The Plan for Voice
Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 7:06 PM by: Jeska LindenThe new Voice feature has been live on the Beta Grid for the last two months. We’re very excited about this very cool new feature, which has been in design and development for over a year now, and can’t wait to release it to a wider audience, so that everyone can experience it. (Read the initial announcement about Voice here.)
As you can imagine the coordination involved in the release of a feature as big as Voice is complex and we want to make sure to release it with the least possible complications. Our current plan is to release a First Look version of the voice client within the next few weeks. Then, after we’ve gathered good feedback on the First Look release and fixed any remaining bugs, we’ll release Voice as a required viewer. When we do release Voice, we plan to do it right and in a way that incorporates as much of the Beta feedback we’ve received as possible.
What is the First Look Viewer?
The First Look Viewer refers to a publicly available test version of the Second Life client. It is designed to allow testing of new client side features by Residents against the Live Grid. This viewer connects to the Main Grid, so that you can test it in your everyday Second Life. This is a test viewer connecting to the live grid which means everything you do is for real. We want you to use this test viewer for your normal day-to-day activities, but please be aware that it might be buggier than normal.
Need a Headset?
Looking for an affordable headset so you can check out the new Voice feature? We know that headsets can be expensive, so we’ve made an effort to help you keep costs down by creating a special partnership offering new headsets at a deep discount. We’ve made arrangements with GBH, an audio/video product supplier, to supply a range of high-quality, pre-tested headset options that work well with Second Life Voice. Please visit our partner site for more information on these headphones.
Thank you all for your patience while we work to improve Second Life. We’ll be sure to post more information as the release date for the Voice First Look Viewer approaches.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:12 PM
I really don’t want to seem negative, but is this really the right time to be doing this with all the other stability issue going on right now?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:13 PM
Just tell me where the *disable voice* button is for my viewer and my land so I can *utilize* this wonderfull new function.. lol
May 24th, 2007 at 7:14 PM
This has been asked before but maybe we can get a difinative answer.
I understand that on the Mainland voice can be enabled on a plot you own.
On a Private region will the region owner have a control to toggle voice on/off for that region and then the plot owner be able to choose in the same manner as the mainland?
Can you please explain the process of enabling Voice a in a little more detail
May 24th, 2007 at 7:18 PM
Can’t wait!
May 24th, 2007 at 7:18 PM
this is a really bad timing example.
LL needs to hire some real PR experts lol.
But this example, combined with destruction LL unleashed across the grid with v1.16, serves as a textbook example of why any organization that wants to grow and grow geographically just can’t grow unless they have centralized and iron fisted control over the development process and testing.
What will happen when voice is jammed in on the west coast and weather is jammed 9in on the east cost and the bandaids applied in between are not in either code set?
KABOOM.
its called version trees and its a massive headache and hard to deal with.
Without a centralized group development management function it is doomed to failure.
At least they are smart enough to do a first look. shoulda done that before dumping in weaponies… i mean sculpties… the griefers love these new toys i hear. gonna be a very long weekend now…
May 24th, 2007 at 7:21 PM
Voice is a lovely concept. I would prefer that you gave priorty to issues such as loss of inventory, which is costing us all money. I would not at this time invest any money whatsoever in a headset or any other item needed to utilize a non-essential, frivolous enhancement. when basic service cannot be sustained at an acceptable level,
May 24th, 2007 at 7:21 PM
How much bandwidth will this require from me? I used 19.7gig worth on download last month (I have a 20 gig limit from my ISP) — how much EXTRA will I be using with voice enabled?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:23 PM
Wow? Residents Finally Get A Voice In SL? Are We Talking “Vox Populi” Or Pure Gimic Crowd/Corp Pleaser Here? =P
…And Why On Earth Would Anyone Want To Have A Second Life Where People Sounded Just Like They Did In Real Life? Ewww?
Cant We At Least Have Some Cool Voice Tools To Make Us Sound Larger/Smaller/Older/Younger/Sexier/Cooler/Smarter Etc?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:24 PM
MMmmm i dont think that would work out too well …. cause of the spam that may occur … and pluse i prefer to talk to other ppls on Skype MSN or yahoo .. but i mostly use skype .. so im thinking that is more better off
May 24th, 2007 at 7:25 PM
Will the recommended headsets work with Mac OS X?
Also - any plans for recommending Bluetooth headsets?
Thanks.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:27 PM
@ Ann: Please be assured that we will not launch voice until we are sure that it is stable and has incorporated as much feedback from the extended Beta testing period as possible. We’ve been working hard to ensure that this new feature will help enhance Second Life. As mentioned in the blog above, we will not be rolling out the Voice First Look Viewer for another week or two.
@ Garth: The parcel owner will be able to toggle the Voice feature on and off and also control whether or not those outside of the parcel can hear it. Unless a speaker is in a private voice channel (i.e., a private, restricted parcel or a direct/one-to-one IM type voice chat ), they can be heard even if they don’t physically see all of the avatars around them. Estate owners will be able to decide whether or not their region is voice enabled.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:29 PM
We keep saying it and LL keeps not getting it. Enough with the new features. Spend your time fixing SL instead of bringing us new features that break SL. Getting awfully tired of the same screw ups every fricking update.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:29 PM
So if everyone is talking outloud in Voice isnt this going to be a little confusing trying to listen to so many people talking outloud?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:29 PM
This option would not be a suitable one for deaf or mute users who cannot use their voice or understand what they hear. I am a deaf person who really enjoys using Second Life and it’d obviously suck if everyone started to use the voice feature. Just seems a bit unfortunate. I hope that one day voice will not be a must in order to use Second Life, if so, well then that means we won’t be able to play anymore.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:34 PM
Many people are going to write about how stability issues should be handled first before releasing voice. I agree, but at the same time since Linden Lab is determined to release voice as soon as possible, I want to formally request a feature to alter voice live (for those who are not the same gender in their second life as they are in real life) via the client. For those in this situation, they will not use the voice feature because it would seem weird to have a burly man’s voice come from a female avatar or have a girly voice from a guy avatar. This feature can also have some morphs for those who aren’t humans in second life (such as furries or aliens). I know there are commercial programs available to do this (for Windows) but there is a lack of options for those of us on a mac, plus having to run another program to do so would further reduce the speed and quality (possibly to the point where it would be pointless to use voice). So please, integrate! Thanks!
May 24th, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Send LL a message they can hear: petition your land owners to shut voice off. When the bulk of SL is voice dark mayby then LL will hear the drum beat: FIX THE PROBLEMS FIRST.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:38 PM
What about the people that want to stick to text or cannot hear?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:39 PM
Linden Lab forgot to post information on the Class 4 sim owner and voice. There was talk of free accounts and Class 5 sim owners getting voice for free and Class 4 sim owners footing the bill for everyone. Is that still the plan?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:40 PM
Guys I know you want to be positive with new features but this timing is absolutely awful. There are umpteen issues with the last update, you should be addressing them before announcing this. Very poor PR guys.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:41 PM
[...] According to Linden Lab (who are taking pains to make the schedule for voice deployment clearer) a new First Look viewer will be made available “within the next few weeks” that supports voice on the main grid (Agni). Like other First Look viewers before it, it will be beta-code, in flux for testing, but being on the live grid, anything it does is as permanent as the official viewer. [...]
May 24th, 2007 at 7:41 PM
Sorry, but my wireless connection is slow enough that I have to keep “Play Streaming Music” off as it is. If this goes full-scale, I will likely have people wondering why I can’t hear them, so I am going to close off for now and start a new group called. “I can’t hear you!”.
For those of you who have the bandwidth to make this work… enjoy!
May 24th, 2007 at 7:41 PM
i’m simply not interested in voice…. if i wanted that i would just call people on the dam phone….
May 24th, 2007 at 7:45 PM
I agree with Tony. It is disheartening right in the middle of tremendous grid disruption to see a blog post pop up talking about a huge new feature release… when all I wanted was to see an update on the blog post talking about the grid issues.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:47 PM
I have tried voice on the Voice Beta. Its fun initially, but I stll prefer the text chat. Its kinda like ya we all have cell phones in RL but the majority of my friends use texting messages 90% of the time. My biggest problem with voice is gonna be everyone in the house is gonna know what im up to lol.. no more playing SL while listening to tunes or TV, sheesh, lol
May 24th, 2007 at 7:47 PM
“i’m simply not interested in voice…. if i wanted that i would just call people on the dam phone….”
I can’t say better!
May 24th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
@ Cenji - all of the USB headsets will work with the Mac, but the analog ones may not work with some Mac models. All of the headsets will work with PCs.
@ Breeze - I understand your frustration, we do have a major percentage of our team working on scaling and other performance issues - as Cory mentioned in a recent Town Hall, close to 70% of our development team is currently working on stability issues. Simultaneously, we are working to improve the feature set of Second Life to ensure it’s future as the best Virtual Worlds platform it can be.
@ bladyblue - I’m not sure if the final pricing has been worked out for Voice as yet, but as soon as it has we will be sure to post it here in the blog.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
Jeska says: “they can be heard even if they don’t physically see all of the avatars around them.”
This is a very important thing to realise people… If you can camera someone you can hear them, the 20M chat limit does not apply.
Untether your camera from the debug menus, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D / Client / Disable Camera Constraints, then set your draw distance to 320M or so, and you can camera into the escorts skybox and hear them perfectly, as if you were in bed with them, and they would never know.
This takes TOS spying violations to a new level! Sculptie Penises will be nothing compared to being able to record people a Sim away.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
A plan! Woo!
I love voice.
Also, complaining is for whiny little girls. Especially when you don’t even understand the thing you’re whining about. This feature affects the grid exactly 0%.
It’s on different servers.
It’s not in the official release client.
That means, woo! It’s not an issue. If you want to complain about the development of this feature, you’re already months and months too late. This is almost ready NOW. Go waste someone else’s time with it.
In fact, you may feel free to waste my time with it at baba@libsecondlife.org because I have little else better to do.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:49 PM
Although personally i have no intrest in chat function within second life i accept its coming however im hoping that maybe you could add a little mute symbol within name tag or something simalar so people who chose not to use this feature can be seen by people trying to communicate via voice.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:51 PM
@#6… Milo, i saw an advertisement for some weird voice morpher for women to use to change their voices into gruff male voices to keep annoying guys in sl away.
(i suspect its a scam… i suspect a lot of “women” can simply key their mic and get the same effect without a voice morphing utility roflmao)
either way voice can be fun or not fun depending on how you look at it. and if you don’t like it you can mute and/or only go places where it is disabled.
And the fact they are doing a first look is a hopeful sign they will begin doing monthly releases after extended first look beta trials. the so-called beta grid isnt big enough to be called a beta grid. its more like a fat alpha grid at best.
First look approach rocks.
But we still need a hiatus on new features until the existing defects are resolved to an acceptable minimal thrubbing instead of the deafening roar level.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:53 PM
Oh yeah… Does it work with Linux
May 24th, 2007 at 7:55 PM
“we want to make sure to release it with the least possible complications”
Oh?
So, “least” means there will admittedly be bugs at implimentation?
I have no plan to use voice, ever. Can’t see much use for it when I can’t teleport, chat is still broken (even though it was apparently the reason for the last patch), can’t rez objects and can’t create clothing.
It’s been said a million times before. Forget shiny, fix the bugs.
Thanks for another reason to tier down more. I appreciate the heads-up.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:56 PM
i think everyone can agree with me sl has incredible potential thats not being realised in world because so many people are experiencing problems being in world. On one hand i welcome new features but on the other i want to be able to one day log on to sl and find my avatar at full size, my money displayed, the location i’m in showing properly, the packet loss at least at below 5%, and the inventory actually fetching half the inventory from the database, the friends list displaying who actually is online and offline. the search database working at least 90% of the time shall i keep listing these problems cause there are hundreds more. If sl is to continue to thrive and grow and survive another couple of years these issues seriously need resolving and it’s all very well telling us that you have most of the dev team working on the bugs but i think the facts need to be faced SL will not last 3 more years of being the buggiest system built since windows 98. LL will not see more premium accounts being made the flow of real money will start to dwindle because people will not be able to trust that when they stick their hard earned real money in world that it doesn’t suddenly get swallowed up by one of the sl bugs never to be seen again.
LL you have to remember sl has become a service you are providing and just like any service the customers expect and demand a certain level of ACTUAL service to be provided.
start listening to the loyal customers who post on these blogs…start listening to US cause whats the point of a metaverse with no residents.
We have been with you this long we are putting in the hard yards to see you prove to us that sl will be what it can be.
I honestly fail to see that you can revive this current system i fail to see that the bugs will be removed…i think really you should concentrate on rolling out a new architecture and a new client…start right back at the beginning by all means put all the new stuff in that has been added can’t go completely backwards but the more you remove bugs the more bugs are created the current sl as we know it needs to break out of the cocoon and spread its wings.
And if you do this suggestion take heed of this..find a way to transfer all the stuff residents have accumulated without transferring the bugs that may be hardcoded to these things.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:57 PM
What the heck is the advantage of this Voice feature? I see only yet more things to go wrong in an already infuriating bug-fest, and as someone who struggles with serious sociophobia, I very much need the feeling of safety that the annonimity and escapism of text-based communication provides. It is bad enough READING some of the obsenities that some people happily spew out in SL (and are never banned for). I do NOT want to actually HEAR this also.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:58 PM
#21 ann - generally agree with you (Ann for lifetime SL presidio - yay) but they won’t stop churning out the new stuff. Anyway this seems pretty stable. Voice? still not sure but just because i’m shy
- and did you play on beta (and with the sculpties - off topic but i love them )?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:04 PM
Okhaving just read the thread about the sculpties competition where several people pointed out there were umpteen issues I have to retract my initial comment.
You’re having a laugh with this update. Address the problems, at least provide an update outlining the problems users have raised. The slow grid update with no comments doesn’t even come close to addressing the issues.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:04 PM
So i tied voice in beta - works cool - of course you get more than 5 peeps talking and its chaos - constant interrupting each other and talking over other - not on purpose mind you just in trying to have a conversation.
I’m thinking it should be a bit longer than anticipated before its able to go main stream, but i don’t think that will happen.
Why you ask? - well the “partnered” site thats set up to sell all the poor headsetless heads out there some headsets, which of course means the LL will get a kickback - so I’m guessing that’s the biggest push to get voice on so fast - helps sell headsets and line the LL pockets with some extra beer money.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:06 PM
@ Milo, voice chat has been something that SL Residents have asked for going back to at least 2005. It and at least fifteen separate feature requests were made in the old Feature Voting tool, with over 1,500 votes all together. I only searched for “voice”, so there could even be others. So no, this isn’t just a gimmick or corporate pleaser. Also, residents on the beta grid have already been finding ways to use voice-changing software to make them sound like the opposite sex, or a robot, or a dragon, or whatever.
@Marci, some of the best times I’ve had with friends in SL is when a bunch of us started a Skype conference and explored SL, laughing until we couldn’t breathe. It’ll be so much easier to do that with voice integrated in SL.
@Mystic, voice chat is spatialized, which means it fades out with distance, and the direction of the voice from your speakers pans to be relative to the location of the avatar speaking. Once even with a pile of people in Abbots on the beta grid, all the voices weren’t overwhelming.
So far my experiences with voice on the beta grid have been great. Right after sculpties hit the beta grid I logged in and a group of us all played with sculpties together, chatting about things you could do with them. It’s really nice to be able to talk and edit at the same time without having to switch focus around from the edit box to the chat input.
The cool thing is when I just wanted quiet on the beta grid, I could just go to preferences and turn voice off.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:06 PM
A comment on the GUI….
I usually run with the chat history window open so that I can keep up with the flood of chat I am often presented with. Bubbles and the normal stream of chat on the screen just doesnt stick around long enough for me to stay with.
The new combined chat/voice/IM window is just too friggin HUGE. Could you at least make the top part detachable or scaleable in some way so that it doesnt eat up a quarter of my screen? I know you’ve made the UI scaleable but if I resort to that the text becomes too small for me to read. (adjustable fonts in history would be great!)
Seiously this to me is a major issue. And while it can be set somewhat transparent by moving the focus away from it… it is still a pain.
I do like the one-stop shopping of the chat and IM combination but I’d rather be able to adjust it so it doesn’t leave me blind while trying to keep an eye on what’s being said or who’s saying it. Here’s an idea… make your minimap a radar of sorts… or a separate chat radar that operates like it.
More suggestions….
I -really- would like to be able to hold private voice chats via IM, or group IM.
It would be great to have a switchable private mode… IM would cover this but perhaps also a kind of ‘include in private voice chat’ for those near by in that little listener list.
Voice aleration ability for RolePlayers. Profiles where one can save like you do skins for pitch alteration and effects. Role Players being able to sound like their characters when using voice would draw in a lot of people.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Thanks Baba for the comments. Those who are whining can be forgiven, not everyone understand the development process. Am sure Jeska is used to deal with those reactions as the same pattern of reactions have come up very recently. Hang in there Jeska, by this time I bet you can handle those illogical negative comments in your sleep. Glad voice is here, and @Mitsuyasi Tiger, you will use voice, trust me, you will.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:09 PM
So…this is going to be another useless feature that I won’t particularly use, and I am sure that the parcel owner of the sims I play on will not turn it on, due to the extra money it will cost.
To be honest, 70% is a lot of staff…yes, I admit it, but is it enough? Apparently not. I would rather that the persons being put towards updating and upgrading SL, be put to work fixing the current SL.
I do not care for updates if the game does not work, it DEFEATS the entire purpose. If another 20% are working on upgrading SL, put them to work with the other 70% to fix the game so we can all enjoy the way SL used to be nearly a year ago. The nearly unspoken crash or client lock up, the workable lag, ya know?
Now I crash upwards of five times a day, I can’t go to sims without being hit with a huge mess of lag that I have learned to cope with.
LL, you guys were doing a great job when I started, but it’s going downhill, the handbrake is in your grasp to stop this train wreck, please for God sake work on the NOW not the future. The future will always be there, it will never go away, but if you have no *now* then you will have no future.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:15 PM
Just as long as the angry tweens don’t get to troll popular places I’m happy with voice. :>
May 24th, 2007 at 8:16 PM
The day you add voice is the day I quit SL. It’s a bandwidth hog anyway. I keep the sound turned off anyway so as not to wake others. And even good headphones suck. Cheap headphones suck more. So what if it’s “voluntary”? We non voicers will be a communication handicapped minority (hey, thanks for including a spell checker here, why not in chat?) and the people who buy a mike and headphones won’t want to bother with a keyboard. Yeah, You’ll gain some people but you’ll lose some too and I suspect they will be some of teh more literate types that make SL worthwhile. Well, it was fun while it lasted. I suppose I’ve wasted more tehanb enough time here anyway.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:18 PM
Voice? “I’m not sure if the final pricing has been worked out for Voice as yet, but as soon as it has we will be sure to post it here in the blog.”
Hey — I don’t want voice. There are enough distractions already and I would pick up the phone if i needed to talk. I don’t intend to use voice, so I don’t see why i should be stuck with a new pricing. GEE… SL has too many unstable gimmicks as it is.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:19 PM
Applauds LL for the Waiting time. As for headsets? Well I have a very Expensive DJ setup, and uses this for my everyday Chats, DJ and of course Skype. This is so wonderful that LL has taken the time on this one, and avoided a possible System Wide Drop.
Fix all the Bugs as the Voice is added and wow there will be many cheers from everyone. Break it more, and oh gosh. There they go, all the Winers and oh hey, want some cheese with that wine hahah.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:20 PM
HEY, MOD. WHEN I REALISED IT WAS SPELL CHECKING I MADE THE MISTAKE OF DEPENDING ON IT. HOW ABOUT DELETING THE ABOVE AND REPLACING IT WITH THE FOLLOWING CORRECTED VERSION?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:20 PM
@ simon - #28 - where you say -
“some of the best times I’ve had with friends in SL is when a bunch of us started a Skype conference and explored SL, laughing until we couldn’t breathe. It’ll be so much easier to do that with voice integrated in SL.”
On this one point I could not disagree more - i have done the skype thing in confrence and it is a blast - i have also used the SL voice in the beta grid (which i like by the way) - its apples and oranges - it will be harder not easier to emulate a skype conference feel and be able to buzz around and chat even while tp’ing. I will be doing it as will you of course but it will not even be close to as handy as skype for that particular purpose.
On all your other points i agree.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:21 PM
The day you add voice is the day I quit SL. It’s a bandwidth hog anyway. I keep the sound turned off anyway so as not to wake others. And even good headphones suck. Cheap headphones suck more. So what if it’s “voluntary”? We non voicers will be a communication handicapped minority (hey, thanks for including a spell checker here, why not in chat?) and the people who buy a mike and headphones won’t want to bother with a keyboard. Yeah, You’ll gain some people but you’ll lose some too and I suspect they will be some of the more literate types that make SL worthwhile. Well, it was fun while it lasted. I suppose I’ve wasted more than enough time here anyway. Thanks for the memories.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:23 PM
I simply don’t want voice. I will not use it. And if it becomes obtrusive or my enjoyment of sl is limited by it, I will simply cash in my chips and move on. So many are opposed to voice that it amazes me that Linden Labs isn’t paying attention. Sounds like we’ll be paying more for something many of us don’t want. If I wanted voice, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. I’d be sitting in front of the television or calling folks on the phone, which I spend my workday doing and don’t need at night and on weekends. Sorry, Linden, you lost my vote on this one.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:25 PM
Oh Just so you are aware i am not against voice what so ever…bring it on i think it will add to the fun of sl…maybe not so much for the men pretending to be women or vice versa lol.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:26 PM
I’ve been trying out voice on the beta grid for a while now and I can’t wait. I had my doubts, mostly with anonymity and avatar similitude but this is so cool! I can carry on a conversation while building etc. without clogging up my screen, I can even whistle while I work. This is just more fun.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:26 PM
unfortunately, LL are unlikely to care about our opinions until a serious competitor comes along, and at that time it will be too late. i will remember all this LL, and i will afford you no loyalty.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:28 PM
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us the option of seeing the “voice” icon over people’s heads EVEN IF WE HAVE VOICE TURNED OFF. I have no expectation that I will ever want to turn it on, but I still NEED to be able to tell at a glance whether someone’s using it so I know they *are* talking, and not just beiong a jerk.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:29 PM
I can’t help but feel that Voice will alienate the deaf community from Second Life. as it is, we are currently able to meet and spend time with a community of people that in rl are - sadly - regarded as something of an alien culture. In SL, the hearing impaired can walk and talk with the hearing community as if there was never anything to separate them. In one fell swoop, Voice will exclude them from SL. In this regard, Voice is a big step back. Are the hearing impaired going to have to all join a group saying ‘Sorry, I’m Deaf!’ over their heads? I loved that SL broke down the barriers between races and disibilities - the ‘all are equal here’ theory. I guess it’s about to change.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:31 PM
something that just came to mind is that it will be interesting to see if most if not all of the haters of voice will find themselves and admit that after sometime they end up using this feature the rest of their second lives once it’s introduced
May 24th, 2007 at 8:32 PM
How can we possibly get it across to Linden Labs that the majority of users DO NOT WANT VOICE???? It will be nothing more than a nuisance at best and has the potential to be detrimental to performance and even in some cases, an invasion of privacy. It is going to result in a significant “class” barrier of those who use it and those who don’t.
I feel that enabling voice should be put to a vote of EVERY SL user…majority rules.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:33 PM
Once again, while voice is good (I played it on a spare Windows box I have), it’ll be even better when Vivox ports it over to Linux…. or we get a work-around.
Needless to say, Voice is very much alpha, unlike the Linux client which feels more like a gamma (beyond beta) than an alpha. LL needs data from Linux clients, and until it’s ported over, Voice won’t go over very well.
So Jessica? When is Vivox going to give LL that Linux binary blob?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:33 PM
Re: Akiko
As it has been mentioned landowners can choose to disable voice on their land. I personally don’t think that would be to much of a problem, they can still text. Plus, there are people without headsets who won’t be able to talk also. We can see how it goes, LL fixes everything…Lag is being worked on :p .
May 24th, 2007 at 8:35 PM
“but please be aware that it might be buggier than normal.”
I love this quote, Jeska. And I love Second Life. Keep up the good work.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:39 PM
You realize, of course, that there are people who came to SecondLife because they are hearing impaired and they found a new sense of social freedom in the level playing field of text based chat and IM.
I suspect that der uber programmers of Linden Labs have absolutely no conception of the social isolation and rejection experienced by people who simply cannot follow audio based conversations. Nor, perhaps do they care. Onward and upward, you know.
Now, voice is a great thing. I expect it to be a quantum leap in the accessibililty and transparency of SecondLife to many of the current residents and most of the future ones. Voice carries meaning and emotion. It engages the subconsious directly. It will be a boon to the development of relations. In addition, as a tremendous bonus, it will free the fingers to be devoted to avatar control. With the hands no longer bound to tedious verbal communication, they will be able to be adapted to new potentials of visual expression. It will be amazing.
However, there are those of us who will simply die of loneliness. We will be reduced (as we were in RL) again to the smiling idiots who sit in the corner and keep saying “Huh?”.
Ce la vie.
With a modest amount of sadness yet with love to you all,
Desdemona
May 24th, 2007 at 8:40 PM
Well, coming from a roleplay perspective, being that is what I do on a day-to-day basis, voice is just a waste of time. I will not use it, I doubt the sims I play on will activate it, and since a lot of us already seem to use Skype, what the hell is the point of voice? If we already wanted to talk to one another, WE WOULD BE. That is why Skype was created, and as well, I am very sure people will continue to use Skype rather than SL voice, because you can’t talk to your friends unless they are in the same sim as you…Unlike Skype. Plus with Skype you can go multi-sim, multi-friends, and know for a fact you will only be talking, and being heard by friends, not some perverted freak sitting in his basement listening to a real girl talk.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:41 PM
20 responses, only one (by my count) a positive one. Does this say anything? Maybe, maybe not.
@18
I’m not sure if the final pricing has been worked out for Voice as yet, but as soon as it has we will be sure to post it here in the blog.
Now I KNOW I dont want anything to do with voice. There’s pricing involved? I havnt heard that before.
Jeska, we understand that 70% of the devs are working on fixes to stability issues, but so far, we havnt seen much of that. A few small (and welcome) fixes to long existing annoyances, but IM still fails, I still get disconnected without the client informing me that the server is no longer there, I still get stuck underground when I cross regions, the viewer still crashes every few hours for no reason at all (Even when Im AFK). All we have been seeing lately is new feature announcement after new feature announcement - sculpties, voice, weather. If so many of the devs are working on fixes, they are being drowned out by the 30% of you that are announcing new features week after week, and are forging ahead, regardless… and, I must say, creating new bugs for them to fix.
As has been said before, Linden Lab has a lot to learn about PR.
My initial comment was going to be about feedback. That word stood out in your post above. From what I have seen in the last few months, Lindens listening to customer feedback, would be a first… Well, thats not technically true… you do listen. You have town halls, and generally from time to time you invite feedback - but then you go ahead and do it anyway.
Try this for an excercise - wait until the comments close at 100, and then count up the positive ones against the negative ones. If the first 20% are a representative example, Im sure you’ll be quite surprised.
Dont get me wrong. I love Second Life with a passion - it has HUGE potential, and I’d love to see all of these new features, and more in it eventually, but the perception you have been creating in recent months is that you will forge ahead, despite the stability issues, ignoring the pleas of your customers to slow down and to use some common sense in other matters.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:41 PM
So. I can’t tell who is online or offline.
I cannot search for a particular item in my inventory.
I cannot teleport from my home location. When I can actually teleport, I have to pull my hair out of my butt and reattach it to my head.
I have lost $2,000L worth of no-copy items in the past week.
… and now I am supposed to be enthused about voice chat?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:42 PM
Go buy a headset at Staples the $17 with tax and work just as well instead of the min costing one on the aff. sit that is $24 plus shipping
May 24th, 2007 at 8:43 PM
I don’t understand why LL are insisting on going ahead with a new feature that every survey shows the large majority of SL users do not want, will not use or are actively opposed to because it will kill off the immersion of SL. Ignoring your customers is not a good way to do business guys. If I wanted voice chat I would use Skype or the telephone.
Aside from the fact that its another layer of complexity, bugs and crash causes loaded onto a very creaky system that already does not work very well.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:44 PM
I will not be using voice. I tried it at the voice party the other day while the grid was down. It was one of the worst eperiances I had ever seen. Lag was INCREDIBLE, I and 30 others around me were Ruthed the whole time. Everybody seemed to be talking over one another, very difficult to tell who the talkers were, one person was apparently playing a guitar because they thought everyone would want to hear it, a couple of others were trying to be their own streaming radio station. Some people thought it was cute to shout obscenities at everyone. You could hear, fans, dogs, babies, toddlers, chewing gum, mics rubbing on shirts/cheeks/lips/desks whatever.
Part of the reason people are more tolerant of everyone in Sl than in RL is the absence of voice. When you type you actually have to think about what you are going to say before you blurt it out. I futher belive that this is only going to serve to futher divide the grid. We soon will have many lands that are age/identity entry only, with many many residents refusing to become verified and hence cut off from large parts of the grid. There are also many many people that do not and will not welcome or use voice. Some plots/sims/lands will be novoice some will be only voice welcome, some residents will use it, many will not, and the grid will be futher divided and split up. The more split up and unable to get in to this place or that place people find when traveling about SL, the more discouraging it will be for them/us.
While I appreciate LL’s stance on these things that they are ultimatly optional to participate in/use, what is not optional is the adverse fallout to everyone that comes along with things like this.
Voice may be allright for close gatherings of friends, but it is certainly not something that is good for, or should be availble for use “out in the wild”.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:51 PM
How can a company can be as irresponcible as LL? Every single update bring tons of usablility bugs, problems, slow down crash after scrash… LL need to put 100% of it workforce(not 70%) on FIXING thing that the overwhelming SL resident majority demand and not adding new features (voice) that the majority of users don’t want.
I think a so call update will need to put SL offline for a week or morefor them to understand how un-professional is they way of avoiding fixing bugs as old as SL itself and keep intruducing extremly unstable feature that make SL crash even more on a hourly basis.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:55 PM
@30, I can guarantee you I will not be using voice, and neither will anyone on any of the sims or land I own- I immediately plan to use the estate owner tool to disable this “feature” the moment it becomes available. I can only imagine the audio chaos that will be the mainland, just as it is visual chaos.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:56 PM
Just a quick question arising from this announcement:
You say the “first look” client is ‘more buggy’ than the main client, but is still a test client working on the main grid.
How many grid related issues are caused by the first look client, and can you tell when a grid problem has been caused by this client having a bug before it takes down regions for the rest of us that are using the normal, supposedly stable client?
It strikes me that a lot of the bugs could have been fixed by waiting to introduce new content for a while as people used the “first look” client on the main grid. If you could monitor crashes purely caused by it, then you could tell when it was safe to release features.
Time after time we’ve seen features released that haven’t been properly tested, and “more people should use the test grid” doesn’t cut it. A lot of us pay for what we use, and we’re not happy that it’s consistently buggy.
Test = Beta, then first look, then AND ONLY THEN if a feature is stable for the majority of first look users should it be released in a required viewer update. Miss parts of this cycle out at your peril.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:59 PM
For those of us who are married or have children, voice is a nightmare. I really hope it is reconsidered.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:07 PM
Voice in groups or areas with a lot of ppl is useless. You don’t have the visual clues you do in real life to know when it is okay to speak. Like a conference call from hell. Or should we all start playing CB’r and say “Over” every time we finish talking. Even though the voice is provided by an outside source with their own severs, with Teamspeak, Skype, Ventrillo readly available and Vonage free to Europe now, integrating this was a waste of LL resources that could be much better put to use.
I am not sure if LL is trying to distract us with cute little contests that very few have the resources to compeat in yet, or get us thinking about voice, so we don’t notice the sad state of the grid, but it isn’t working.
I don’t know if LL has no version control or what, but every time we have an upgrade, stuff that was fixed in earlier patches seems to break again.
Here is what I am seeing right now:
Many can not purchase Lindens due to “Can not Verify you” error.
Groups do not show members
Particles still are not working properly
Crash on empty trash
Crash on aprrox 20% of TPs
Crash on transfer multiple objects to inventory
High packet loss in some areas.
Friends list not showing friends until you try to IM one, then slowly
it fills in.
Client is very unstable. Often crashes without any repeatable cause.
Login freezes, close client, login then is fine.
All the little additons are nice guys, but please, lets get some of the bugs that keep coming back fixed. This is getting really old.
DRD
May 24th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
If only 1500 people out of 6.8 million want voice it must really be “by overwelming resident demand” .
These really bad bugs didn’t happen this afternoon, they happened right from the 1.16 update.
No Friends right back then, also I see the Email/IM gateway is borked again. Once more I can’t talk to my family in SL while I take a break from work RL.
How about you forget just having 70% (less than 3/4) of your programmers on SL Bug fixes and throw them all on duty. We need to have more stability in the grid please.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Changes are welcomed, however this is not a good move in my opnion. People come in here to get away from RL and hearing voices in your head is not much different than RL. Typing brings thoughtfull insight whereas talking brings blurting and hurtfull comments when things do not go someones way. You will be experiencing a LOT more reporting of people, that i can assure you.
I personally will not use this feature and it will be turned off on all land that i own and will own (if that is available). If not, my time in this world will be significantly reduced.
To look at ones avatar and wonder how they really look, how they really sound is part of the excitement of this place. You are killing that excitement with this feature.
Furthermore the performance of the system is not going to be able to handle it very well at all. We already have lag in class 5 sims when lag looks low on the bars on top of screen. I can only imagine what 30 people trying to talk at once is going to do to the system, I have to agree with Ann above to some degree for sure.
A business should run smooth before any attemps of expanding are made, that goes double here when your numbers seem to double every couple of months.
Aside from all that, this is great place and you all do a fabulous job, just iron out issues before creating more.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Ahrgggg - TP’d and guess what??? All my attachments where under my skirt. When did LL add that feature back in. I thought that was fixed. Oh yeah, we had an “upgrade” yesterday.
I expect next I will come home to my house in Hagen, a water sim, and find I only see a desert until I open World > Estate.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:13 PM
I’ve gone to the beta grid and given it a fair trial. I even went out and got a USB headset to make sure I was experiencing voice at its best. It’s technically impressive when it works; the spacialization thing does what it’s supposed to. And the voice quality is pretty good; it sounds better than a typical telephone call. (I haven’t heard anybody try to send music through it; it’s possible that it would be totally mangled, just as it is on a cell phone because of going through a codec that isn’t designed for music.)
But I’m sorry, LL; it does not enhance my Second Life. I found that people say much more inane things in voice than they do in text chat; the signal-to-noise level of conversation is much lower. I found it hard to untangle the swarm of voices, whereas I have no trouble keeping track of multiple threads of conversation in text. I have to listen carefully every second, because there is no history. And sometimes it doesn’t work; it DOES require additional bandwidth, and when my 768K pipe is already filled to the brim with textures, the voices stutter.
I fear that, in your rush to add the next new shiny feature to Second Life, you people at Linden Lab are not paying enough attention to the large number of residents who are speaking (or typing) out against this feature. You need to step back and evaluate the social consequences before going ahead with this implementation, and seriously consider the possibility that it is not the right thing for this world.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:14 PM
I agree, is this the proper time to release Voice in the whole mess of issues we are having? Why can`t we just have “TWO” clients those that don`t want voice and those that do. Forcing us to download some thing some don`t want is crazy. Its bad enough that those that don`t do voice wil be looked at in a bad light to some. But really communities are suppose to be united not divided? SL is no longer united but instead divided, this has been the problem now for going on 2 years. Voice is just going to made things worse, and a new form of lag will occur. “VOICE LAG”………..I tried Voice and i not really happy with the results, background noixe people insulting others ( ok there is mute ) but someone else can support that person issues and just cause even more problems. I am sorry but SL community as a whole is so divided as it is. Voice is just going to make some factions of the game more stressful and more divided. There are possiblities of voice in a buiness sence, but uses that don`t want to use it well be leftout, etc.
Usagi
May 24th, 2007 at 9:16 PM
A lot of people should get over to the beta grid and try it out. A long while back I used to just NOT want to do any voice chat online for no real reason, so I sort of understand where some people may be coming from on this. However, since the beta grid has gotten voice, I have enjoyed Second Life more than ever. It’s extremely addictive to be able just to talk normally to people around you, and strike up many new friendships along the way. This is going to change Second Life more than perhaps any other feature before it.
As yet I have not heard one REAL reason that voice shouldn’t be enjoyed by most of the population.
Just as a side note, if people are not happy with the bugs in SL, then use the beta grid more often and send in those bug reports.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:22 PM
Why not just roll it out immediately like other things and then triage it for weeks?
May 24th, 2007 at 9:23 PM
@37:
Not that I’m a fan of the feature yet (where is linux support? will I care once I can use it?), but lack of voice support is discriminatory towards people with any number of problems that might affect typing ability. I’m not sure which side outnumbers which, but either way someone is getting stomped on or will be stomped on by this feature or lack thereof.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:23 PM
“Ok ITS BETTER THEN A PHONE CALL” We if that the case then pretty bad phone system if you think background noice, typing, kids screaming in the back, printers etc is ok. But please I was in dance club in ther beta game and the DJ who was doing voice and his friend just were a nightmare in their tacky and really outlandish voice debut. Ok there is mute, but more then then less 90% had their voice “OFF”. I played there.com and voice. But it did not suit my taste. What you think so sl is going to true into after awhile? There.com. The stress test was a good experince and i happy i been in there when i can. But the lag, morons, and otehr facts left me a bad image of voice. Its just my view, and I do repects others that like it. But in a whole, if i want voice i use a better designed voice system, and or use my cellphone to call one on one 8 within my own country. Ever thing about the possible impact of people voice printing others? Thats another future security issue for person data. Ok laugh but people laught about personal issues being onthe internet when I started using the internet in 1996. Now look ID stealing…… ANother future issue to worry about ID thieft.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:24 PM
Big money corporations must have thrown big money at Linden Lab to integrate voice into Second Life at such break neck speed. Not long ago Philip Linden was quoted in a post stating the obvious inconveniences that voice would bring to SL and that SL was not ready for voice. He even added that with the availability of other voice programs like Skype and Ventrilo there was really no immediate need for voice integration into the SL client. Yet here we are a few months later and voice is coming to Second Life despite the overwhelming cries against its implementation from the large majority of the SL customer base. Search any forum, posts or poll about voice and you will find that the overwhelming majority of the SL population does not want any part of voice in SL. A clearer message against voice could not have been sent to LL these past few months, yet it has been all for naught.
Why the rush to voice? Why not wait until a voice program/system that benefits all could be developed before its implementation?
Some of these ideas could include;
1. Charging a small fee for those who want to use voice thereby preserving text chat as the default communicative method in SL.
2. Introducing a clear policy against voice harrasment into the TOS, along with appropriate tools to record and report voice harrasment prior to releasing voice into the main grid.
3. Working out voice privacy concerns and ensuring to a reasonable degree that eavesdropping wont be rampant all over the grid and the voice recordings released to the people on third party sites.
4. Introducing a voice morphing program in conjunction with voice for your considerable RPG community who would like to feel like their appreciated as customers along with the big money corporations.
5. Take appropriate steps to ensure that text chat remains the default method of communication in SL until that time that the SL population democratically proclaims voice as the default communication method in SL through a natural progression.
These are just a few of the things LL could do to ensure a smoother integration of voice into Second Life instead of the frustrating integration of voice currently being forced unto the SL community.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:25 PM
@54 i love it! roll it out cause all sort of crashing and UI issues and then LLABS will think “OK WE BOO BOOED” heheh I love it! anything to get rid of this lag maker and future issue causing client they call voice.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:26 PM
oh no, no voice please….I want my poor had relax qhen I’m in SL….
May 24th, 2007 at 9:28 PM
“57 Wake UP Says:
May 24th, 2007 at 9:24 PM PDT
Big money corporations must have thrown big money at Linden Lab to integrate voice into Second Life at such break neck speed.”
WHO WHAT FOR AND WHY? Its bad enough there is “Sound lag, Sim lag, text lag” Etc. Why create anotehr lag? “VOICE LAG”.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:29 PM
I guess it is good if you speak english well, otherwise, it brings confusion. I probably simply will avoid it!
May 24th, 2007 at 9:37 PM
WOW….just noticed the blog Jeska….First Look approach rocks….I’m so excited…but it’s late, so I just skimmed through the posts, and see the usual “ I hate voice….bla bla bla…lets rain on everyone’s parade..”…so I’m just going to poke a stick in the hornets nest and shout “ I love voice in SL…come hear me laugh” …then go to bed.
Night all
DK
May 24th, 2007 at 9:41 PM
How about all residents bale out now. SL took a turn for the worst a long time ago and will continue to go down the path of self destruction.
Our feedback our voices will be heard but not recognised LL obviously think they know whats best for everyone and will continue to integrate flashy stuff to the detriment of the system and the users who do not want it.
I really have to ask what is the point of maintaining an account for a game that obviously is doomed to disappear like so many games before because the company running it became greedy and ignorant.