Tuesday, February 26, 2008

How should voice chat be handled?

This recent thread by blykmik got me thinking again about how voice chat should be handled in SOCOM Confrontation. Personally, I have an interesting stance on this. I think it should remain push to talk, if you wish to speak to your entire team through the headset, but the mics always remain on within the game where you can hear other people through your speakers assuming they are within fair distance.

So let me try and make it a little more clear. If you want to say something for your entire team to hear, you have to push down a button and talk (and any number of people can push-to-talk at once, not just 1 person). But during the game your mic still remains active, so for example, if you are camping in a bush and sneeze while someone on the opposing team walks by you, they will hear you sneeze through their speakers and be aware of your presence.

This would fall right in line with what has been discussed about the game's audio. Making audio an integral part of the experience.

What are you thoughts on this? Do you have any ideas of your own?

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Lovely idea but risky (people running music all the time / kids screaming / phone ringing - u know the drill)

TTP

David Doel said...

Good point but "open mic" doesn't mean it'll catch everything in the room. The sensitivity of the mic is something that I believe can be adjusted by the developer (as well as the player). I've played games with open mics that work surprisingly well at only activating when the player speaks (Motorstorm for example).

So it could be designed in such a way where the mic will really only pick up any sound when the player himself makes a sound.

John Schudar said...

It sounds great, but I agree with marcello on the phone issues, and the kids. Even if the sensitivity is set, kids can get loud! Especially a hungry, wet-diapered baby! lol

Mimic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mimic said...

The biggest thing for me when it comes to push to talk, is the funny comments people make. it gives alot more opprotunity for someone to add in a hillarious comment in between somone freaking out.

Funny moments only happen every once and a while with open mics. and they only happen at a silent moment. I remember rolling on the floor laughing at some of the things ppl said in socom 1. doesnt happen anymore, just doesnt have the same effect. (thats if you even heard them over the punk yelling "bam sup now" everytime he kills somone)

Ma Hu said...

Terrible idea. Just horrible. What's to prevent some troll from joining ur team and f-ing up the experience by yelling out the positions of your teammates to the opposing team.

Or worse, if a teammate collaborates with the other team by joining ur team and yealling out ur teammates coocrdinates?

Terrible idea. The added benefit is tiny ('more realistic' whoopee) vs the huge and likely potential for abuse.