Zone/Proximity voice chat on PC?

NeuroticPixels

I’ve never played ESO on console, so I don’t know exactly how voice chat works there. So I’m not really comparing a potential (hypothetical) PC voice chat to console’s current iteration of voice chat.

But I’d like to know…
If PC had a zone-wide or proximity voice chat, would you use it?

I think it could be very entertaining. It would definitely have to allow a keybind for instant muting. You know there will be trolls and other hooligans. lol. And of course, an option to fully disable it for anyone not interested.

Before the nay-sayers and Negative Nancys perk up and use this as an opportunity to spout their stance on ESO developers not “wasting” time/effort/focus, etc, let’s pretend ESO devs have all the time, manpower, and money in the world and that implementing such a feature wouldn’t be a big deal, nor would it hinder them or us from making ESO awesome.

So, a zone or proximity voice chat? Would you use either? Do you think you’d like it? Or would you always have it disabled?

festegios

You just end up with people breathing heavily down the mic in zone chat or listening to someone’s wife yell at thier kids in a different language in the background. - from a console player

Danikat

I wouldn't be able to use it most of the time. My PC is in the main room of my house and even if I wanted to I can't shut myself off from what's going on around me in real life with headphones so most of the time I play with the sound turned off to avoid competing with other noise in the room.

Whenever I join a guild I tell them I can't use voice chat, even just to listen, and will only join ones who say it's not necessary (and I only stay in ones where that's actually true, more than once I've joined one where they assure me they use guild chat and then it's me and 1 other person while everyone else is in Discord).

Add on the fact that I have Misophonia triggered by chewing and other 'wet' sounds so if anyone is eating with their microphone on or talking with their mouth full I'd have to turn it off immediately. On the rare occasions I can use voice chat I'm going to choose to talk to my guild who I can trust to have basic manners rather than open myself up to whatever random noise people around me want to inflict on everyone else.

So no, I wouldn't use it. If it ever becomes an option turning it off will be the first thing I'll do when I log in after the update and I doubt it would ever get turned on again.

Grizzbeorn

No. Not ever.
It's bad enough just *reading* Zone chat on the rare occasion I have it [temporarily] turned on.

I created my own Discord server just for the purpose of having voice-coms for this game.
Not being part of the game, its function doesn't affect the game (nor does the game affect its function, such as when the game crashes), AND I have control over who has access to it.

festegios

Danikat wrote: »

I wouldn't be able to use it most of the time. My PC is in the main room of my house and even if I wanted to I can't shut myself off from what's going on around me in real life with headphones so most of the time I play with the sound turned off to avoid competing with other noise in the room.

Whenever I join a guild I tell them I can't use voice chat, even just to listen, and will only join ones who say it's not necessary (and I only stay in ones where that's actually true, more than once I've joined one where they assure me they use guild chat and then it's me and 1 other person while everyone else is in Discord).

Add on the fact that I have Misophonia triggered by chewing and other 'wet' sounds so if anyone is eating with their microphone on or talking with their mouth full I'd have to turn it off immediately. On the rare occasions I can use voice chat I'm going to choose to talk to my guild who I can trust to have basic manners rather than open myself up to whatever random noise people around me want to inflict on everyone else.

So no, I wouldn't use it. If it ever becomes an option turning it off will be the first thing I'll do when I log in after the update and I doubt it would ever get turned on again.

Just use one ear piece for when needed?

Fenris_Arainai

Nope, nope nope from me. I even have the text zone chat turned off by default. The last thing I'd need is to hear someone's infant crying or loud music blasting.

I use discord for stuff with my guildies. I have no need of listening to strangers' "home life" by accident or whatever when I'm crafting. And I don't do group stuff with randos.

Danikat

festegios wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

I wouldn't be able to use it most of the time. My PC is in the main room of my house and even if I wanted to I can't shut myself off from what's going on around me in real life with headphones so most of the time I play with the sound turned off to avoid competing with other noise in the room.

Whenever I join a guild I tell them I can't use voice chat, even just to listen, and will only join ones who say it's not necessary (and I only stay in ones where that's actually true, more than once I've joined one where they assure me they use guild chat and then it's me and 1 other person while everyone else is in Discord).

Add on the fact that I have Misophonia triggered by chewing and other 'wet' sounds so if anyone is eating with their microphone on or talking with their mouth full I'd have to turn it off immediately. On the rare occasions I can use voice chat I'm going to choose to talk to my guild who I can trust to have basic manners rather than open myself up to whatever random noise people around me want to inflict on everyone else.

So no, I wouldn't use it. If it ever becomes an option turning it off will be the first thing I'll do when I log in after the update and I doubt it would ever get turned on again.

Just use one ear piece for when needed?

That would mean spending all my time going "Sorry? I didn't hear you. No not you, I'm talking to someone in my game. No, I didn't hear that again, someone was talking behind me."

I've never felt like I was missing anything by just using text chat, so I don't think it's worth the hassle of trying to find a way to make voice chat work for me.

AcadianPaladin

I don't even use zone type chat due to the excess drivel on there. I'd certainly not enable voice chat.

KlauthWarthog

I would add it to my checklist of stuff to disable whenever I create a new character.

rpa

I've used Discord (and at least three of older solutions and also ingame voice when supported) for raid, veteran dungeon and PvP communication in several games and for teamwork it is very useful. But I definitely do not want to hear it when doing writs &cet or soloing overland. I'd suggest only allowing it in group. Just make sure its by default off and when turned on push to talk.

MrGarlic

I don't think other players are ready to hear me singing 'Red Diamond, Red Diamond,' around the Mournhold wayshrine.

Grizzbeorn

MrGarlic wrote: »

I don't think other players are ready to hear me singing 'Red Diamond, Red Diamond,' around the Mournhold wayshrine.

Not unless you are secretly Malukah.

fizl101

I’m on console and use voice chat alot, but I turn off zone chat. For all the great reasons to have built in voice chat, I think zone chat would be very much the bottom of the list

TaSheen

Absolutely not. I hate that sort of thing.

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

I would add it to my checklist of stuff to disable whenever I create a new character.

Yep - instant disable. If they ever think about adding it though, default MUST be OFF.

endgamesmug

I still havent used my mic for discord on my new pc, i used my phone for discord previously and rarely needed it. If there was ingame voicechat like back on console it would be alot less hassle thats for sure, i wouldnt have to work out discord technicalities.

Maitsukas

I just put in the YouTube search bar "Elder Scrolls Online voice chat" and there are quite a few videos that make me glad there is no built-in VC for PC.

WaywardArgonian

I would never use it once.

freespirit

I make my home in Riften and zone chat is constantly full of bite requests, people offering bites, people trying to charge for bites and the ensuing arguments about "bites should be free", I would absolutely have it turned off!!

valenwood_vegan

Never. Having seen zone chat, I would never want to hear zone chat. I'd hope it would be disabled by default... if not, I would immediately and permanently disable it.

Marcus684

That'd be a hard no from me. If I want to be social I have a guild for that and we have a Discord. I definitely don't want to hear all of the guild recruitment ads and buy/sell pitches that are what I mostly see in zone chat, and don't get me started on the starter zone cesspool.

NeuroticPixels

Haha! I don’t think one person so far has said they’d be happy to use it. Interesting!! I made this post around 4am EST and I was definitely half asleep. I had to come back this morning to see what it even said.

Thanks for all the responses! It was a fun read.

Necrotech_Master

i always disable in game voice chat, in whatever game im playing on PC that has it enabled

i just use discord if i want to actually do voice chat with someone, but i absolutely do not want to hear random people doing who knows what

Soarora

I’ve said I wouldn’t like it and why on previous threads of the same topic but lately I’ve been playing another game that does have in-game voice chat. So, I would like to change my opinion to definitely not.

SilverBride

I would never use proximity voice chat. It's bad enough reading what some players say, I don't want to actually hear it, too.

dinokstrunz

Would be funny

Ragnarok0130

I would never use proximity chat OP we have a very functional zone chat box and if we need voice comms everyone on PC uses discord and has for many years. If the devs ever decided to waste the manpower and money implementing such an unneeded feature on PC I'd disable it straight away. I had enough of bad music, mouth breathing/eating, babies crying, and kids getting yelled at by their parents on open mics when I played console multiplayer games.

Reverb

No thank you

Arcturus

People who are shy or don't seem to be able to press an opt out button will say no.

SilverBride

I said no because I believe it's a very bad idea.

Erickson9610

I'd be down for proximity voice chat. It was fun adventuring on console and encountering people playing music in the background or having a conversation. Plus, hearing people bicker over who won in a duel was funny — I could only imagine what it was like when proximity voice chat was accidentally enabled cross-alliance in Cyrodiil!

Mind you, I'd never actually use it for dedicated groups; I'd use a third party program for that instead. It's more of a tool to communicate with PUGs or random people you find in the world.

Reverb

Arcturus wrote: »

People who are shy or don't seem to be able to press an opt out button will say no.

I’m not shy at all, and have no problem managing optional features. I say no for the following reasons:

1) I don’t want dev time to be spent on pc voicecomm. None. There are many options for pc players who want that.

2) I Don’t want any of the Help Desk or Tier 2 support time spent dealing with tickets about PC client voicecomm.

3) I don’t want one second of the testing team’s time spent doing integration or regression testing on voicecomm functionality for updates.

4) I don’t want the support staff wasting time writing up an FAQ or knowledge article telling people to check their sound card settings and drivers, only to have them be ignored, and instead see any forum posts complaining that voicecomm is not working right, making bill ask “have you checked your game menu settings? what sound card do you have? Have you tried updating your driver? Here’s a link to a troubleshooting guide”

5) listing twice because it’s really important that no dev time be spent on this.