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Splatoon developer explains reason for lack of voice chat and more

We don't know yet, which is worrisome.

I expect a Splatoon Direct sometime in May.

God. I mean, I can always voice chat with PS4 or Skype, but if I can't even play matchmaking with friends at all, what is this game trying to accomplish?

Gameplay can only get a game so far. Functionality is a massive, massive issue. Hopefully some good news comes on this front.
 
Decisions like these are just another reason why nobody is buying a Wii U. They don't take online gaming seriously. Rather than giving features gamers might want, they try to push their philosophy into their products.

Do any Wii U games have voice chat? Its got a mic on the controller but nintendo never uses it.
Lots do. Especially third party stuff.
 
I don't want to accept it because it is also annoying for the electric bills. Nintendo makes low wattage consoles, but having to use an MS/Sony console (sold my tablet and I don't want to accidentally drop my phone) means I'm using 130+ watts just to chat with friends. It turns out proper online gaming on a Nintendo console is more wasteful than on the other two machines which is just silly lol.


That's a weird way to look at it.

The way I've accepted it is that with PS4, I'm more likely to only play online with friends, for an extended amount of time, when we have organized and set time to do so. It's easy and seamless to jump in.

The way I've accepted it with Nintendo is to not both with friends, and jump into quick online matches with randoms because it beats playing the cpu.

I'll most likely use a PS4 party chat to talk with my bro in Splatoon though. Splatoon just looks so hype, and with a little strategy we could do really well.
 
"This is coming from personal experience. When I played online games, I didn't like the negativity I got and people telling me 'You're crap. Go away'. So we wanted to focus on the positive aspects of online gaming," says Amano.

Amano says he's not saying that chat in an online game can't contribute to fun but they want to grab new players.
Has he heard of the mute option and private party chats?
What a dumb excuse.
 
Do any Wii U games have voice chat? Its got a mic on the controller but nintendo never uses it.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate does. Smash and Mario Kart 8 too, but you can't chat during matches/races.

In the latter two, I doubt their reasons for disabling it are anything short of latency concerns rather than "think of the children". You can go on Smash and play as
DiCKGOBLR
all you want or have a penis-faced Mii.
 
Decisions like these are just another reason why nobody is buying a Wii U. They don't take online gaming seriously. Rather than giving features gamers might want, they try to push their philosophy into their products.

lol what the fuck is this

"Nintendo is making games they way they want to, HOW DARE THEY"
 
I love Nintendo but this is just stupid. Their entire vision for online infrastructure is so dated and wrong. They really need to get with the times on this if they want to compete in the online sector of gaming. Maybe they don't though, maybe they want to stay in their own "stranger danger... think of the children" world. Who knows... so frustrating.

Do they have anything in place for non verbal communications? Maybe something like the League of Legends ping system? I'm sure they could put the gamepad to use for something like that.
 
So just use Skype for chat. Got it, no problem for me.

You know what would be nice? The system itself having proper features and support for this so you aren't jury rigging awkward, uncomfortable solutions.

I'm not even sure if I want this or not yet, but I'm already getting a poor taste in my mouth concerning it.
 
Rather than giving features gamers might want, they try to push their philosophy into their products.

Can't explain how strongly I feel the opposite of what you feel, if you chase the rabbit hole of only giving people 'what they want' you will end up with Ubisofts games.

Reminds me of the awesome DICE talk Jenova Chen gave about why they took all forms of communication out of Journey, and the game was infinitely better for it.

I don't know if that's how Splatoon will end up but I respect these designers for not just blindly adding features but instead having a reason for every decision.

Also to everyone who keeps asking for options, please consider how damaging options can be to a games inherent fee and identityl, do you want Bloodborne to have an easy mode because options = better? Options have there place but not every feature needs to be optional for the hell of it.
 
Zero²;159405820 said:
I agree, but maybe they thought it was better off and tried to make something that could be played completely without it?
Splatoon is hardly a normal tps as it is, so I can't blame them for trying, even if it doesn't pay off at the end.

Yeah, I guess. I'm not really that upset about it, it's far from a deal-breaker to me. My main issue is that Splatoon only has 2 player local multiplayer. Which means if I wanted to play with a bunch of friends I pretty much have to rely on external tools to actually talk to them because we'd be in separate locations. It would've been a great compromise to at least offer party chat so remote multiplayer isn't that much worse than local.

(All this is meaningless to me anyways because none of my friends have a Wii U and I only play with them on mine so I'd never play with more than 1 friend.)
 
It opens up an avenue for abusive behavior and diverts development resources from the rest of the game.

There is no OS-level party chat system on the Wii U, so dem's da breaks.

Diverting development resources is not the reason they gave, and not one that should be assumed giving NIntendo's track record with limited online infrastrucuture and kiddy protection. It can open up an avenue for abusive behavior if you let it by not knowing what a mute button is, just like it can open up an avenue for more real time strategy and teamwork in a game where that is crucial.
 
I'm assuming there will be other communication methods, such as pings and presets messages. I prefer those to voice chat as the signal to noise ratio is much higher (when communicating with randoms). Being able to mute someone because you don't want to hear asinine stuff just means you miss out on any useful message (wrt the game) they may have.

Nintendo needs to acknowledge that people like to chat with their friends while playing games, as people are still using external workarounds.
 
lol what the fuck is this

"Nintendo is making games they way they want to, HOW DARE THEY"

Nintendo is shipping a multiplayer focused game and comes up with the excuse that negativity is the reason voice chat was not included in a multiplayer. thats pure stupidity and a lack of understanding when it comes to multiplayer oriented games. this is infact a large reason to why nintendo is failing with the Wii U, they do not understand a lot of aspect of modern gaming. making excuses for this is absolute shit, your not going to help you or nintendo out by excusing major flaws like this. imagine if Sony or MS shipped a first party multiplayer game without voice chat and the excuse was "negativiy online", hell imagine if the next CoD game did that, people would laugh and rage at the same time. nintendo is not excused form this fuck up, please dont defend this shit by saying "but its nintendo".
 
That's a pretty damn lame excuse for no voice chat.All they have to do is give us the option to mute other players.

...which would be used 99% of the time because people are terrible.

REAL TALK: When was the last time someone made it through an entire match in public chat without some jackass ruining it? I can't think of a single time in over a decade of gaming online.
 
Do those developpers really play other online games on other supports ?

No wonder Nintendo can be so out of touch of the online world...
 
Diverting development resources is not the reason they gave, and not one that should be assumed giving NIntendo's track record with limited online infrastrucuture and kiddy protection. It can open up an avenue for abusive behavior if you let it by not knowing what a mute button is, just like it can open up an avenue for more real time strategy and teamwork in a game where that is crucial.

In order to mute someone you must already have had the negative experience they are hoping to avoid entirely, which is sort of the point of their decision.
 
voice chat in a multiplayer game in 2015 is a MUST. go take that L Splatoon devs. what bullshit spin.
EDIT: smh at people in this thread making excuses for the lack of voice chat.
pdUDJxo.gif

I have never found voice chat useful in any online multiplayer. I prefer things like map pings etc.
 
Can't explain how strongly I feel the opposite of what you feel, if you chase the rabbit hole of only giving people 'what they want' you will end up with Ubisofts games.

Reminds me of the awesome DICE talk Jenova Chen gave about why they took all forms of communication out of Journey, and the game was infinitely better for it.

I don't know if that's how Splatoon will end up but I respect these designers for not just blindly adding features but instead having a reason for every decision.

Also to everyone who keeps asking for options, please consider how damaging options can be to a games inherent fee and identityl, do you want Bloodborne to have an easy mode because options = better? Options have there place but not every feature needs to be optional for the hell of it.

False equivalency abounds, this is a really awkward post.
 
Voice chat with friends can be fun, but I'm sure glad League of Legends, for example, doesn't have it. I think skipping voice chat is a good fit for Nintendo and a kid-focused game. The upsides may outweigh the downsides in this case, in my opinion.

I also liked the older PC games with voice-bind stuff like "We need an engineer! We need a soldat!", or the various pings in League of Legends. My experience often improves in League if I'm muting people who are raging, spouting racist/homophobic slurs, or the like. It's not EVERYONE, but it feels like fairly often.
 
Nintendo is shipping a multiplayer focused game and comes up with the excuse that negativity is the reason voice chat was not included in a multiplayer. thats pure stupidity and a lack of understanding when it comes to multiplayer oriented games. this is infact a large reason to why nintendo is failing with the Wii U, they do not understand a lot of aspect of modern gaming. making excuses for this is absolute shit, your not going to help you or nintendo out by excusing major flaws like this. imagine if Sony or MS shipped a first party multiplayer game without voice chat and the excuse was "negativiy online", hell imagine if the next CoD game did that, people would laugh and rage at the same time. nintendo is not excused form this fuck up, please dont defend this shit by saying "but its nintendo".

This man speaks the truth. Why are we excusing these design choices? We would never excuse it out of other publishers making this type of game.
 
I'm not bothered by this.

I drop into Mario Kart and play a couple of races and it's all good.
When I do the same in a shooter like Halo or Call of Duty, I always feel a little bad that I'm not chatting because I could be coordinating with my team. But any time I try to chat it's usually an unpleasant experience so I don't bother - I just stick to non-team game types or Mercenary playlists in CoD.

The fact that I wont be letting my Team down in Splatoon by not chatting makes me more likely to play online. Which maybe makes me weird, but might also play to their point about accessibility?
 
Man, this viewpoint on voice chat is gonna nail them in the reviews. Not saying they'll be low, but damn they won't be really high in the 9s.

No voice chat in Mario Kart and Smash is forgiven. I don't mind it, but a game like this? With teamwork being really big in capturing zones and covering enough of the turf voice chat should at least be optional. I think I'm going to go into every nintendo game with no voice chat, even on the NX.

On the plus side though, I'm glad they said that there are more than 2 online modes. Curious to see what they are.
 
That's a weird way to look at it.

The way I've accepted it is that with PS4, I'm more likely to only play online with friends, for an extended amount of time, when we have organized and set time to do so. It's easy and seamless to jump in.

The way I've accepted it with Nintendo is to not both with friends, and jump into quick online matches with randoms because it beats playing the cpu.

I'll most likely use a PS4 party chat to talk with my bro in Splatoon though. Splatoon just looks so hype, and with a little strategy we could do really well.
This was my my way of playing MKWii, but it gets boring not playing with friends. I would have dropped Halo 2 and 3 four times faster without the chatting and great custom lobby/matchmaking options.

Nintendo fans might be better off without a Halo 2 moment for any of their games. I think people would legit start dying on us.
 
You know, I don't care for voice chat and would probably have never used it anyway. But you know what? Nintendo, there's a reason why people aren't seeing the value of your bloated gamepad. If you can't come up with innovative features, fine. It happens. But at least try and use it for the obvious stuff. They put a freaking microphone into the thing, meaning that we wouldn't have to hunt down a separate headset. And then they refuse to use it. No wonder people don't care for the thing. Nintendo can't bother to make full use of its features.
 
Voice chat with friends can be fun, but I'm sure glad League of Legends, for example, doesn't have it. I think skipping voice chat is a good fit for Nintendo and a kid-focused game. The upsides may outweigh the downsides in this case, in my opinion.

I also liked the older PC games with voice-bind stuff like "We need an engineer! We need a soldat!", or the various pings in League of Legends. My experience often improves in League if I'm muting people who are raging, spouting racist/homophobic slurs, or the like. It's not EVERYONE, but it feels like fairly often.


Hearthstone did it too IIRC.
 
Zero²;159402970 said:
Dunno, I feel that for most people that voice chat would be such a deal breaker, either weren't that much interested in the game to begin with or don't even have a WiiU.
Really by all the previews I have seen, rarely are the ones that make a big deal out of it. Got to the point where people didn't talk to each other even if they were next to each other.
I guess the game is easy to understand and fast paced, since you can warp everywhere and have a map to see where you are needed, that voice chat might have been a little redundant?

Using the 'they must not own a Wii U' or 'they wouldn't buy the game anyway' excuse in response to people believing this to be a deal breaker is such a poor, dismissive argument. Splatoon is a tactical shooter; if you have ever played this type of game online then you know that communication between teammates is key. I dislike Nintendo's censorship but could understand no chat in public matches. However, refusing to give their customers the option to talk to people on their friends list is inexcusable and I have yet to see a valid counter-point in defense of their decision.
 
I understand the feelings about public chat, but they could of at least allowed friends chat.

Oh well, I don't really care that much about chat anyway.
 
Nintendo is shipping a multiplayer focused game and comes up with the excuse that negativity is the reason voice chat was not included in a multiplayer. thats pure stupidity and a lack of understanding when it comes to multiplayer oriented games. this is infact a large reason to why nintendo is failing with the Wii U, they do not understand a lot of aspect of modern gaming. making excuses for this is absolute shit, your not going to help you or nintendo out by excusing major flaws like this. imagine if Sony or MS shipped a first party multiplayer game without voice chat and the excuse was "negativiy online", hell imagine if the next CoD game did that, people would laugh and rage at the same time. nintendo is not excused form this fuck up, please dont defend this shit by saying "but its nintendo".
It wouldn't end there. I'd seriously fear for Activision as a company. EA and Valve would gain millions of customers overnight.
 
Using the 'they must not own a Wii U' or 'they wouldn't buy the game anyway' excuse in response to people believing this to be a deal breaker is such a poor, dismissive argument. Splatoon is a tactical shooter; if you have ever played this type of game online then you know that communication between teammates is key. I dislike Nintendo's censorship but could understand no chat in public matches. However, refusing to give their customers the option to talk to people on their friends list is inexcusable and I have yet to see a valid counter-point in defense of their decision.

there's your counterpoint
 
This man speaks the truth. Why are we excusing these design choices? We would never excuse it out of other publishers making this type of game.

Well, we excused it in Demon's/Dark Souls and Bloodborne, didn't we? Might not be multiplayer focused, but it's certainly a large component. Let's see how this turns out, I found the gesture and message system in those games much more charming than VoIP. As long as I don't have actual experience with it I don't feel like making a harsh judgement.
 
Well, we excused it in Demon's/Dark Souls and Bloodborne, didn't we? Might not be multiplayer focused, but it's certainly a large component. Let's see how this turns out, I found the gesture and message system in those games much more charming than VoIP. As long as I don't have actual experience with it I don't feel like making a harsh judgement.
Those games are not tactical team based shooters.
 
Meh it doesn't really bother me since I never use voice chat in games. I can definitely agree with him in that public lobbies are pretty awful when it comes to voice chat. But I can understand how it could be annoying for other people to not even be able to chat with friends.

It should at the very least be an option.
 
Nintendo is shipping a multiplayer focused game and comes up with the excuse that negativity is the reason voice chat was not included in a multiplayer. thats pure stupidity and a lack of understanding when it comes to multiplayer oriented games. this is infact a large reason to why nintendo is failing with the Wii U, they do not understand a lot of aspect of modern gaming. making excuses for this is absolute shit, your not going to help you or nintendo out by excusing major flaws like this. imagine if Sony or MS shipped a first party multiplayer game without voice chat and the excuse was "negativiy online", hell imagine if the next CoD game did that, people would laugh and rage at the same time. nintendo is not excused form this fuck up, please dont defend this shit by saying "but its nintendo".

Qft
 
I'm assuming there will be other communication methods, such as pings and presets messages. I prefer those to voice chat as the signal to noise ratio is much higher (when communicating with randoms). Being able to mute someone because you don't want to hear asinine stuff just means you miss out on any useful message (wrt the game) they may have.

Nintendo needs to acknowledge that people like to chat with their friends while playing games, as people are still using external workarounds.

You can see something similar to that in videos and screen shots I believe. They seem mapped to the D pad.

The question some people refuse to ask themselves is if the game needs it. Everything I've seen suggest the game might not even benefit from voice chat because things seem so chaotic and fast but at the same time you appear to be able to easily determine what needs to be done by what is happening on screen. I feel this is the case with with a lot of shooters in most of their modes. If you are observant many shooters can be played easily without voice chat. Voice chat does not make a person or a group of people better players nor does it always help. I've seen it be a hindrance in the past.

So that moves us to the voice chat being a thing of convenience and wanting to talk with friends. We're not talking about the game at this point. It sucks Nintendo doesn't have system level party chat that could easily address this but they don't. They should but it they don't. We've know this for years now. Deal with it people. Find an alternative like people have done in the past if it means that much to you.

Be truthful people. Voice chat majority of the time is toxic as hell to the point I would say most of use just mute everyone anyway. This is why I feel it's not and should not be a deal breaker. If one wasn't going to buy the game or didn't have a Wii U just say so. Don't try to use this as an excuse for why you won't be picking up the game. Which I don't doubt is happening with some people as it happens with other games.
 
Well, we excused it in Demon's/Dark Souls and Bloodborne, didn't we? Might not be multiplayer focused, but it's certainly a large component. Let's see how this turns out, I found the gesture and message system in those games much more charming than VoIP. As long as I don't have actual experience with it I don't feel like making a harsh judgement.

What? Those games are nothing like multiplayer shooters?

I don't even...

What?
 
False equivalency abounds, this is a really awkward post.

Except the specific reason they cited for Journey's decision was the negative experiences players caused for each other when communication was involved, and we know that is taken to extreme levels when it's voice communication based on every video game ever. The Bloodborne example is the most extreme case I could use of explaining why the argument of making everything an option doesn't fly.
 
Well it's Nintendo so I'm not surprised. How about letting me choose what I consider negative or not? Heck! How about letting us set a chatroom when playing with friends?
 
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