We all know that Jelly and I have a difference of opinion on the level of interest in voice as a tool to make our SL experience better. Her and I prefer Skype where it is just the two of us, or maybe we invite an extra friend or two where we can talk about things without having to type constantly. But in my opinion, voice on a large scale in large groups was not something I was overly looking forward to. I had my first "real" experience with it last night, and it lived up well to my expectations. Plus I had Jelly in my other ear going off about her being the Bean left behind without a voice... :/Scenario: A nice quiet little jazz club with about 16 people in attendance. A live performer doing some beautiful ballads of both contemporary and older vintage jazz standards that really set the atmosphere and mood for the evening. Everything is going great, until....
the VOICES BEGIN IN MY FUCKING HEAD:
Cast of characters:
F1: Loud annoying female voice
F2: Quiet mousy female voice
F3: Normal helpful female voice
M1: Clueless older male voice
Exchange #1:
F1: Can anybody hear me?
F1: Can anybody hear me?
F2: I can hear you. (said very quietly)
F1: Did you say you can hear me? I can hardly hear you, can you hear me loud or quiet?
F2: I can hear you just fine.
F1: Well if you can hear me, how come I can't hear you very well?
F3: Did you try adjusting your volume settings?
F1: My volume settings, how do I adjust that?
F3: Try right clicking on the person and moving the volume up.
F1: Ohhhhh, there we go I can hear you now. Can you hear me?
F3: Yes we can all hear you fine.
F1: Okay, great so who else is on voice? Can anybody else hear me out there?
A few mumbles of ascent from the crowd...
F1: I can't hear you all very well, can you speak up?
F1: Can you all hear me?
Exchange #2:
F1: I can't see any dance balls? Can anyone see any dance balls?
F3: I think they are still rezzing they just aren't in view yet.
F1: Why? Do you see the dance balls? Because I can't see any balls.
F1: Frank can you see any balls? Frank are you here? Can you hear me Frank?
M2: Yes I am here, I can hear you. I can see a Tango.
F1: Speak up Frank, seriously you always mumble everything. Ohh wait, I forgot I can turn up your volume, now say something Frank.
M2: Can you hear me now?
F1: Yes, I can hear you now Frank, did you turn your volume up on me? Can you hear me any better?
M2: I can hear you just fine.
F1: Ohhh, there they are I can see the dance balls now... how about you Frank can you see them?
M2: Yes, let's try the tango.
F1: This doesn't appear to be synced, is your's synced Frank?
M2: Nope mine isn't synced, I wonder if we can reset them somehow.
F1: Let's try /1 sync.
F1: Nope that didn't fix it for me, is yours any better Frank?
M2: No, I am not synced... how about if we jump off and back on again?
F1: Okay.
F1: I think that fixed it for me, are you synced now Frank?
M2: Yes I am good.
F1: So I wonder if this performer is playing at a live club somewhere, and how they stream this into SL?
Hawks, reaches up to turn off voice... not being able to take another minute before somebody was going to die.
How is it that I was possibly enjoying SL without the voices in my head? I mean look at the quality I was missing out on these exchanges, and thank the LINDEN GODS that although we are dropping inventory left and right, crashing our sim about twice a day, that I can now participate in every person's personal thoughts as they work through why the DAMNED POSE balls aren't showing up yet.... Things that you used to put into IM before, should believe it or not STILL be kept in IM!! *whew* Kkthnx, have a nice day!
Peace. Hawks.
6 comments:
ROFLMFAO! Thanks Hawks. I needed that. This is way worse than the "can you hear my now" commercials will ever be. Sometimes progress is not a good thing!
lmfao .. i can so hear you reaching for the blunt instrument to "turn off voice"! :P
yay for the ability to hear the mindless crap people are otherwise too lazy to type!
<3 ya style buddy, u blog great!! :P [hardly need any help at all]
most...annoying...person..ever! omg, i dont know how you managed to supress the urge to tell her to just shut up.
and thank you for proving my point that slvoice isnt a good thing to have ^^
Here's an almost unbiased and simple counterpoint to that amusing blog post... (I say unbiased because since Voice hit the main viewer, I don't think I've run across a single opportunity to use it yet in my every day experience, lol)
The point is, Voice is new and just now hitting the main viewer, lots of people are going to have problems getting it to work right away, and like many instances when someone is a newb to certain technology, aren't going to pay attention to where they are practicing / learning, even during a live performance.
Just be glad no one tried getting into explaining the different speaker options for avatar vs camera position to remedy why certain people had a lower volume than others, as that discussion would've went on forever, heh.
Also, mute is still your friend. Perhaps an even better friend, now, hehe. As well as your volume slider for each person in the active speaker list, should someone deserve to be seen rather than heard.
But still, as you can see from the reaction in the comments here and the fact you listened to the entire conversation, Voice can be pretty entertaining, even by accident, huh? *g*
It's even better when they forget they left their mic on and start talking to people in the real world, hehe. Good times.
Wrath... Yes actually they did get into the minute detail of understanding whether it was better to use the cam control option or the avatar option, but I was already looking to turn it off. I get that it is new, I still think that it is going to work a whole lot better in small groups of people you want to hear, and be a tote disaster in larger groups that you don't want to hear.
I've encountered some people like this too, but they are new and figuring things out. You can always turn their volume down. I bet they would say it was so much easier to figure things out without typing so much.
I am still glad voice is in. I am having a great time using it.
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