Concern with Pc Players and Console Players

[Sixmp]

This thread is about players who can't /won't use com being left out, not about whats better. Fact is most group will want you to be on voice chat, and if you dont like that feel free to make your own groups.

Now here is the thing, the only people arguing about which is better are the pro coms people. Everyone else just says that they are not required to complete the content and therefore there is no concern.

[MieyCyruuuus]

Now here is the thing, the only people arguing about which is better are the pro coms people. Everyone else just says that they are not required to complete the content and therefore there is no concern.

I'm fine with people arguing that they arent required but im not with people demanding to be included in groups.

[zdub303]

Now here is the thing, the only people arguing about which is better are the pro coms people. Everyone else just says that they are not required to complete the content and therefore there is no concern.

Concern about what though? Whether or it is required to complete the content (in almost every case, very little is actually 'required' to complete MMO content), those groups will continue to require voice comms to join. If he refuses to use voice comms for whatever reasons, that's completely fine, he should just continue to expect that voice comm required pugs won't have him.

He's concerned that PC players are breaking away from console players, the reality is that players who wish to use voice comms will continue to require that and continue to not play with those who don't have it. Statistically, that is probably going to create a loose division between PC and console players. But i've yet to meet a PC player who refuses to play with a console player just because, but plenty of voip only players who refuse to raid with people who dont have voip. That's just the way it is, people are playing the game how they wish to. I guess we're saying the same thing though when I look at it...

[Sixmp]

Words

The divide has been in games for as long as coms have been about. It isn't just limited to consoles. Some people just don't like using them. Some people love them.

[azethoth]

Harsh as it may be. If I, or anyone form a group, and our decided requirement for said group is Voice Chat, and you can't or wont join said Voice Chat, you can't join, period. It doesn't matter if the groups sole purpose is to kill lvl, 1 fluffy bunnies no VC you don't get to join. Your feelings or situation are irrelevant in the matter, and it is neither fair nor unfair because the group has stated their requirements up front; which btw is a thing Yoshi wants us to do. If you cannot or will not meet the requirements of the group go find a group whose requirements you can or are willing to meet. The divide talked about in this thread is self imposed as there are PC and PS3 users who either will or wont join VC.

[Ishmachiah]

The divide talked about in this thread is self imposed as there are PC and PS3 users who either will or wont join VC.

Of all the replies on this topic, this one sentence caused me to fume. I have Mumble, Teamspeak and Ventrilo downloaded on this very pc and I log into them as required. As a deaf person, I have no use or need for voice chat as it still takes me watching a youtube video or another player typing out the specifics in order for me to learn what to do. Some raids I am dropped because of it and some raids they have the patience to tough it out.

That "divide" you speak of is NOT self imposed. People who think and believe like YOU imposed it.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Of all the replies on this topic, this one sentence caused me to fume. I have Mumble, Teamspeak and Ventrilo downloaded on this very pc and I log into them as required. As a deaf person, I have no use or need for voice chat as it still takes me watching a youtube video or another player typing out the specifics in order for me to learn what to do. Some raids I am dropped because of it and some raids they have the patience to tough it out.

That "divide" you speak of is NOT self imposed. People who think and believe like YOU imposed it.

Okay, wall of text incoming! On that specific issue, I can comment from first-hand experience. Please forgive me if anything I say is offensive, that is certainly not my intent. But I really think it's not, it's just real.

Back in the Burning Crusade on WoW we had a deaf person, also mute.

She was our main tank in a softcore 25-men raid (2 nights a week).

And she was an outstanding asset to our group.

As a dedicated player who didn't want to be a burden to others, she did her research on most encounters to know how it's done (most of our raid did that). But you know how this goes, sometimes there are variations, based on the group composition, etc.

We used VC for the raid of course, and when applying a variance on strategies we would explain it to her in the chat, before the fight. If it was required to type something during the fight, we'd ask on VC "can someone write it for <her name>?" and usually one of the officers would do it and she'd comply instantly, or quickly write a counter argument. She made (wrote) a bunch of good calls, too. We performed quite well (killed more than half the bosses before nerf, and at that time it was no small feat), and she's never been a burden to the team. Quite the contrary, she failed probably a lot less than most others in this raid (25 people, that's a lot of potential mistakes lol). So there was no problem doing it for her, we were actually quite glad to have her in our group as she was an outstandingly great player (and anyway, her disability wouldn't have been a reason to exclude her, certainly not!) I actually grew quite fond of her on a personal level, but that's another story I suppose.

I also know she had a lot of experience in a lot of guilds before ours, in several games.

This is to say that in such cases, there are people totally willing to make the effort (if I can call it that, because it wasn't a problem at all). More than 30 of us in that guild, and never once did someone had a valid reason to say anything against her gamer skill, which was great considering she didn't have VC as a support; also it's true her awareness was so outstanding that she would actually be able to often read our moves before we told her, just by looking at cues from our characters, and thus modify her actions to stay in sync. It was quite remarkable, really (she knew the game very well).

Anyhow, we did type for 1 person when needed, but there was a very valid reason—I'm sure you agree. It's not a case of "I don't care about your VC, I don't want to, you're just bad players for using it, yadayada". It's not that she wouldn't, but couldn't. Today if I got a message from a player telling me she or he's deaf, thus unable to use VC, that would not be a reason not to give her/him a chance. Because there's a reason, it's not a matter of will, it's not a special treatment. Special treatment is when someone can, but won't. When someone cannot, however, it's just dealing with life.

I actually enjoyed it. Seeing her thrive in our group as a player made me positively happy (as it made me happy for a lot of others, newbies who never touched an MMO or a VC before, etc.; it's not her more than others actually, but overcoming that disability together, the 25 of us, when many could have said it's not possible… well I liked that.)

However, reasonably, and quite honestly, we just wouldn't have been able to do it for 10 people with such a disability. The 15 others would have had to be OK with that in the first place, and I think that's understandable most would not. And on a personal level I don't think that disabled people should 'do things together' like being 10 in a raid, they should rather blend with other people, because they're certainly not 'worse' (they have this issue, but everyone has issues to some degree; I wouldn't compare out of respect but I would certainly not see disabled people with a condescending look, nor do I see non-disabled people as any 'better'). Seeing that player, and another deaf player who was in the same game years later, I can really testify that some 'non-disabled' players were significantly worse at playing Maybe we should also consider jerkiness as a disability for that matter, but that's another topic I suppose.

Anyway. Even with everything I said in this topic (I stand by it), I'd be totally willing to accommodate for that because I know first-hand that it just works pretty well (raid leading and tactical discussions still taking place on VC during the fight, it was not hard for us to just give her the information she needed, really, writing so little didn't impact our teamplay; and out of combat we'd often try to forward the main parts of the discussion so she could give her input and remarks, as she was a damn good strategist too). It's just that, realistically, as far as in-fight coordination is concerned, we probably couldn't have done it (and certainly not so well) if it were for a majority of the raid (less than 20‰ deaf people in the general population, so it really shouldn't happen). And it just feels terrible that disabled people should have to pack together in games. My gosh, what a horrible thought.

I'll risk a hypothesis here, I hope not offensive to anyone: that disabled people have to deal with it all the time, for instance in all their games, and have probably learned to adapt pretty well in time (depending on the disability of course, motor impairment could be a problem, as well as vision issues, etc.) Someone who hears and speaks alright but doesn't want to use VC probably wouldn't have developed their other cognitive skills to the same degree—notably visual awareness for instance. It was baffling all the little things that player I'm talking about noticed (she also knew her way with add-ons quite well). We know that the human brain often compensates for disabilities, because other cognitive skills are more trained, which prompts this supposition. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. All I know is she played so well (especially in a raiding team, that baffled me) that I sometimes wondered if this didn't have something to do with being deaf/mute. Anyhow, deaf people in raids may not always be better than others, but they are certainly not worse, if you adapt to their situation as much as they adapt to yours.

TL;Dr: The conclusion is that I'd welcome a deaf and/or mute person in my raid any day. I'd actually hire a deaf/mute person in real life without a second thought if her/his skills were right for the job. And wouldn't expect that person to perform any worse than others (if anything my bias on that person's skills would rather be positive, because I know that it can be hard to overcome such situations in life, and that disabled people tend to feel the need to prove themselves more than others, those who have it easy, to be recognised). In a game, the necessary writing would be the specific help they need; well, likewise, I never saw any raider that didn't require some specific help on something at some point. Just another 'thing' to deal with, nothing more nothing less. I'm not making it look pretty, it's just my personal experience. And I don't think I'm great, I think my behaviour is normal. Or should be.

PS: english isn't my first language, so please forgive me if some of the wording just isn't 'politically correct'. I don't do "saying things in a special way" to disabled people, I talk to them like I talk to anyone else, but I certainly didn't want to hurt anyone with this post.

[azethoth]

Of all the replies on this topic, this one sentence caused me to fume. I have Mumble, Teamspeak and Ventrilo downloaded on this very pc and I log into them as required. As a deaf person, I have no use or need for voice chat as it still takes me watching a youtube video or another player typing out the specifics in order for me to learn what to do. Some raids I am dropped because of it and some raids they have the patience to tough it out.

That "divide" you speak of is NOT self imposed. People who think and believe like YOU imposed it.

I absolutely hate when people pull the disability card out, as one who has a disability I despise you for playing that card. I don't go touting my disability to try and win an argument or insult people, how shameful. Regardless as you stated you have them, you may not be able to use them as those that are not deaf can. I applaud you even installing them. However this thread is going on the premise that people CAN use them but choose not to, not that they CAN'T use them, which is why the issue is self imposed. If we want to play the disability card since its now on the table, one of my MT's in EQ2 only had one usable hand, yet managed to Main tank in top tier X4 raids while communicating in Ventrillo.