Riffix
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Posted - 2006.05.12 06:17:00 -
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Edited by: Riffix on 12/05/2006 06:25:28
Well since Yblarbo spilled the beans about the voice-chat I guess I will add my impression from when I was there today: it fricking r0cks!
I got to demo it with one of the Vivox reps there who had the eve client running and a chat going with someone in Boston(as in, the other side of the US). I frankly couldn't believe the audio quality. The rep in Boston said she was on an IBM thinkpad with a $10 mic. Even if she really did have killer hardware the system is impressive. There was a bit of a lag in terms of how long it took to hear her response to something I asked but she just might have been responding slowly :-)
The real money part is what has already been said, it is integrated right into the EVE client! No more need for an external program like teamspeak OR a server to host it on. The best part is it works off the existing chat channel system so all you have to do is right-click on a chat window and you get an option to "Join Voice" and you are connected to everyone in that channel who is doing the same. It indicates who is speaking and you can do things like mute them if need be. The rep said that in gang situations the gang leader had the ability to do things like mute everyone so they could be heard and such. Pure money baby!
You can read the CCP press release about it HERE.
As for the rest of the happenings at the booth, I watched the new graphics in action, I have to say again I was very impressed. The screenshots of the new ships don't do them justice. Obviously it is a subjective thing but I would say don't pass judgement on the look of the new ships until you see them "in person." Also, I had noticed the lag in the vid that was mentioned as well but everything I saw was running smooth as silk.
Beyond that I didn't see a whole lot else of the booth because I was busy having a nice long conversation with Oveur about Eve, CCP, and the MMO landscape. It was insightful and by far the best part of my visit.
That was pretty much my impression, I did notice that everyone was wearing black and that was the predominant color of the booth, was very nice. Maybe I will get some pictures tomorrow.
Oh yeah, and for those of you wondering where the coverage is from gaming sites, keep in mind that most E3 coverage is reserved for NEW games and game-related things. While the new features and such are new to the game, the game itself is not new which is mostly why this is happening. However, I did see the following POST pop up on the major game-info blog Joystiq.
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