Zach wrote: > ... > distress messages (fuel, damage, shields, armies carried status) would > take longer to convey unless you sacrificed some information. > Perhaps we could do an experiment and have a few clue games where > everyone used voice then poll the players afterwards to gauage their > impressions? > I think you've fallen into the other poster's trap that suggests voice replaces text. I haven't read a single person here who claimed that text was unnecessary. This thread has a lot of straw men erected. :-) I believe any referenceable information should be in text, whereas any event-based information should be in voice. It's also a trap to compare newbie voice communicators with clued text communicators. It's illogical to compare the two. You are proving that clued > newbie, and believing that this therefore means that text > voice. I have a problem with the social behavior of many "clued" Netrek players. Of the last 5 to 10 games I have played in the last 5 years, I have each time decided not to play for months after seeing other people harassed, and being harassed myself, by people who thrill from calling themselves clued and acting like they own the place. If people don't do exactly as expected, they find themselves at the end of a barbed attack, even from team mates. I don't play, because I find it a hostile environment. Usually I am attacked for defending newbies - usually called a newbie myself. Not that I care too much, but it means I don't come back for 12 months. In the other poster's comments, I saw him doing the exact same thing in this thread. I defend the newbie for having too large of a learning curve. He tells me that text messaging is a skill that must be learned. I challenge him. He tells me he thinks I have no experience, with the presumed conclusion that I should not have a say in this debate (all his own assumptions based on ignorance). How is a real newbie ever going to feel welcome in this environment? The reason I bring this up, is that voice isn't going to resurrect Netrek if the attitude towards newbies doesn't change. Nobody is desperate enough to want to play a game like Netrek, that they will put up with this attitude. There are many other games out there, that are far more rewarding, with nicer human interfaces (and less arcane learning curve / entry requirements), and friendly people. Cheers, mark -- Mark Mielke <mark at mielke.cc>