Ventrilo and Teamspeak: Are Voice Chats Good or Bad for Raiding?
Posted on August 8th, 2009 by Thundernudle under Addons, Alliance, Efficiency Tips, Funny, General Tips, Horde, Humor, Instances, Mods, PVE, Raiding, World of Warcraft, WotLK
There was a day when raids were not run with voice chat. I don’t remember them – I’m not quite an old enough gamer to have participated in those days – but I know at least in the beginnings of WoW voice chat programs like Ventrilo and Teamspeak (not to mention the faux-voice chat Blizz has included in-game) were not nearly as prevalent as they are today.
On the surface, they’re absolutely perfect. What better way to explain fights, give out directions (“more dots, more dots, many more dots!”), and in general have a great time then to be able to actually talk to your fellow raiders in real time? Why deal with all that pesky typing when you can give out your directions and be able to keep your hands quite literally in the game at the same time?
I’ll tell you why: because voice chat can make your raids less successful.
I love Ventrilo. It’s a great tool and can lead to faster, cleaner, and more cohesive raiding. It also allows you to get to know your fellow raiders better, meaning (in most cases) you can have more fun. But Vent and other voice chat programs can slowly become a crutch for raiding guilds and eventually make your raids less productive. Here’s some reasons why:
- The Little Guys
Here’s an easy one: what about your two or three members who simply can’t use the chat program? Some guilds cite Ventrilo or Teamspeak as a requirement for guild entry, but what happens if speakers or headsets break? There will be times when people can’t use voice chat, and those times will be very frustrating for those raiders. With everyone so dependent on voice chatting, questions and comments in /raid are quickly ignored. It’s easy to forget that two other people need directions and details explained to them when they’re not talking to you. Besides, what happens when you pull a boss and nobody knows two of your healers are in the bathroom? - Chatty Cathys
It’s great to have fun when you’re raiding, and before and after the pwnage has occurred, it’s nice to have some friendly talk time. But there are always a few members who insist on having those unrelated talks during the raid. There are few things more distracting than someone raving about last night’s South Park while you’re trying to tank, heal, DPS or at the very least, just not die. Voice chat programs are a breeding ground for interrupting WoW-unrelated discussions. - “Speak Easies”
Basically, being on voice chat makes it easier to speak your mind. While sometimes that can be a good thing (as in, “Look out, Pwntank, you’re standing in a void zone!”), it can also be a bad thing (as in “WTF PWNTANK YOU’RE !@#$ STANDING IN A !@#$ VOID ZONE!!!”). If you don’t notice the difference yet, ask a friend. Not that we don’t see people being mean to each other all the time in Trade chat, but Vent and other chatting programs make it easy. Sometimes having to actually type things out puts up enough of a filter to calm the nerves and make someone rethink what they’re saying. Push-to-talk isn’t always enough for self-censorship. Snide and hurtful comments can affect a raid’s productivity whether it causes a person to leave or causes the Raid Leader to start having to field complaints. - Sheer Forgetfulness
Simply because directions are going on in Vent does not mean that there aren’t important things going on in /raid as well. Sometimes tanking and healing assignments are posted there, sometimes (as in point 1) someone who can’t be on voice might be making an important comment about the fight. Using voice chat programs too often makes people forget that there are still things going on in /raid that they need to be paying attention to. - Encouraging Complacency
This is probably the most dangerous problem of all. After using a voice chatting program for so long, people forget how to function without it. They forget to watch for the AOE being cast – they’re used to it being called on Ventrilo. They don’t remember when to hold their DPS – they’re used to it being called on Teamspeak. They stop looking for void zones and surroundings-related problems – it’s easier to let someone else tell them when they’re in danger. Basically, the chatting program becomes complacency incarnate: raiders stop proactively thinking about the fight and just let information be fed to them. Voice chat then stops being a mere crutch that raiders lean on and begins being a necessity.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use Ventrilo or Teamspeak at all. It’s merely to point out that, if used incorrectly, it can gimp your raid. In the event your voice server goes down or a large portion of your raid can’t be on voice chat, it can completely ruin it. I know nobody likes hearing that Vent or TS is destroying the raid; it makes things fun and easier. But if you start running into attention problems or getting complaints from your two or three raiders who can’t get on voice chat, here’s a suggestion: try running one raid without it to see what it’s like. If your raid can still operate smoothly with minimal hitches, voice chat probably isn’t a problem. But if people are confused, slow and generally disorganized, you may want to consider what chatting programs are doing to degrade your raids.
Good points all. Nice article. I first started seeing problems like this when I was playing Counterstrike: Source. I was in a tournament clan. At first, when we started using in-game voice chat to simplify where the enemy was and such it was great. Same with Vent or TS in Raids. After a while, you get the random chatterboxes, the kids that just like to hear their own voices, and that lot.
The solution IMO is the same, though. Pre-run preparation. Just get everyone into chat asap, and lay down the ground rules. Stick to game-related or raid-related chat while in the instance, and you can BS after.
in the guild i am in we do run vent for all raids.. but when it gets to a boss the raid leader who also pays for the vent server puts a global mute on everyone so that he can explain everything to us and to stop the useless chatter.. while he is doing that his raid assist (his wife) types it all out for our raid members that cannot go in to vent for whatever reason. that way people can hear and see what the strat is. this seems to work for our guild and i suspect that if other guilds worked like this then the issues would be a lot less…
The guilds I’ve been in require vent, but I never listen. I know the fights and I generally outperform most people. Vent is a great tool to have, but I simply can’t stand listening to the raid explanations for the upteenth times.
Vent should not be a replacement for checking out the strats beforehand.
Back in BC when I raided a lot more, the chatty cathy’s always drove me crazy. In say Kara for example, we’d be taking through a couple new guildies or something and a couple of our older (both age and time in guild) would never shut up about the most random things. They had somehow declared our raid time as their gossip hour. So while I’m trying to tell people who needs to be in which beam on Netherspite, they’re talking about their neighbors or their cat or something completely annoying and the rest of the raid is wiping…
It’s also hard when your vent gets filled with know-it-alls who all try to lead a run at the same time and vie for lead…
So yes I agree with the post on both ends, some people can make Vent/TS a total annoyance but overall, it is the most efficient way to communicate with a raid.
This is the time when you just yell at them and say “HEY YOU, QUITE OR YOURE OUT” at least until the fight is done or loot is finished. If they really want to keep talking, have them create a private chat channel and have their friends join and they can talk all they like there. And then when they die you can remember that and kick them out next time.
Random chat on vent is definitely an issue; it does tend to lead to bad pulls and slower raids overall. I’m not sure I agree with the other problems listed here being a result of chat programs, though.
The people who call out instructions on vent are the same people who notice that stuff without vent; the people who don’t notice are the people who wouldn’t otherwise be raiding, and are able to as a result of Ventrilo. The programs lower the skill barrier and that means more people can raid effectively; if those programs fail for whatever reason then the skill barrier goes back up to where it was, and no higher.
Saying that TS or vent causes problems assumes that you can and should blame your raiders’ poor raid awareness on something other than your raiders. Which is total baloney.
As to the problem of learning to ignore /raid, if people know the fights, it just isn’t very important for someone besides the raid leader to go ignored for a while (and if visible communication is really important, they can be made assist and use /rw), and the raid leader has very effective tools to deal with the problem of being ignored.
Now, if you said that running a chatless raid is a good way to distinguish between people who use vent as a crutch and those who know are raid aware, then I’d agree. But frankly, it seems like a waste of time when the only time it would make a difference is when the program fails – and if the program fails, it’s a better time to distinguish between raid aware players and non- as any time before. Who cares if players aren’t raid aware without a functional vent, if they have a functional vent?
@carrion…… “Now, if you said that running a chatless raid is a good way to distinguish between people who use vent as a crutch and those who know are raid aware, then I’d agree. But frankly, it seems like a waste of time when the only time it would make a difference is when the program fails – and if the program fails, it’s a better time to distinguish between raid aware players and non- as any time before. Who cares if players aren’t raid aware without a functional vent, if they have a functional vent?”
1. Why do you think its a waste of time? It is perfectly logical and no one loses in the end overall. Better be forewarned and forearmed than to run into a situation where all of the sudden, no one may know what to do next… or some twerp is freaking out because they lost Vent/TS. The article is solid and I gone through variations of every one of their possible complaints in regards to Vent and TS with various groups and pugs. Our guild actually did what this article suggests long before this article came out and that is one reason why we’re good and why a lot of people like coming to our raids and group-ups. Even without vent/ts, we make runs smooth as we treat them stress-free and fun no matter how badly some runs may go (we fall down, pick ourselves up and laugh then try it again). We don’t see it as a waste at all.
2. Who cares? Well, people who actually play the game that want a fun and engaging group care about those things. Vent/TS makes things easier, I agree… but I could live without it. Our guild have people who have vent and people who don’t…. even so, we do not see problems with people without it because we always make a point beforehand to make sure everyone is on the same page (with and without vent). Number 5 on the article speaks for itself….. some people have actually become lazy and do rely entirely on vent/ts. I love vent for the fact its a great tool for faster and more coordinated group/raid activities… but it shouldn’t be all that…. but its just a tool, and even tools like vent can be abused.
In the end, its really just how a person prefers to play and their play-style. And its also just a game, for crying out loud….. I understand the passion people have for the game…. it is a nice thing … but trying to sound like an obsessed hardcore gaming maniac in vent/ts and treating the “game” super seriously ruins the fun factor for some people who simply want to have a good time.
I agree with the entirety of the article, in fact, I put a link of this on our guild forum web site…… even if some of you can’t see it, I already know what, in which catergory, some of the posters here belong to just by seeing their replies to the article.
I Completely agree with you here. And my guild has done the same thing. the only time we will take vent is for Ulduar. and that is for the Hard Mode Coordination. Occasionally we will take vent to a Naxx run for the under-geared recruits. but it is entirely un-necessary.
1. It is a waste of time because by running a chatless raid, you are causing the problem you should be hoping to avoid. If the problem (of having a raid where nobody knows what to do because they are too reliant on vent) will happen when it goes out unexpectedly; it will still happen when it is removed deliberately. And a raid night ruined by a bunch of raiders reliant on vent not having it. It’s like saying you should practice having your foot cut off so that you’ll know what to do if your foot gets cut off.
2. As for who cares, everyone who would not be able to raid if they didn’t have vent cares. That’s a lot of people. Vent/TS is what makes endgame possible for a HEFTY chunk of the current WoW population – people who would otherwise quit the game out of boredom and miss out on something they really enjoy. And yes, I do fall in that category.
The game would be unequivocally worse without verbal chat programs supporting them. The fact that it’s sometimes possible to run raids without them does not even apply.
I’m not using this article to suggest that a Raid Leader should permanently strip voice chat from his raid, I’m saying to use it as a diagnosis. It’s true and I agree that voice chat allows people who might not otherwise be able to raid to do so, but my point is that it *can* be a facilitator of laziness. Over time people just forget to play as actively and that can hurt the raid. I’m not saying people are doing it maliciously, I’m just saying it can happen.
As for the game being unequivocally worse without voice, this is pure opinion. Recall that when the game came out it didn’t come with voice; it’s *completely* playable without it and many people used to. And yes, I do fall in that category.
I understand that Vent and TS simply make the game more fun and in most cases easier…but I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that it can make your raiders complacent as well.
Do you also think that DBM makes people too dependent on it because it calls out when there is danger without the player needing to find it? Sure voice chat could become a clutch, but it is here to stay – for better or for worse.
It allows higher control over the raid, and is by far the most efficant way of instructing people, calling out changes that need to be made and prepared for during the middle of a boss fight, and fixing player mistakes/avoiding errors.
As for the random chatter, the raid leader(s) need to be in control of what goes on in vent due to the fact that it coorilates directly with raid preformence. In my guild, vent is generially quiet. The leader is also very good at adressing peoples questions that they type out.
Your arguements make sense, however I beleve it is more on the leaders side to keep everything in check, including vent. This goes for any and every team. If your players on the football team are talking about how awesome the last game was and not about the next play, then the leader is not doing a good job. If the leader stays on track, the raid will.
This is the same arguement as the one about technology unlearning essential skills like survival and finding food if you are stranded, or even wrighting as apposed to typing (in which wrighting could be a thing of the past, much like analog clocks are becoming).
And yet, we are all on computers killing fake dragons when we could be outside mastering stratagies to kill real dragons for irl epics!
Jokes aside, this article is a good one for raid leaders to learn how to control their vent and improve their raid preformance. Go technology!
I get enough verbal diarrhea at work. WoW for me = listening to music on my itunes which is INFINITELY more interesting than listening to how Darkwing is a noob. I can still be a good raider. I can NOT listen to music and babble though, so I’ve removed myself from competitive raiding. (I’m also having more fun!).
I have a bunch of friends that I do 5 mans with and we just type. If you want to make sure its realllly noticed, you /rw it.
/rw Healer under attack!
PS – Don’t piss off your healer.
PWNTANK YOU IDIOT!!!