Staffing Voice chatting with your community

[Josie 198]

Fellow admins- how do you feel about voice chatting with your communities? Is this something you feel is important? Do you want to have a community where you all can call each other and have a chat? Why or why not? If this does not matter to you, why does it not matter to you?

 

Personally, I do enjoy being able to voice chat with my members. I don't expect it of them and wouldn't ever force them into it, but it does feel a little more personal and close when you can talk with a person and hear their voice. There have been certain RP partners that I would call and talk with alone, but recently it has been more in group calls when we played games or something together. In fact, most of the time when we have a group call it is because we were playing a game- and in that case, having a call going on made it much easier for us to communicate with each other than it did to use text chat.

[Dusty 55]

I've been part of having a seasonal (quarterly video) and it was kinda nice to have that personal interaction feel to site updates and what's coming for the next season on the game. It gives the members an "oh they really are real people" O.o moment. However, it's also a lot of work.

 

Once upon a time we used to have a group chat room but that was more typing than voice. I've not used Skype or such as yet. If you do use that type of forum, do you set up an alias account to use for such events? My main worry is the odd player who decides to bombard you becasue they have what they think is a personal contact to you. Also how do you manage time differences? In our current game we have people from both hemispheres and multiple time zones. Not everyone lives in the USA standard time zones.

 

We have played a group game from time to time which was fun, but I also found it also corresponded with a drop in posting on the actual RP game itself.

 

Having said all of the above, there is something to be said for being able to hear voice tone and inflections. Text is one of the mediums that is far too easy to misinterpret because it lacks both the audio and facial expressions.

[Elena 546]

Not interested in voice chat. I have no microphone on my PC exactly for the same reason. 

 

I'd do gladly discord, or FB messenger chat, and I am doing it with many people. I did yahoo before it went wild. But it is writing, and understanding people clearer than in words which might sound similar and be different in meaning. Plus the all kind of accents, including mine...

[CovertSphinx 710]

I wouldn't MIND it, but its not something I've ever sought out aside from team games where communication was necessary for the success of the match. I feel like it would make a good optional "flavor" to the community.

[Morrigan 1,826]

I voice chat people all the time. In fact voice chatting is my number on distraction from my other tasks in life as I tend to be very chatty or the person I'm talking to tends to be chatty. It's a great way to connect with the people I consider my friends when they aren't a coffee trip or bar crawl away. You can ask people like @Amelia @txernest @Serion and @Flibble I skype all the time.

[Bishop 172]

I love it!!! We do this a lot, especially on nights when words just don't work. Over the holidays we haven't had a chance as much, but there are dates that we'll pick and just laugh until the cows come home.