Originally Posted by EQ2 Official Forums

There has been some buzz building for a while that we've teamed up with Vivox to bring you in-game voice chat. That time is nearly upon us. With Game Update 47, voice chat will be available throughout EverQuest II!

However, we really want this to be a high-quality system that you love to use! That's why, just days after Game Update 46 has gone live, we're bringing in-game voice chat to the Test server! We want your feedback!

Here's a little preview of how EverQuest II's voice chat feature will work.

The game automatically creates voice channels for Guilds, Guild Officers, Groups and Raids. You can also create your own custom password-protected user channels similar to how the in-game text chat currently works. These channels are available through a drop-down box in the new Voice Chat window. The Voice Chat window also shows the participants currently in the channel and an icon color indicates who is speaking.


The Voice Chat window can also be positioned, faded and configured to only show current speakers (while it can be faded out completely, the image below shows some transparency for effect).


In addition to the Voice Chat window, there is also a new Voice Bar that provides status updates, channel selection and a talk indicator to show when you are talking. The Voice Bar can be freely placed or attached to your chat window.


Sometimes it's easier to just invite someone to join your Raid or Guild channel rather than create a new custom channel and have everyone join it. Therefore, we've added the ability for leaders to invite players, even on other EverQuest II servers, to join any of the game-controlled voice channels. A handy link is displayed on the invitee's chat window and a quick click puts them in voice communication with you and everyone else in the channel.


We've made it easy to get voice chat working from the start. While voice chat is turned on by default, we don't automatically put you in any channels to start with. However, if you'd like to, we've also added the ability to automatically join Group, Raid and Guild channels when they are available. Plus, we've addressed a problem that people tend to have when using a voice chat application. With your permission, the EverQuest II client tries to fix settings in Windows that may be preventing your microphone from working. Perhaps your microphone is muted in the volume control panel, or it's not selected as the Windows input device. We've provided a handy "Fix" button to take care of some of these issues, as well as some troubleshooting options so that you can get chatting without ever leaving the game!


We've also put speaking indicators into the Group and Raid windows, as well as the display for Logitech G15 Keyboards.

So, come try out our in-game Voice Chat for EverQuest II on the Test server (soon!) and let us know what you think!

Originally Posted by EQ2 Official Forums

Amana wrote:

I deffinately have alot of questions concerning the voice chat system.
1. What is the overall goal of the voice chat system? Are you wanting to compete with Ventrilo and Teamspeak servers?
2. Is the Speak system a seperate entity to EQ2 wherebye it goes to another server or is it tied directly into specific EQ2 servers? One thing I worry about is 2k+ players all chatting at the same time possibly creating lag.
3. Will people be able to silence others in their group or other players they feel are too talkative? Also have you thought about tieing it into the ignore system?
4. What tools will you give raid and group leaders to control chatter? Will leaders have the ability to quickly silence everyone but themselves to give out orders and directions?
5. In terms of latency will see a seperate latency window for the voice chat to monitor our lag or will it be in the same window as the game latency window?
6. For the guild portion will we see a rank system with voice chat permission and a possible tie in to custom voice channels?
I'll have to thank up some more questions, but those are my most pressing ones at the moment.

1. We'd LOVE for you to use the in-game chat over the other ones. That's why we're soliciting feedback long before it goes live. We're also doing usability focus tests on campus here at SOE to make this a GREAT feature.

2. Yes. All voice communication goes through Vivox's systems and NOT through the game servers. They're completely separate servers in a completely separate datacenter.

3. The system allows you to set volume and mute on a per-player basis. This allows you to adjust people you can't quite hear (or are too loud) or mute someone who is being a bit too talkative.

4. Yes, we're implementing moderator controls, although they're in development now (and will be available for launch). Moderators will be able to kick, ban and mute individual or all other players. Currently Raid leaders are moderators in the Raid channel, Group leaders are moderators in their Group channels, Guild Leaders are moderators in the Guild Officers' channel and Guild Officers are moderators in the Guild channel.

5. Since all communication goes through Vivox system, we (as EQII developers) don't have visibility into the network traffic, so no latency information is available.

6. Currently there are just Guild and Guild Officer channels with moderation abilities as answered in #4. In order to participate in the Guild Officer channel, you must have permission to see and speak in the Guild Officer text channel.

Originally Posted by Kiljoi

more lag?

Originally Posted by Kiljoi

more lag?

Originally Posted by FelipeAnklebiter

It looks like they put in a lot of effort to get this working to it's full potential right out of the box. I wish they put that much effort behind other aspects of EQ2.

Originally Posted by Kiljoi

more lag?

Originally Posted by mono

"Yes. All voice communication goes through Vivox's systems and NOT through the game servers. They're completely separate servers in a completely separate datacenter"