just IM or Conference chat (voice or type) with those around your table, and let local be.

However, if the café is a chat spot, and people come in and everyone is hiding in IMs... Well, it'll be like pretty much any other chat spot.

[Chaser Zaks]

Whispering works too. I think that is a 5 or less meter radius.

[Callum Meriman]

Sadly, there are no controls so the landowner can set their own distances.

If it's a point of immersion you need to find your own solution. Myself, I run with chat bubbles active, so unless I am looking at someone I don't "hear" them.

[Bree Giffen]

I myself have also solved this problem by just not listening to anyone.

But seriously, there isn't any fix for this other than what we have suggested. When you chat in busy areas you just have to ignore the other simultaneous conversations ...like eating dim sum on Sunday morning.