Your2ndPlace

In the past I wasn't very fond of the idea of voice coming to sl. I thought it would just create a new way to alter the way people view each other in SL. With voice people are able to better detect age, gender, origin, ect. And people tend to form an idea of what they think you look like by your voice alone. It can take away from the characters we play or the image we portray. Being so anonymous is very appealing to many people and a way to use sl to escape real life now and then.

Personally I didn't want voice because of my own insecurities. I mumble a lot, and I don't have a sexy ultra femme type voice. I also have a family and thought that doing business deals via voice would be difficult with kids wrestling and yelling at each other on the sofa behind me. I like the image I feel I have worked hard to build. When I am on a plot of land making a deal that involves several hundred US dollars, I think one of my daughters screaming "Sissy took this Doll away and I had it first!!" in the back round would take away from my professional image and reduce me to just another housewife.

Well out of curiosity more than anything I download the first look voice viewer. I started to wander sl looking for places where I could listen in and hear. Everything I have read talked about how horrible the quality was and I wanted to hear for myself. Finding people was difficult. I think I must have tp'd to 7 or 8 places before finding a small bar type area dedicated to voice. There was only 1 gentleman there and he started talking to me. I typed back my response, and he walked me through ways to get the most out of voice. He explained to me the setting he felt worked out best in preferences and so on. I really enjoyed hearing his soft kind sounding English accent, and appreciated the help. With my newly acquired knowledge I continued my quest. My friend Dimitrio said that Waterhead was known for being voice active so I went to check it out.

He was right. There were a few people standing around joking and talking to each other. I was greeted within seconds by a few people. The sound wasn't as bad as I had expected from forum posts ect. It was only difficult to tell who was saying what when several people spoke at once or someone acted like a jackass and shouted or sung loudly. Otherwise it was fine. People were nice to me even though I was using text for response, and I liked hearing all of the accents and how quickly conversation moved. I even got a new freebie out of the whole deal, The cool 3-D glasses from Brash Bracken (above with the talk icon going) shown in the picture.

When I reached a point I felt comfortable enough to use voice for myself, I pushed the button and nothing. It seems that something is wrong with the mic attached to my headset or I have something blotched in settings I can't seem to find. Hopefully in the next day or two I'll get that fixed (by fixed I mean I get my Husband to fix it) and I will be able to test the speaking side of this.

My overall first impression of voice..... I like it more than I thought I would, and although I will seldom use it myself, I like having the option there, I like listening, and I think it will be a good tool for education and so on. In the end we will choose if we use it or not and it's not something that we have to participate in. I guess when it becomes part of the main grid we will get a real feel for how this will effect us as a community.

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