In-Game Voice Chat Coming to World of Warcraft

A voice chat system will soon be implemented into World of Warcraft, potentially making programs like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak obsolete in Azeroth.

The chat system will be coming sometime after patch 2.1 (which is being rolled out today), so it’s likely that more details will start popping up across the Internets soon.

An added benefit of an in-game chat system like the one planned for WoW involves seeing the name of the person speaking when someone shouts something like, “Heal me!”

Here are a few more details surfacing about the VoiP:

A players name will be highlighted when they are talking and you are able to click on their name then to select them and give them their buff/heal/etc.

There will also be the option to separate the voice chat from the game music sound to different sound channels. So you could (in theory) have the music and sound effects going through your regular speakers and the voice chat going through just your headset. To begin with, the VoIP will only be available to Parties and Raids but there may be room for expanding on that with custom channels (presumably for guilds).

Though there has been a lot of talks of guild banks heading to WoW (something else that’s coming soon after the patch), the voice chat system is a bit of a surprise. It will be interesting to see how quickly people make the move from Ventrilo/TeamSpeak, or if the benefits of outside systems will still outweigh whatever Blizzard has instore.

Via | Curse Gaming