Every high level player of any MMORPG is at least familiar with the concept of raiding, and most are involved in it. Many if not most raid groups require the use of a live voice-chat program. The most popular of these is called Ventrilo and is available for download here.
Ventrilo, more popularly called “Vent”, can be an invaluable tool for raids. It’s obviously much faster to simply say “Hey get out of the fire” or “Look out behind you” than it is to type it. And, depending on your game, the flow of text during raid battles can be so fast that players can miss important messages.
But consider the other players. MMORPG’S, just like the real world, encompass people from a variety of classes and backgrounds, from all different walks of life. Players have in-game jobs and special skills to share with the community and have ages and ethnicities that vary widely. However, since it’s still a video game, your standard MMO is not so much a microcosm of real world society as it is a microcosm of middle school.
Given this, a raiding experience in vent is just as likely to be about how badly some tweenager wants some nachos or how much they love Katy Perry as it is about “Hey, look behind you.” Add to that the fact of players spread all over the world and the high likelihood that they will all have different rates of lag, and it can be very difficult to get and stay focused on the raid. Clearly, some guidelines should be implemented. Every group should have a basic set of rules and some kind of credible threat for breaking them. If you break the rules, you don’t get invited to the next raid.
The most important rule, of course, should be “Shut up.”
Comments
lol, nice stuff
Apparently this writer has little to no experience using Vent let alone the etiquette involved. Experienced games that operate Vent channels have already set down rules and behaviors that are and are not permitted. If you enter an unmoderated channel you get what the writer described above. Enter a moderated channel and you get good communication and, in most cases, good times.
LMAO... bitter much? whats funny is you talk like you have experianced numerous Katy Perry conversations.
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