Blizzard CM Drysc announced that the Voice Chat feature will be implemented onto the live realms in stages and that only a select few will have integrated Voice Chat enabled when Patch 2.2 is released. All realms will be getting all other features of Patch 2.2, but some of the realms will have to wait until the following week for Voice Chat to be enabled.
Drysc goes on to say that Voice Chat will be on separate servers from the actual game realms:
Voice chat doesn't run through the game servers. This test is of the voice chat servers themselves, not the game realms. If there's an issue voice chat won't be available, the realms themselves shouldn't be affected. In any case, that's what this initial set of realms is to test, how voice chat handles and interacts with the realms on a wider scale.
I don't know if this means we are getting Patch 2.2 on Tuesday 9/18 or not, but I do know that I won't have Voice Chat to play with on my main realm until the week after its release.
Check out our hands on look at Voice Chat and look for the list of realms getting Voice Chat first after the jump.
Just a note for you running WoW on the older Macs out there-- PowerPC Macs were the last to run WoW's built in voice chat system on the PTR, and as of build 7125 (the latest, I believe), voice chat now works.
If you're running one of those fancy shmancy new MacBook Pros with the Intel processors, you don't care, and if you're running WoW in Windows, well I'm sorry (did I mention that I'm also writing for our blogosphere cousin TUAW now?). But for those of you running PowerPC Macs, feel free to load up the PTR and do some voice chatting.
Was the headline too confusing? "Public Test Realm Voice-over-Internet-Protocol on PowerPC is good to go."
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
With another BlizzCon behind us, the wealth of information about upcoming content has been at times overwhelming. As a player, I'm always excited to learn about what's around the corner. But as a guild leader, I worry about what kind of ugliness is going to crop up as a result of it. From the upcoming patches to the WotLK expansion, new challenges will arise to test the savvy, determination, and people skills of officers in all types of guilds. Just like the CEO of any good business, a guild leader shouldn't just react to challenges as they arise, but anticipate them and take steps to meet them head-on. Let's examine what's in store for Warcraft guilds and what we can do now to transition smoothly into the future.
In Gamers on the Street, Krystalle Voecks will be creating characters and joining random US servers in an attempt to find out what the everyday Gamer thinks about different things going on in and around the World of Warcraft. With research in hand, she'll report back here on Thursdays, to share the word from the front lines.
With all the excitement about the PTRs and pre-made characters, I thought it would be interesting to ask people what they thought about some of the upcoming changes that Blizzard is adding into WoW in patch 2.2. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that I asked admitted that they didn't even bother reading the patch notes until they were released as live. Many said this was because of changes happening so fast that it wasn't worth tracking until it was finished. Others had only heard about the frenzy to get on the PTRs, and maybe of a couple of things in the works. But after a bit of searching, I managed to get two people who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules and give me their thoughts on their "best and worst" in the upcoming patch, as well as their thoughts on Voice Over IP (VOIP) that Blizzard is building into the game and hopes to make available soon.
Some people on the forums are voicing concerns over the upcoming VOIP feature being added in Patch 2.2. For example, player Farnsworth is afraid that all he is going to hear is kids playing music. CM Drysc's response is
/right click /ignore Enjoy the silence.
There are basic features that will be built in to the Integrated Voice feature such as being able to ignore individual players' voices. But the most important thing to remember is that the feature is optional. Just as the quality of online play varies with the people with whom you are playing, so does the quality of online voice vary with the people to whom you choose to listen. We all hope for pleasant voices from informed minds, but what we usually get ranges from the comedic to the downright scary, as illustrated here.
Another forum thread (unfortunately, now deleted) suggested that no one was going to use integrated voice and that it was a waste of development resources. A different player asked "What do you think Blizzard is made up of? One guy named Bill Izzard who has to do everything?" Drysc responded with
Bill's a nice guy, but you're right, we also have Bly Zizzard. So, yeah, two people who do everything. But really I don't think it's important to justify our development pipelines, or explain that a programmer is different from an artist, or UI designer, or web designer. If you don't want to use the voice chat feature you'll be able to disable it.
Tigerclaw, who I've never heard of either-- is he a dev? He says he's "in a whole other building than the CMs"-- has bad news for all of those Teamspeak and Ventrilo hosts. Apparently come 2.2.0, you won't need to run any extra programs, as players will be able to speak to each other via the normal client. Tigerclaw also says a PTR for the patch is upcoming, but he definitely does work for Blizzard: he doesn't give any clues at all as to when this might happen.
So let the rampant speculation begin! Lately I've been playing a lot of the Halo 3 Beta (traitorous, I know), and I love the way voice works in that game: you can push a button to talk over a radio to your whole team, or just speak into the mic without pushing anything, and only players near you ingame will hear what you're saying. I doubt WoW will be that complicated (not to mention that a lot of players don't like that "feature"), but it's a cool effect, and here's hoping Blizzard comes up with some interesting ways to use voicechat onward. What if Hakkar's whispers were heard only in your own personal voice channel?
As previewed before, the Blizzard developers made mention that they were working on an in-game voice-over-IP system. Well, "Games for Windows" magazine has an article that confirms that Blizzard will be implementing this feature in the future. While the release of this feature has not been scheduled, more specific information and details of the system have been discussed.
Some of the features that have been disclosed include feature that lights up the speaking character's name in the interface, allowing you to actively see who is speaking, and target them if necessary. Also, the voice channels can be separated so that the music can be silenced while a player speaks, or the music can be over normal speakers and voice can be sent directly to a headset.
While the replies of the players are mixed as to the potential of abuse, options of use, and how it will effect gameplay and system lag, I think that this will be a feature that could be amazing if done well. I can't wait to give it a try!
This is probably the longest movie we've ever posted, at over 43 minutes. Entrepreneur, internet celebrity and generally hoopy froodJoi Ito (of We Know/We No on Eitrigg-US) gave this lecture on WoW at the latest Chaos Communication Conference (23C3). The talk doesn't assume any WoW knowledge, but also doesn't bore those of us who do play (at least not me). It seems to broadly concern itself with WoW as a social space/social experiment, including guild organization, voice chat, real-world/WoW bleed-through, and the implications of having such a huge subscriber base.
I found the video quite interesting. I wish it included the Q&A afterwards; maybe we can have our own discussion in the comments here.
Blizzard CM Drysc announced that the Voice Chat feature will be implemented onto the live realms in stages and that only a select few will have integrated Voice Chat enabled when Patch 2.2 is released. All realms will be getting all other features of Patch 2.2, but some of the realms will have to wait until the following week for Voice Chat to be enabled.
Just a note for you running WoW on the older Macs out there-- PowerPC Macs were the last to run 
Some people on the forums are voicing concerns over the upcoming 
Coming in 2.2.0: 
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