On Tue, 8 Apr 2008, Mark Mielke wrote:

>> No. It's because reading messages while playing is a skill that is learned. 
>
> It must be learned, because it is unnatural and impractical. People 
> train to make it natural and practical.

As with all skills of the game. No one started playing netrek thinking 
"wow, keeping a constant phaser lock while dodging torps is so natural to 
me, it's like I was born to do this".

>> So what you're saying is that you read slower than you talk. Fine. 
>> However, that is not true for most people.
>
> Not exactly, but essentially, yes. I'm also going to say that taking 
> your eyes off the tactical/galactic to read messages could easily mean 
> you miss somebody uncloaking on your 6 which might be enough time for 
> them to put one more torpedo in you than you can withstand with their 
> exploding ship destroying you. You have multiple senses. If you are 
> going to claim that ignoring one of the senses is more efficient - you 
> have nowhere to go with this, because it makes no sense.

The thing I've been telling you is that skilled players can read messages, 
look at the galactic and dogfight at the same time without missing 
information in any of those three windows. It's a *skill* acquired from 
years of playing the game.

> My experience is that experienced players already do voice chat - 
> whether via VoIP or whether sitting in the same room swearing at each 
> other for screwing up over a monitor in the same room.

Please give examples of clued players that use voice chat on a regular 
basis today.

> I think your platform is extremely thin, and question why you would 
> resist that possibility that voice would benefit an experienced person.

I question it because 1) I am an experienced player and 2) I have tried 
voice communication in netrek and know its benefits and drawbacks. I 
question why you, who are not an experienced player and who have probably 
never even played a clue game with voice communication stubbornly assume 
that voice communication is better than written dito in netrek.

-- 
Niclas