Voice Chat?

[Maero]

I too do not think it would be worth some $$ to invest resources into in game chat.
So many voice programs out there now and fairly certain SE knows players use them so would not bother.

[Tinkerblue]

I just wish PlayStation would implement a discord app.

[Maero]

A discord app and parser would be nice

[Kosmos992k]

Voice chat built into the game would become a defacto feature that players would be expected to use or be kicked. Of course it would also be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, so many people wouldn't use it, and the unrated nature of voice chat would be a turn off to some players, parents and younger players.

Others have mentioned the irrelevant conversion, extra music and loud argumentative chat about other topics being both annoying an distracting, along with the inevitable vocal diatribes that players will issue forth without even pausing for a moment to think better of it.

If groups want to use voice chat there are already many options for them, but because it exists outside the game it's entirely optional and opt-in only.

Last, I would never use voice chat anyway, hearing my voice speaking for my character would be immersion shattering for me. It's not so much that I role play anything when playing - I really don't, it's just that my voice would be 'wrong' and that would be a problem for me at least.

[Kaethra]

You are comparing extremely small MMOs to arguably the second largest on the market. If people type profanities and jump on people for mechanical mistakes, it's silly to think they wouldn't use voice. Furthermore, because you haven't experienced it. Does not mean it hasn't happened. I've experienced decidedly little harassment or even jerk players in XIV, but I certainly won't say it doesn't happen. Yes, people can mute it, but as others have said-- including Yoshi himself. It will gradually be seen as mandatory, especially for new content.

EQ2 isn't small, and is on its 7th expansion. Planetside 2 likewise isn't small and holds a Guinness world record for most online players in a single battle. WoW also has voice chat that has never in the 5 years its had it, had the problems you described. Which NA population is double that of FFXIV's world population.

You're wrong, and at this point if you're willing to spread false information are damn near lying. Why are you lying to this community? You are knowingly spreading misinformation about a topic you obviously know nothing about. You lack any first hand experience on the topic.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

EQ2 isn't small, and is on its 7th expansion. Planetside 2 likewise isn't small and holds a Guinness world record for most online players in a single battle. WoW also has voice chat that has never in the 5 years its had it, had the problems you described. Which NA population is double that of FFXIV's world population.

You're wrong, and at this point if you're willing to spread false information are damn near lying. Why are you lying to this community? You are knowingly spreading misinformation about a topic you obviously know nothing about. You lack any first hand experience on the topic.

Small in terms of population. A single battle is not representative of the game nor are those types of battles generally held with complete randoms. You also conveniently didn't mention WoW previously. I'll call into question WoW's voice chat considering the game is known for high levels of toxicity. No other MMO blocks chat in their PvP yet the devs decided to specifically because player feedback apparently showed high volumes of negativity. Would that translate to voice chat? Maybe not, but I don't doubt for an instance it's a concern and one (not the only) reason we won't ever see it implemented in XIV.

[Kaethra]

No other MMO blocks chat in their PvP yet the devs decided to specifically because player feedback apparently showed high volumes of negativity.

Everquest 2 PVP servers have Lucanite and Antonican languages to replace common.
Rift restricted it.
As did STO.
As did Archeage.
And so did DCUO, SWTOR, Wildstar, and a few others.

Is FFXIV your first MMORPG? You seem to be very inexperienced. Or intentionally misleading. Which is it?

[Valenth]

Everquest 2 PVP servers have Lucanite and Antonican languages to replace common.
Rift restricted it.
As did STO.
As did Archeage.
And so did DCUO, SWTOR, Wildstar, and a few others.

Is FFXIV your first MMORPG? You seem to be very inexperienced. Or intentionally misleading. Which is it?

Forgive me for jumping in, but aren't most of the games you're mentioning restricting their chat for either free2play and/or for the lower levels only? Chat restriction introduced mainly to protect players against spam from RMT/bot armies? Iirc at least STO, Archage, SWTOR and Wildstar in your list fall under this type of chat restriction. I wouldn't know for sure about the other games you mentioned, as I haven't played them.

I think that's a nuance that needs to be made before you even start putting in an unnessary negative line, insinuating someone's opinion is invalid due to inexperience (incomplete maybe, but never invalid) or intentionally misleading. You would have gotten your point across perfectly fine without that last sentence really. Besides it's ironic given that the phrase could serve as a (relatively mild) example of exactly why SE removed chat from The Feast to begin with. Lines like these inhibit co-operation, instead making people shift their vocal point to defending one's honor and sense of self.

Also, in a way you just gave an example to Bourne's point on why voice chat may not be implemented. They want to avoid negativity as much as possible and control it as best they can when they have to deal with it. Voice chat would require they step up their policing even further and have to inject a lot of money and resources into something that has plenty of free alternatives out there. Sure, it's a bit of a hassle to get people to join Discord servers, but it's a lot less hassle than pumping in lots of money for purchasing and maintaining the servers needed to operate and store all the voice chat as well as all the time spent for (additionally hired) GM's to listen to all the voice chat in order to find the offenses commited. Text chat is just so much more managable in that regard.

[dotsforlife]

WoW added this feature in a long time ago. It's never used. As the others have said, it's a waste of resources compared to its usefulness, which is next to nil given how poor it would be. SE is a business and it wouldn't be a wise decision to spend money/time/manpower to implement this.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Not sure if it's been said, but the original, official statement on it was that they didn't want a situation where players felt they HAD to use voice chat, thus didn't implement it.

Granted, some of the content in game, largely raids and PvP, really do require higher levels of communication between a team (and PvP currently is quite the hot issue with the Feast chat restrictions), but this in itself is a long running debate I'd rather not bring up again here.