Do You Use Voice?

[Luna Bliss]

Dear God

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Dear God

The Dark Gods of the Grid can't hear you, they use OLD viewers without new PBR Voice-Spam.

You have to inscribe your message on the back of a sacrificial noob BEFORE you yeet them into the volcano.

 

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

10 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Dear God

The Dark Gods of the Grid can't hear you, they use OLD viewers without new PBR Voice-Spam.

You have to inscribe your message on the back of a sacrificial noob BEFORE you yeet them into the volcano.

I just pray silently -- sometimes it's all we can do...

Edited August 24 by Luna Bliss

[Arwyn Quandry]

Serious reply: I use it during discussion events that I attend. At first I was pretty hesitant to voice because there's a mismatch between the av I attend the discussions on and my RL voice, but other people also mismatch and no one seems bothered by it, so I got brave. It works well in that structured environment where you're waiting to be called on to speak. 

Out in the rest of SL though? Never. I'd never voice in public while I'm shopping and I hate the people who eat into their mics on a busy sim. Get on a private call with your friends and leave us in peace if you're gonna do that. 

[Gabriele Graves]

16 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

The Dark Gods of the Grid can't hear you, they use OLD viewers without new PBR Voice-Spam.

You have to inscribe your message on the back of a sacrificial noob BEFORE you yeet them into the volcano.

 

I'll pray to any god that'll make sure WebRTC isn't known as PBR Voice going forward.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

13 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I'll pray to any god that'll make sure WebRTC isn't known as PBR Voice going forward.

PBR-Voice! PBR-Voice!

LL Forced It Through

So It Isn't A Choice!

PBR-Voice!

 

[discussionbot]

36 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I'll pray to any god that'll make sure WebRTC isn't known as PBR Voice going forward.

Great idea!

[Zalificent Corvinus]

34 minutes ago, discussionbot said:

 

 

Will PBR-Voice overheat my Audio Processor Unit?

Asking for a not-friend, as I won't use it my self, ever.

[Luna Bliss]

I hope the new Voice thingy launches smoothly....I attend a class where voice is critical!  Though I know Discord is an option sometimes it's hard to move everybody there...along with the logistics of doing so quickly I've encountered some die-hard Discord haters...

[Claireschen Hesten]

I think i've only ever turned voice on once and that was in my noobier days when I worked in a club and there was some problem or another with the stream the booked act was trying to use so they tried to do it over voice instead. 

[Chelsea Hansen]

Ruins immersion, but I'll use it when needed.

[Toothless Draegonne]

On 8/21/2024 at 3:30 AM, Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia said:

I do not use voice, and I avoid hanging out in places where people use voice a lot.

That said, I am looking forward to trying WebRTC.  I think most non-voice using people don't fully grasp how nice a higher bitrate is.  I'm not being a snobby audiophile when I say that.  Vivox streams at a variable sample rate, that can dip as low as 4 khz.  Last I heard, WebRTC will reliably stream at 48 khz.  That's like the aural equivalent of comparing 8 bit and 16 bit graphics.  Web RTC is better than a regular telephone, which samples at 8khz, in America.  WebRTC is not going to be as nice as a club's audio stream, though.  Icecast, for example, streams at a 256khz sample rate.  So it won't be the best quality ever, but it will be an improvement.  So when you hear it, you might like it, even if you don't like voice now.  Or you might not like it.  I might not like it, but I'll at least give it a fair chance to win me over.

I think WebRTC will probably improve voice more than PBR 'improved' graphics.  Unless LL is pushing a broken implementation again.  That wouldn't surprise me, at this point.  I hope it works, though.

Pretty sure you mean 256kbit/sec. Even high end pro audio equipment tends to top out at a recording rate of 192khz. In any case, parcel streams are typically MP3, and more modern codecs are vastly better per kilobit/sec these days. If WebRTC's audio rate is 40kbit, that's suspiciously close to the recommended rate for "Full Band Speech" using the Opus codec. From the testing I've been doing, it's definitely sounding better than whatever Vivox is set at.

And maybe I might sometimes voice up. Even on Linux, which isn't that hard to get working if you know how to drag the right libs in. But I do like local chat in most cases.

[Prokofy Neva]

12 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Nah.  That's simply a statement of the fact that future upgrades of the Firestorm viewer will be based on future upgrades of the standard LL viewer. That has always been the case. Those upgrades will naturally have the new voice system, WebRTC , enabled. If you continue using older versions of the Firestorm viewer, which includes the old (Vivox) voice system, you'll find that it will stop working after a while.

There's no threat there. It's just an alert to let users know that the old version of Firestorm is, well, old. Don't be surprised. You can't expect it to contain all the newer features (which you might not like) and you can't expect all the older features (like Vivox voice) to keep working forever.  If they hadn't said something now, you can imagine the screams later from some users ... "What happened to my beloved voice??!!"   Thank you, Prok, for pointing out that many (most?) users will just shrug their shoulders and say, "Meh".

I totally disagree.

You don't announce flatly "You will have no voice" -- personally, in that way -- unless you want it to be a threat, and a statement with a real edge to it. As if you will be disenfranchised. It's a double entendre with a twist.

Otherwise, more neutrally, you might write, "Voice won't work for you."

And I don't attribute LL's push on this to be "incompetence" and not "malice" or however Scylla put it because it's always been this driving campaign with a distinct message that if you don't get on board, you are not fashionable, your computer is archaic, etc. etc. So there *is* an edge to it from LL and their third-party partners amplify that edge.

Obviously those people picked for the Shop 'n Hop were those who could show off PBR stuff.

 

[Luna Bliss]

I've begun another prayer vigil....

[JeromFranzic]

12 hours ago, Arwyn Quandry said:

Serious reply: I use it during discussion events that I attend. At first I was pretty hesitant to voice because there's a mismatch between the av I attend the discussions on and my RL voice, but other people also mismatch and no one seems bothered by it, so I got brave. It works well in that structured environment where you're waiting to be called on to speak. 

Out in the rest of SL though? Never. I'd never voice in public while I'm shopping and I hate the people who eat into their mics on a busy sim. Get on a private call with your friends and leave us in peace if you're gonna do that. 

Thanks for this response. This is the likely scenario that would get me to use voice at all. Your second paragraph describes the experience I sometimes encounter when I occasionally play around in VRChat. I haven't used voice there yet, either.

[WeFlossDaily]

Here's a picture of a typical user before using PBR voice:

And here's a picture of the same user after using PBR Voice for a total of several hours.

Apparently this is completely normal and nothing to be alarmed about.

[Chery Amore]

I do voice but not as default. Like half the night my bf and I will just use text chat... we might switch to voice if we decide to do something hands free like boating, flying, even just walking around in sl.. or if it's just more convenient.
I'm an introvert in real and frankly sound sensitive so I couldn't take group voice.. I might struggle through it for friends (real friends) also. Although I doubt I could friend people where voice is their default for whatever reason they have.  Voice just wears me out socially.
There is also the immersion perspective. I know for instance that my voice has to be deeper than how I see my in game persona.. and I am also more real "me" in voice because I'm no actress. So I can't totally be the Chery I envision when in game and I dunno that might make me sad if people can't accept how I like to immerse?
Personally I'm good with friends that text chat or sometimes but not exclusively voice. If someone comes across as obnoxiously demanding of voice from me for whatever they reason they have it's pretty funny to me. They  (to me) paint the world with broad strokes that pairs with a small mind. I do understand preference totally though and if couched in those more polite terms it makes sense. Admittedly though, since I've been with my sl boyfriend for 7 years now I don't run into those types anymore. Good thing he played the long game about voice.. Must have lasted a whole two weeks!
I do pretty much exclusively use discord now for voice, but will try the new system when it goes into effect. Hopefully it will be better or as good as discord is.

[PheebyKatz]

19 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

The Dark Gods of the Grid can't hear you, they use OLD viewers without new PBR Voice-Spam.

You have to inscribe your message on the back of a sacrificial noob BEFORE you yeet them into the volcano.

 

I find the old Exploding Noob, modified to detonate on collision, is the best, as it has the most realistic effect when thrown into the volcano. When sacrificing noobs, immersion is super-important, so you need the best effects. It helps also if they have a reservation, so the volcano owner can assemble the necessary acolytes, etc., to provide a proper volcanic sacrifice experience.

By that same token, and towards the same end, they might want to make sure voice is disabled. It can totally ruin the ambience.

Edited August 25 by PheebyKatz

[Hara Surya]

No.

Nobody does.

No one uses it.

At all.

The fact they're still trying to improve a feature literally no one uses when basic stuff like, you know, loading a couple megabytes - as in 2048-bytes - of data over a gigabit connection lags for 10-15 minutes and walking around causes rubber banding that literally no one else has in 2024 still happens is mind-boggling.

I'd say that the server code is held together with spit and bailing wire, but the spit dried up in 2008 and the bailing wire rusted to dust more than a decade ago.

[InnerCity Elf]

17 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I hope the new Voice thingy launches smoothly....I attend a class where voice is critical!  Though I know Discord is an option sometimes it's hard to move everybody there...along with the logistics of doing so quickly I've encountered some die-hard Discord haters...

I don't hate Discord, and can navigate it despite being 50+, but use it in my "Business Life", and don't like to mix that with private use; coupled with the nuisances of multiple accounts with multiple mails to manage on the same platform, it might be more something like that, apart from many people wanting to do everything linked to one platform on that very platform and not "cross-platforming", than people actually being Discord haters for many.

And while SL folks generally might be more tech-friendly than their non-SL age peers, registering on yet another platform that you don't know, with miles of ToS and you having to take care to neither get hacked nor to lock yourself out accidentally, having to get used to a new interface, etc., it might be too daunting for many. I see that many such things that seem easy to me, are unsurmountable for many elder people I know, even some of the same generation, or younger. Some might rather say "I don't like Discord" than "I'm too slow for new things" or such. 

Anyway, here's to hoping for improved SL voicing. Classes are one of the rare reasons I'd happily use voice for. Trying to get into a language class since a while, but in this case, it's not voice keeping me from it, but timezone/timetable.

Edited August 25 by InnerCity Elf

[Luna Bliss]

56 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

18 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I hope the new Voice thingy launches smoothly....I attend a class where voice is critical!  Though I know Discord is an option sometimes it's hard to move everybody there...along with the logistics of doing so quickly I've encountered some die-hard Discord haters...

I don't hate Discord, and can navigate it despite being 50+, but use it in my "Business Life", and don't like to mix that with private use; coupled with the nuisances of multiple accounts with multiple mails to manage on the same platform, it might be more something like that, apart from many people wanting to do everything linked to one platform on that very platform and not "cross-platforming", than people actually being Discord haters for many.

And while SL folks generally might be more tech-friendly than their non-SL age peers, registering on yet another platform that you don't know, with miles of ToS and you having to take care to neither get hacked nor to lock yourself out accidentally, having to get used to a new interface, etc., it might be too daunting for many. I see that many such things that seem easy to me, are unsurmountable for many elder people I know, even some of the same generation, or younger. Some might rather say "I don't like Discord" than "I'm too slow for new things" or such. 

Anyway, here's to hoping for improved SL voicing. Classes are one of the rare reasons I'd happily use voice for. Trying to get into a language class since a while, but in this case, it's not voice keeping me from it, but timezone/timetable.

Yes that makes sense -- it being daunting to those less tech-savvy and some older people. It is a bit confusing to comprehend in the beginning. And I've encountered a few who just don't want another piece of software beeping at them vying for their time. Originally the beeping whenever anybody made a post or a friend contacted me was annoying and I deleted the whole thing, but I learned how to turn all that off so it never beeps and I can check on messages when I'm ready.

I like how Discord is on my phone and I can easily contact people if my internet goes down. Also, the main body of a class I teach is on Discord and this is super handy -- inworld groups are not so good for that as the lessons don't remain for everyone to view at their leisure and members can't comment easily and get feedback.

[Luna Bliss]

I'm fortunate in that Voice has always worked easily for me once I learned how to set it up correctly. I know quite a few people who use it all the time but generally I prefer text. It is handy for leaders of classes though, as it takes a long time to type out the information.

I'm considering switching to Voice when I do Reiki sessions on others as it might feel more personal, and typing is a bit distracting.

I know a retired 1st life therapist in SL who sees clients in SL --  she insists on Voice due to receiving greater information that way and so can guide the sessions better.

[Maklin Deckard]

I think I accidentally turned it on a few times when it was first released, but never used it.    I like a nice, quiet room, and voice is anathema to quiet.

[Dorientje Woller]

Nope ... using sign language in front of a mic looks rather silly

[Ceka Cianci]

I did years ago , when I didn't have to wear head phones and had more time to myself.

I have to be able to hear the world around me or I'll be on edge the whole time, like the last girl alive in a horror movie.. hehehehe

Because everyone thought it would be a hoot to see how far I jumped out of my skin when I had headphones on.. So I can't wear anything that hinders the world around me.