... Or more populary refered to as Ventrilo vs typing. More precisely defined - when talking about communication in raids in this particular game named World of Warcraft.
When it comes to communication in general I think everyone can agree that in a game such as World of Warcraft where it is the combined team work that results in succes, the communicational tool is a certain key to victory. One cannot simply read another persons mind. So henceforth, we communicate. Following the MMO scene the past 5-7 years, Ventrilo and Teamspeak and equivalent has become significantly popular and even quite trivial when it comes to the accessability. A quick reason for this would probably be because of the vast development in the Counter-Strike scene where it was alpha-omega to have, and the fact that sponsors and other third parties alike are tossing servers dedicated for VT/TS around like they were grown on the trees.
Yes, of course Nihilum has a VT server provided. Who hasn't these days? Yet officially it isn't used when raiding. Atleast not by Kungen, who, has many have seen so far, prefers to do the raidleading via good old chatting ingame. That doesn't mean that many members do not hang around on VT, and I bet my shoes that half the raid is there in the same channel and that a lot of informational flow runs through that way. "BOP'ing you Jinxarn", "Buff me with this or that", etc.
Basically a lot have pondered about this phenomenom for a while. Not that any Nihilum members have tried answering it thoroughly besides a few usual and short responses such as. Having studied language as a part of my subject on the university I've crossed this topic sometimes, and here's some theoretical take on it anyway.
If we are to put up the speech (contra the writing), here's a few things we can state:
- The speech is in most situations interactive, it is here and now, and by making it interactive you open up for a reactional dimension as well.
- The speech hereby also allows our sense of hearing to come into place. Dialects, the voice and phonetics matters now. People can yell, or shout or whisper - you can judge a whole lot more based on someone's speaking to you than writing to you. This is one of the cases, I might add, where the speech in my eyes is far superior to the writing. There's a lot of stuff you simply cannot write down the way they are pronounced, said or uttered. We often lack symbols for it.
Also notice that when it comes to situations like mad people, say you are in a bus and you're always certain the guy standing further down is a nutcase, it's because you can hear him at first. You could close your eyes and just listen to him and assume right away, that this guy breaks the normative perspective of a human being.
I'm pretty certain a lot of you also tried doubting someone where or not they were "normal" up until you heard their voices and could either confirm or deny. Just the sole fact that people know your own language gives you a whole different view of them.
- The speech is however also very redundant and repeating. Most people doesn't notice it. But if you ever record people talking, say just a regular VT conversation for that matter, and then you listen to it and start to write it down - you'd quickly notice it. It's actually quite annoying. So be glad that's not your job.
- Most importantly, in terms of this whole WoW raiding and Nihilum discourse is the fact that the speech is linear. This is where I believe the writing is superior compared to using ventrilo or whatever. And what do I mean by linear?
By that I mean, when you utter something, it's simply gone. The said is drifted away. If you are honest to yourself, how many times have you been told a tactic for a certain boss - and instantly almost forgotten half of it? And how many times, have you instantly afterwards, come to the conclusion, that asking again would be really ridiculous? You're gonna start doing the above mentioned statement. The abundance. The repeating. You don't do that, and you end up with fragments of a tactic.
However, when Kungen does the raiding and explains the tactic (I might add he isn't the only one deciding it), it STAYS there. You can scroll up, reread it all you want - and the sole fact that you got to see the words and perceive them visually leaves a much better impression inside that thing between your ears. That is in fact what, in my opinion atleast, makes the best difference and why general typing ingame really has gotten where it is today.
Obviously this depends on a few factors. Such as the one explaining tactics or leading the raid first of all is pretty clear and articulate, second of all that he is blazingly fast at typing - say midfight when things needs to be improvised - but if those requirements hold true, then why not?
Yes. I will agree. That sometimes a short command over VT saying "I got this, or focus on cross and get blue next", etc. is a lot faster and therefore more efficient on VT. But that's about the only cases. The way I see it, it's more important for people to know what to do before the fighting begins, and then rely on the raidleader to do a few quick messages ingame (raidwarnings or whatnot) and the raiders themselves to be able to think and not be mindless sheep ordered around. One of the key things every Nihilum raider keeps mentioning is the ability to think besides your usual role. Always be ready for the unexpected. Think outside the box - or, to put in a more cheesy way - go beyond the game. 
Take care
PS. The discussion between the speech vs the writing actually goes far back in history. Not that I am going to bore you with that, this time, however in order to superficially summarize it, it has gotten a lot to do with how the human being perceives language itself. More modern thinking tends to divide the speech vs the writing into those spheres, and then sub-categorize them by formal speec and writing and informal speec and writing. |
