Games have grown progressively more complex as processor speeds increase and games becomes less and less confined by the technology responsible for them, but the ways we communicate through online games haven’t changed since their creation. I’m playing the type of team-based, open-ended FPS game which didn’t exist before Tribes and I’m playing fast-paced, micromanagement-heavy RTS games online, but I’m still using my mouse and keyboard - the same devices I’m using to play the damn game - to communicate with friends and foes. That’s downright barbaric. The fact that an online multiplayer game, be it for console or PC, can ship today without any form of voice support is absurd. It’s like shipping an online multiplayer game in 1998 without any keyboard support.

The simple fact of that matter is there is no good reason for any developer to ship any online multiplayer game without any form of voice support. Most people own a microphone of some kind, or at the very least know someone who does, and on the console side of things you can’t walk two steps without tripping over a dozen different poorly made, but no less existing, microphones. The option to use voice support should always be present, unless you’re trying to do some artsy thing with your text-only communication. But it should be exactly that, entirely optional. And it shouldn’t work to replace good ol’ keyboard communication, but to enhance and compliment it. Voice support should be integrated into a game’s design.

Take your standard Tribes-inspired FPS for example. Such games are several orders of magnitude more complex than your Quake variety deathmatches. There are massive maps that are miles in width and vehicles, inventories, and character classes to manage. It all requires tremendous teamwork if you want to be successful, but very often you’re too busy playing the game to communicate with your allies and devise a cohesive strategy. With voice support, you could quickly and efficiently outline long-term plans and even easily change them on the fly. Recon would suddenly become valuable, with information easily relayed to teammates, and players would no longer need to worry about walking over one another’s toes. Suddenly those communication dishes in Tribes become much more valuable, worth protecting even.

But then you could take it step further. Let’s say that any enemies in the area could actually overhear things said through voice chat. They’d have to get pretty close, a distance determined to be balance friendly, and they could effectively learn all of your carefully laid plans. A whole new spying class, whether equipment exists to support it or now, suddenly springs into being. Additionally, players are suddenly able to provide reliable, false information to their enemies, adding another layer of strategy to the game.

And keyboard communication? Keep it. But unlike voice chat it would be uninterceptable by enemy ears (or eyes). It could serve as a secure line, perfect for players on recon or deep within an enemy’s lair.

Similar methods could easily work in MMORPGs, wherein only players near the speaker would actually hear what he or she was saying, preventing you from listening to two hundred asshats talk about each other’s moms. But there will always be people who set out only to ruin an experience for others, setting up their microphone right next to their radio as it blares La Vida Loca into a dozen foreign homes. Voice rights should ALWAYS be ignorable on a player to player basis, and should always be removable by either admin action or a player voting system.

Still, despite the few who put Star Whores Vol. 3 in their VCR and play its hypnotic sci-fi lullaby for the rest of us, voice support ultimately offers more good than bad. It should be more readily used and it should be included as part of the game. Official Roger Wilco support doesn’t cut it. There are just too many good reasons for developers to continue ignoring voice support. I shouldn’t have to be on the phone with my ally while I’m trying to play a game.