Quote Originally Posted by OMEGA_HACK View Post
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You know, for someone who that claims to have been around since EQ, you sure seem clueless about how things were beaten back then. The concept of TS, or VoIP in general, did not even begin to see MODERATE use until around 2005, long after games like EQ and even FFXI had been released. We beat content... ALL content... through text communication. Believe it or not, the internet didn't start to become a household expectation until around 2002, where it still wasn't uncommon to find people with dial-up services instead of broadband.

We got by through prepping ourselves. Creating macros (if the game had it as a usable feature) to alert party members of things. We would end up wiping as we learned how to get through mechanics... not unlike now, even with VoIP. Now, with the internet as "mandatory" as it is, we have a multitude of tools to use to get us through content, such as walkthroughs readily available for people to use. Games like FFXIV will often broadcast target abilities to alert you of impending danger (the effects and results vary), which I would think don't always require someone to tell you something very noticeable just appeared on your own screen.

The requirement of VoIP by people is simply because it's become the norm, due to how potentially beneficial it is for ease of success. Devs will NEVER EVER create content that requires this to succeed. Truth be told, I'd rather not bother listening to the same mouth-breathers complaining about the stupidest things or threatening each other like you would in some FPS game. Even if you could turn off such a feature from the game, it's tainting the fun of it just knowing that there's another source of shit feedback coming from our peers.