by Melissa Woodward

Created on: April 28, 2009

According to other articles, the general consent is that voice chat has been a major factor in the improved quality of the gaming experience. For the most part, I very much agree as I, too, enjoy using programs like TeamSpeak and Ventrilo while playing games, including my favourite MMORPG, Ragnarok Online.

However, it has its cons as well, such as having to listen to: 1) Immature people getting upset and whining profusely, 2) Someone attempting to use a bad microphone and, 3) Someone insisting on playing their own music the entire time.

These things are relatively minor and are just accepted as part of the voice chatting and gaming experience. Sometimes, a difficult individual can even be a source of amusement amongst those present. Although any user will generally expect to experience any of the cons listed above, there are times when voice chatting can take a discriminating turn.

At one time, I had been quite into playing the multiplayer mode for SWAT 4 and had always done so under an ambiguous name. My friend and I had been playing on a free server with people we have never met and were doing quite well. The hosts of the server invited us to their voice chat channel, but I was hesitant because I rarely used voice chatting for fear of being discriminated against as a female player.

Sure enough, as soon as I had greeted the other players, I was disconnected.

I was confused for a moment but figured that I had simply been disconnected in the way that online games tend to behave, but upon logging in, I was disconnected once more. I was being repeatedly kicked out of the server every time I entered.

My friend, upon asking the admins why this was occurring, relayed to me that it was because of the fact that I was a girl. Apparently, female players were not allowed on this particular server because they "distracted" male players. However, if I had never used voice chat, they never would have known. It is because of issues like these that I tend to use male or ambiguous names as oppose to a female identity.

I find, from personal experience, that most voice chatters for online games are male. Sometimes being the lone female voice amongst a group of males can be quite troublesome, but many female players learn to deal with it so that they can continue to play the games they love.

With all this being said and done, I am still not deterred from voice chatting and I continue to use it as a device to connect with people all around the world sharing the same passion and love for the games as I do. That alone is well worth the experience.

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