GamerSpeak:

Voice Chat

We recently asked gamers to tell us their best Voice Chat stories. Here’s what they had to say:

"During Hurricane Charley, I was hosting a Voice Chat through the Dashboard, talking to friends all over, including Alberta, Canada, and describing what was going on. We eventually decided to play Counter-Strike™, despite what was going on. They were very interested in what was going on and maybe even more concerned than I was. Heh. But we all deal with big events in different ways. Chatting on Xbox Live™ and then playing some Counter-Strike was a fantastic stress reliever for me. Fortunately, the storm veered eastward enough to spare my area (Tampa Bay) a major hit. But the impact was still felt for many through flooding, some damage, and lots of power outages. Amazingly, my power stayed on. But of course there would be Hurricanes Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne to contend with as well. Somehow the "Sunshine State" just doesn't seem to fit. At least, not since I moved here from Washington State back in March.  

I have always appreciated the Voice Chat feature. Sure, I think there could be improvements to help make chatting on Xbox Live even smoother. I also think it would be cool to add features that would enable people hosting chats to customize their "room." Things like backgrounds and ambient effects. Perhaps adding a way to pipe tunes to my friends while we're chatting. These suggestions open a floodgate of ideas, every one requiring sufficient bandwidth. But, some way of personalizing the experience for each chat would be a very welcome bonus.

All that said, I never even imagined I'd one day be talking on Xbox Live during a Hurricane. I'm grateful it's available—and my power stayed on." 

GrooveSim
Tampa Bay, FL

"My best (and only) Voice Chat experience was marred by the fact that I was talking to myself. For some reason, my mic will sometimes let me hear myself. So I had started talking to myself, and then thought someone was copying me, before I realized what was going on, and felt extremely embarrassed."

Artic Wolf 65
Rockaway, NY

"Have I got a story for you! I love the Voice Chat since this feature saved me from getting fired.

I was playing a game of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® 3 Black Arrow™ and one of my two bosses at work was playing Burnout® 3: Takedown™ and my main boss got on the Voice Chat and invited us both to the chat room to ask us a very important question to see if we did something before leaving work. Well, to make a long story short, we had kind of like a conference call in the Dashboard and figured out the problem before we had gotten fired ... In other words, Xbox® is not just for the gamer, but for the corporate office. Thanks Xbox for the voice feature as now we have a weekly meeting talking about work in the Dashboard before I own them in a game of Rainbow Six ..."

PIMCO
Raytown Mo.

"Well, it's not exactly a "story," but it's kinda funny. Me and these guys were in a chat and all we did was make farm animal noises. I'm a great goat. Haha … P.S. look for me on Xbox Live and I'll do the goat for you."

Kaptin Kool

"There are a lot of things that I particularly like about Xbox Live Voice Chat. I love the aspect of being able to talk to your friends in real time. I use it to talk with my friends that live right around the corner, or my friends that live on the other side of the U.S. It is also great to use when organizing clan matches, or just chatting with fellow clansmen.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that I do not like about Voice Chat. Sometimes my friends will get disconnected; however, I am sure that the support team is working on this issue. Also, when there are quite a few people in the server, the host will start breaking up to people towards the bottom of the chatting ladder. Also, a couple of times it would not show everyone's name that was in the room.

Over all, I really enjoy using Xbox Live Voice Chat to talk to friends while not being hassled to give orders in-game. It really helps to bring the Xbox Live community closer together."

KnightinArmor
Chesapeake, VA

[Editor's Note: We think gigablade77 is talking about in-game voice communication here, but it's all good!]

"Ok, I was playing Counter-Strike at a friend's house, and as you know people don't listen to what you say a whole lot. I was getting sick of it (I knew exactly where to go to plant the bomb without being seen). I told them a couple times and eventually got like one guy to follow me, so I said to my team 'Why don't you guys just go knife them all, then,' and, for once, they listened ... and killed every one of the counter-terrorists by knifing. After that round they started to listen to me, finally, and what do ya know? We won 11 out of 14 rounds after that"

gigablade77
Kelowna, BC, Canada

"My best and favorite Voice Chat I had was on my (and others') favorite subject: HOCKEY. It was about the lockout, and how we felt about it. We blabbered on for hours, just talking about what we thought about it, and what we'd do if we were in the commissioner's spot. We would have already found a way to resume the NHL if we were the commish :). The one thing that was annoying about the chat is that randomly during the chat someone would join in (off someone's Friends List) and didn't know nothing about hockey—and just randomly interrupted our chat and then left a minute later ... and they sounded dumbfounded; they didn't even know the NHL was locked out! The greatest thing I felt about the chat was that it was crystal clear, and we could hear everyone perfectly, just sitting there, talkin' about what we like the best. If none of us had to work the following night, or wanted to be fired, we would have stayed talking about the dang subject all night (maybe an occasional joke here and there, and some spicing up), and we could have talked about it all night too. We were all so passionate about the sport, and angry about how we cannot play. Today is a very special day, also: October 13th, which was to be the start of the regular season in the NHL (Go Flames)!! Hopefully the NHL can resume ASAP so we can talk during games in the near future!!!"

SILENTSIM
Calgary, Alberta, Canada