Sotto Voce
Entering Voice Beta one evening to check it out was a mixed experience. The illusion of a lot of intelligent, awake, mature, young people was gone! People sounded horse, tired, old, lazy, immature, some was talking while eating and drinking, chips, the chips bag very close to the mike…. grins…. it was all in all very... I mean, usually in SL as it is now, it takes some time to form an opinion about someone. You have to get to know that char first. With voice my decision about another happened f a s t !
One woman tried to get a serious conversation going, asking how about intimacy (you hear like you see… with your camera… so listening in on others is easier than ever), and what about clubs, music and talking at the same time. The answers was like: Intimacy… that's why they invented skype, and clubbing…nah that was clearly for noobs and losers… grins… So what is left? Where does this take voice chat? Nowhere? I guess it will be ok for meetings. But even at meetings I like the log filing of the talk.
It was bad having 3 Spanish guys talking Spanish, not being able to translate, or let others hear what they were saying. I felt very vulnerable and isolated in that situation. With written chat you could use a translator. Or copy paste it into Babelfish, to get an idea of what they where talking about. So weird this, because they could just IM each other in SL and the situation would be the same.
Its hard to tell who's saying what. So orientation is worse with voice. And finding out who screamed, or farted was not possible. Griefers will have a hell of a time.
Another funny thing was, I missed the copy paste function a lot. "Everybody is at daboom" one said, and another said, "could you spell it?".
And how do you pronounce ": )" ?
Poetry is gone. Intimacy is kinda lessened not enhanced. Very weird. And Kean Kelly felt definitely much more vulnerable. Its like, spoken words are tougher than written ones.
Some of the really good things I guess are: alts will be easily spotted and gender bending isn't really possible. Or maybe that's a bad thing? One of my friends thought so. And for sure: chips mongering dorky voices, giggling at silly jokes wasn't magic.
But hey, SL is a river as always, only sure thing is change. But please let the voices be subtle at first. Let me whisper sweet things in your ear… : )
5 had something to say:
I have yet to check out voice in SL Kean so I was interested to read your blog. Your description of the conversations you overheard pretty much fit with my expectations. Though, I still need to check it out for myself.
Talking...it is an unconscious thing. For most people it is way to easy and what pours out is sound and just sound.
Typing takes time...You have to pause and (some of us) consider which keys to hit. It slows a person down just enough. Sometimes what happens is thought comes out instead of "sound."
Meetings yes. The odd burping contest among the younger crowd. It will have its uses...I'll check it out one day. For now, I'm flexing my fingers...I'm digging in.
Typing takes time...You have to pause and (some of us) consider which keys to hit. It slows a person down just enough. Sometimes what happens is thought comes out instead of "sound."
Y E S ! Spot on Burian.
comments from My Space:
Wow Kean, you are an explorer! Fascinating to read your first impressions of this revloution... I'll try it myself. I expect it might raise some of the issues that came up when I've met people from SL in RL, like you mentioned... pronounciation is one. I know this guy called Kegle Papp in SL and, when I met him in RL... well everyone laughed when I said his name "kay-gul"!
"No," they said
"it's more like 'ky-la'." It means something in his country, apparently.
Even when I met up with people in my own country we sometimes weren't sure how to pronounce the names that we type everyday in chat. I agree with you about the log. Recording live system audio to disk to have a record of a meeting will be yet another reason to crash.
But as you say, the person who stands up to progress will get flattened :)
Look forward to trying it out!
*puts down the crisps and stops farting so maybe Kean will come closer :)
Posted by Rob On [04 Apr 2007 | Wednesday] at 8:38 PM
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Okay... I ripped off the packaging for the mic, threw it and the instructions in the bin and plugged in... set the prefs and launched the SL voice beta. I found a bunch of green dots and tp'd in. As I approached I heard voices crystal clear and a group of people were sitting around chatting. Pretty soon they started talking about me, laughing at my supercool flapping animation. Nice icebreaker, I thought.
"Hi" I said
"Right I've muted him" someone said.
"Rob, unless you stop, we all gonna mute you." Hmmmm....
"Um... stop what?" It's not like I was eating or anything.
Back to chat (names changed to respect ToS):
A: ow
B: ...
A: lol
C: Rob everyone is going to mute you and ignore you if you keep on
You: sorry my first time in voice beta
You: have i committed a faux pas?
C: he is saying its his first time in voice beta
"I don't buy that, he's using a voice modifier," says someone
"A what? No I'm not," I reply... Jeez WTF!! So much for a friendly welcome.
C: go to CTRL P
A: Rob you must turn on toggle to talk
C: then click toggle thing
I was really confused at this point. Someone (dunno who) accused me of being the kind of guy who never reads instructions. Grrrr... I logged out to read them... F**king geeks eh?
So it appears I should have enabled "push to talk" or something... just a warning to you all so you can avoid the social disaster that was my first adventure in voice :)
Posted by Rob On [04 Apr 2007 | Wednesday] at 9:43 PM
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... *spurts tea*
Posted by Kean Kelly On [04 Apr 2007 | Wednesday] at 9:53 PM
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And for me the biggest issue is:
I can't speak English .. I can write it in a way people can understand me - but speaking??? It's something completly different.. people don't understand what I say in my own language, because I speak to fast and mumble - so English?!?!? No way .. but wait.. almost all of my friends speak english ...
I hate it allready ...
Posted by Pink On [04 Apr 2007 | Wednesday] at 9:35 PM
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Hey, this is kinda off topic... but this is the only online conversation I'm involved in right now and I just got a mind boggling statistic that connects my two worlds...
Sun VP Dave Douglas: An avatar's annual CO2 emissions are "the equivalent of driving an SUV around 2,300 miles (or a Prius around 4,000)."
Blogger Nicholas Carr: "your average Second Life avatar consumes about as much electricity as your average Brazilian."
Mmmmm I'll the avatar over the SUV any day!
Posted by Rob On [05 Apr 2007 | Thursday] at 2:27 AM
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Thanks for that, Rob... weirdo.
Meanwhile... back ON topic... Here's what I'd like to add. (nice thread BTW, Kean).
In SL, even more than in RL, we create each other from clues - here, we just get less of them than we do in RL... which maybe means we are less accurate, or maybe not. As we rely on different things to judge.
I have a very few really close friends here. I can spot their avatars from way off, recognise their chat, the way they dress. I have an idea how they'll react in different situations. With some, I have a vague idea how they look in RL, perhaps one small or blurry picture. Nothing much. But in my mind they're fully formed, partly from the few pieces I know, but mostly ... I fill in the spaces.
I feel I know them really well; I "see" to them more often than my RL friends. One girl who I love, I feel like I've known forever.
As we get more pieces of our jigsaw-puzzle friends and build them into people, I guess there's always a danger that they might never turn out like the picture you thought was on the box.
But what do you do? Keep the picture in your head you know you like, or keep fitting pieces together as you find them? Maybe it's better to see the real picture, maybe it's not.
Meeting someone you know well, and love, in voice chat for the first time is a new feeling, like a first date with someone you're already in love with. Voice is a big piece for sure, it could change the whole picture...
I wasn't really worried about how I'd sound to her, just, maybe that she already had an imagined idea of how I sounded and I didn't want to destroy or change what existed, as that worked. TRhere was just a feeling that in SL we'd found some kind of strange kind of balance and that this could up set it.
My heart was pounding as we waited for our mutual friend to show up. I couldn't think of anything clever to say as my first words.
I wasn't at all sure how we were going to start a conversation as we floated about 20 metres above the rolling hills of Morris in the beta grid, I butted into her, and without thinking held down push to talk and said "ouch!".
She laughed, I think. I can't remember whether in text or voice. Gradually we spoke a little, slowly getting bolder. But not much. Our friend joined us and took the pressure off. Her technical problems became an ice breaker for everyone as we were joined by strangers.
I waited to hear the one I love speak or laugh as part of the general conversation. Her voice never became ordinary. No one else seemed to notice the magic that made my heart leap with every word, every laugh.
Do I know her better now? Maybe... I wasn't surprised by her voice. A line's been crossed but it's just another thing, that's all. Just another piece of the puzzle that part of me wants to complete and part of me doesn't.
How did she sound? Just like she always did :)
Posted by captain On [12 Apr 2007 | Thursday] at 8:08 PM
mmm to be honest, I was afraid of it when I first heard people talk about the "voice thing".
Afraid that I would be generalised, become the standard...
I saw a lot of practical disadvantages, a lot of which are confirmed by yr try-out Kean..
But most of all I was (and am) afraid that it will kill a part of the magic. Afterall, what is an avatar? Is it a copy of your RL you, or is it a better/dreamed version, or even a phantasy creature... When I take a look to the humanoid av's, the answer seems quiet clear, not mentioning the neko, dragons, elfs etc...
I mean, OK, we all like nice, real looking skins, but how many are wandering around with a photorealistic copy of thre RL face?? Or will that be the next step? So, I dont need the RL voice neither..
Its 2nd life, an imaginary world, and I like to keep it that way..
I dont want the "after-movie" comment that the book was better...
btw : nothing wrong with spanish guys talking spanish...
that is what they usually do...
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