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Forums - Nintendo - Splatoon Producer Inks Out Reasons For Lack Of Voice Chat And Staggered Content Roll-Out

Pavolink on 04 June 2015

So...

It's normal for a game in that genre (multiplayer online shooter) to have a short campaign.
It's normal and a brilliant strategy to hold some content and release until there's a bigger userbase.

But, is it not normal for this kind of games to have voice chat?



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midrange on 04 June 2015
AlfredoTurkey said:
midrange said:

thats what the mute button is for. If you don't like voice chat fine you should be given the option to mute it, not limit the option for everyone else

And having to find the mute botton within the game every single time I log in is a pain my ass. Not having it means not having to deal with it. Not having to deal with it mean... good for me.

And that is why setting the default option to mute would have solved everything. Kids actually have to put effort to unmute and talk to others (more than its worth). You don't have to do anything by default since everyone is muted. Experts and competitive people can turn on voice chat for their competitive teams. In your solution, only you win. In this solution, everyone wins.



AlfredoTurkey on 04 June 2015
midrange said:
AlfredoTurkey said:

And having to find the mute botton within the game every single time I log in is a pain my ass. Not having it means not having to deal with it. Not having to deal with it mean... good for me.

And that is why setting the default option to mute would have solved everything. Kids actually have to put effort to unmute and talk to others (more than its worth). You don't have to do anything by default since everyone is muted. Experts and competitive people can turn on voice chat for their competitive teams. In your solution, only you win. In this solution, everyone wins.


Expecting features in Splatoon that are in hard core FPS like Halo and COD is like expecting to be able to adjust the gear ratio of your cars in Mario Kart. This is a different game designed for a different audience. 



midrange on 04 June 2015
AlfredoTurkey said:
midrange said:

And that is why setting the default option to mute would have solved everything. Kids actually have to put effort to unmute and talk to others (more than its worth). You don't have to do anything by default since everyone is muted. Experts and competitive people can turn on voice chat for their competitive teams. In your solution, only you win. In this solution, everyone wins.


Expecting features in Splatoon that are in hard core FPS like Halo and COD is like expecting to be able to adjust the gear ratio of your cars in Mario Kart. This is a different game designed for a different audience. 


Sorry, but that is a bs statement and a bad analogy. Voice chat is not limited to genres and does not detract from a game but rather adds to it (similar to good menus, video game lobbies, and online play). It would be one thing to expect splatoon to have a certain gun or gun class, but we are expecting it to have a feature that is common place in mmo's, rts games, shooter games, fighting games, etc. ... especially in this year. If you don't like the feature don't use it, but that shouldn't mean that you should remove the feature so others can't benefit from it. Having a voice chat option with default to off has literally no downside. This is a blatent mistake on Nintendo's part that should be fixed



Fusioncode on 05 June 2015
impertinence said:
Mummelmann said:


Can't speak for anyone else, but this is what I take issue with:

"First, we put a lot of effort into every inch of the online stages, so by playing them over and over again users can get a better feel for the terrain, giving the gameplay more breadth and depth. The characteristics of the weapons and the strategies for using them vary with each weapon, and of course these will vary depending on the stage you use them in and even what combination of equipment your teammates and opponents are using."

And then the reason for leaving out voice chat:

"We think there are two reasons for wanting to use it: to play strategically, and to know what you opponent is feeling. We designed the game so that it's still possible to play strategically, while also giving due consideration so that there is no extreme advantage one way or the other. In terms of knowing what your opponent is feeling, we really do understand the fun that can be had with this, but we hope that you will also understand that it can also have a negative effect too."

So, they dose out the content so users can get familiar with it and develop and learn strategies, and then go on to say that voice chat would be desired as an additional strategic tool, so they didn't want to add it. They want people to play the maps over and over and get skilled with the various weapons but they don't want them to plan and communicate to improve strategy?
That's ridiculous.

If they had simply stated that; "We don't feel that the game would benefit from voice chat, so we didn't add it." it would be fine, but this reasoning is out of whack.
There's also the strange suggestion that "those who haven't played shooters before" would somehow mix and play with people who use voice chat and take it more seriously, and that the latter group would somehow scare the other one away.
This is is also corny reasoning seeing as how the major reason newbies would be turned away from facing experienced players would be the fact that they would get owned by them, whether or not these better players were chatting with one another on headsets is absolutely irrelevant in this context.
Deciding to not add voice chat, although a strange decision imo, is fine, but his reasoning for it is not, see the difference?

As a player who never plays shooters and not very often play online at all I am excatly the target audience for this decission  and I can tell you, they are spot on. Voice chat is a huge turn off for me, and even though it would be an option to turn on and off, knowing that I would go into battles deliberatly not enabling voice chats while some of my random team mates would expect to use that as a tool would be a reason not to get the game at all for me.

The reason why I enjoy Splatoon as much as I do is because it levels the field a bit for a player like myself and experienced shooter fanatics. And that is an absolutely essential thing if they want the game to have the kind of crossover appeal that they are hoping for.

You know, I never thought I'd see the day that people would actually argue in favor of having less options but here we are. Thanks for making my decisions for me Nintendo. I hate the idea of having to choose between whether or not to use voice chat. It took too much brain power. Luckily Nanny Nintendo is here to make sure I never have to make any decisions at all. They get to decide everything for me. I can't wait for Splatoon 2 where Nintendo actually disables the game after 8 PM because it's bedtime.



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Faxanadu on 05 June 2015

I think Voice Chat in public play is debateable. You could make it so you can only talk with your team (of 3 japanese who do not speak english...).

I think voice chat for playing with friends would be very nice.



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midrange on 05 June 2015
Fusioncode said:
impertinence said:

As a player who never plays shooters and not very often play online at all I am excatly the target audience for this decission  and I can tell you, they are spot on. Voice chat is a huge turn off for me, and even though it would be an option to turn on and off, knowing that I would go into battles deliberatly not enabling voice chats while some of my random team mates would expect to use that as a tool would be a reason not to get the game at all for me.

The reason why I enjoy Splatoon as much as I do is because it levels the field a bit for a player like myself and experienced shooter fanatics. And that is an absolutely essential thing if they want the game to have the kind of crossover appeal that they are hoping for.

You know, I never thought I'd see the day that people would actually argue in favor of having less options but here we are. Thanks for making my decisions for me Nintendo. I hate the idea of having to choose between whether or not to use voice chat. It took too much brain power. Luckily Nanny Nintendo is here to make sure I never have to make any decisions at all. They get to decide everything for me. I can't wait for Splatoon 2 where Nintendo actually disables the game after 8 PM because it's bedtime.

It's mainly been the classic "It's Nintendo and they work the hardest out of all companies. They are the only ones who work for the fans which is why they removed voice chat/locked content in on-disc dlc/have many wii u droughts/lost 3rd party support" argument. It's as if admitting Nintendo made a mistake would be the end of the world.



impertinence on 05 June 2015
Fusioncode said:
impertinence said:

As a player who never plays shooters and not very often play online at all I am excatly the target audience for this decission  and I can tell you, they are spot on. Voice chat is a huge turn off for me, and even though it would be an option to turn on and off, knowing that I would go into battles deliberatly not enabling voice chats while some of my random team mates would expect to use that as a tool would be a reason not to get the game at all for me.

The reason why I enjoy Splatoon as much as I do is because it levels the field a bit for a player like myself and experienced shooter fanatics. And that is an absolutely essential thing if they want the game to have the kind of crossover appeal that they are hoping for.

You know, I never thought I'd see the day that people would actually argue in favor of having less options but here we are. Thanks for making my decisions for me Nintendo. I hate the idea of having to choose between whether or not to use voice chat. It took too much brain power. Luckily Nanny Nintendo is here to make sure I never have to make any decisions at all. They get to decide everything for me. I can't wait for Splatoon 2 where Nintendo actually disables the game after 8 PM because it's bedtime.

Aaah, I see. We are now somehow operating in a universe where Splatoon is the only videogame in the world?

In the real world Splatoon offers and increase in options not a restriction of options. The game fills several gaps in the video game landscape and as a result it seems to have found some success in that market. You see, there are already numerous other video games available that do include online competitive first person shooter experiences, and yes most of them also have voice chat. And yes, for me personally, and I happen to know that this applies to other people as well, the exsistence of voice chat and a hyper competitve online environemt is a deterent and not a selling point. So what Splatoon offers is a casual version of this online environment that removes some of the barriers of entry for a player like myself and as such it now presents an interesting option for me that was not available before.

And here comes the point: People like me are the target audience for Nintendo with Splatoon. It might be a surprise, it really shouldn't be, but Nintendo is not going for the 'hardcore' market with this game, they are going for a crossover market. They want to bring in people who enjoy Mario Kart and hopefully draw in a 'hardcore' shoter enthusiast or two. So for all of the hard as rock online shooter experts out there who simply can't be degraded to play a game WITHOUT voice chat: Don't buy the game, it really is that simple. Not every game is made for you.



Fusioncode on 05 June 2015
impertinence said:
Fusioncode said:
impertinence said:

As a player who never plays shooters and not very often play online at all I am excatly the target audience for this decission  and I can tell you, they are spot on. Voice chat is a huge turn off for me, and even though it would be an option to turn on and off, knowing that I would go into battles deliberatly not enabling voice chats while some of my random team mates would expect to use that as a tool would be a reason not to get the game at all for me.

The reason why I enjoy Splatoon as much as I do is because it levels the field a bit for a player like myself and experienced shooter fanatics. And that is an absolutely essential thing if they want the game to have the kind of crossover appeal that they are hoping for.

You know, I never thought I'd see the day that people would actually argue in favor of having less options but here we are. Thanks for making my decisions for me Nintendo. I hate the idea of having to choose between whether or not to use voice chat. It took too much brain power. Luckily Nanny Nintendo is here to make sure I never have to make any decisions at all. They get to decide everything for me. I can't wait for Splatoon 2 where Nintendo actually disables the game after 8 PM because it's bedtime.

Not every game is made for you.

They should be. 



Sigs are dumb. And so are you!

impertinence on 05 June 2015
Fusioncode said:

They should be. 

Ok, I made the mistake of taking you seriously, well played and you win this round.

In the future though, it you want to just comment on one thing out of context for humerous effect just bold that sentence and leave the acctual reply in place, now you've left a quote three behind that misrepresents what I was saying. Not great form.