The Dark Side of Voice Chat

It seems these days that everyone and their pet has a voice chat server. Guilds, groups, games and anything else that starts with a G want to be sure that we can shout at each other instead of type. Obviously, it is a lot easier to complete tasks when we can just talk about what we’re doing, especially since MMOs are getting so fast paced that typing just doesn’t work as well. Everything seems to be in order and working well enough but that is just the shiny, happy spin. There is a far darker side to voice chat. A place out of the light where creatures lurk and I intend to expose them!

Chatty Cathy

Everyone has had the misfortune of being on voice chat with Chatty Cathy. She is an evil, sinful player who fills the channel with anything and everything that crosses her mind. Chatty Cathy knows no gender but certainly has a mouth full of useless information. Guild members who come across this demon generally pray for death and will quickly make an excuse to get off voice chat to avoid hearing about the minute by minute activities of Cathy’s cat, children or a butterfly that happens by. On a raid these spawn can distract players, have them miss important information because their headset is off, or just cause chaos by speaking over someone who needs to be speaking (aka me).

Chatty Cathy can be hard to deal with since she genuinely seems nice. On the surface you see a bright and happy little creature that would never intentionally hurt a fly. It is best to approach them with kindness and a hug. Explain that on voice chat we have to “take turns” and “share.” It is also important to note that Mr. Silence needs to get a turn too. In a more structured environment, like a raid, I recommend a muted channel with the important roles given voice. This should hold Chatty Cathy at bay unless she happens to be in an important role! If that is the case consider another occupation.

Snappy Smurf

Snappy Smurf can also cause a bit of a problem in voice chat. You see he always has another raid to get to, a different instance he would rather do or something else going on and you should consider yourself lucky that he is even there. Snappy Smurf always seems to be cranky even if he is at that other raid or where he wants to be. Unlike Chatty Cathy, who is more of an annoyance, Snappy Smurf attacks the morale of members. He makes everyone else wish they weren’t there and can do great amounts of damage over time.

It can be difficult to deal with Snappy Smurf depending on how important he is to your guild. A good approach is to privately mention to him that he is being negative and it would be better to keep those thoughts in tells to the leadership. If the behavior continues, it might be time to consider being more stern. It would be a good idea to remind Snappy that right now he is here and that this event should be his focus. Should all of this fail the best place for a morale sucking Snappy Smurf is in another guild.

Scrappy Doo

Scrappy Doo is what we called a “Backseat Officer” in Iniquity. You see Scrappy Doo knows how to do every encounter, defeat every raid mob, lead the guild, resurrect Christ and has all the awesome strategies that he came up with himself (he actually just gets them from other guilds). He can do all this, even though he has never been in another raid guild, hasn’t been an officer, has only been playing MMOs for two months and feasts on nothing but Peeps and Dew. He is the bane of every officer and sometimes a champion to the dim witted members who believe you can change reality with positive thinking!

There is no right way to deal with Scrappy Doo. He will keep on plugging along interrupting raids with his awesome ideas. His level of frustration and anger will grow as you reject 99 out of every 100 brilliant tactics. Sometimes he will be belligerent and other times he will be depressed; it is hard to tell which Doo you will inherit. Try to remind him that you have a broader view than he does. His situation might help the guild for five minutes but ultimately weaken it for months. Encourage him to keep the comments in tells to you and other officers. Listen to what he has to say since that 1 out of 100 tactic might be amazing. Just be certain you get him out of voice chat!

Captain Hammer

Captain Hammer can take the guise of any of your members. He is usually a main tank but he can also be an officer, a lead healer, a puller or any other one of the headlining roles in a raid. You see Captain Hammer believes that the sun rises from his crotch and sets between his cheeks. Nothing can be done without him and he is the reason that a guild is successful. It isn’t enough for him to believe it, either, since he wants to be sure that everyone else knows. The Captain can seem quite useful when things are going smoothly and he feels his ego is being stroked. When he disagrees with you, however, you’re in for a huge headache. He will take on some of Scrappy Doo’s tendencies and explain why he isn’t happy to the whole group, raid or guild. He honestly believes that you cannot succeed without him and thus has no fear of removal.

The issue with dealing with Captain Hammer is that they are always in an important and visible role. It can truly demoralize your guild to lose their hero and they’ll tell you to accept his eccentricities. That, however, is the worst possible thing you can do. The only way to deal with Hammer is to be firm and ensure he knows who the alpha dog is. I always recommend that do this privately at first. Explain to him that despite his thoughts the guild will run without him and that nobody is irreplaceable. Urge him to bring his concerns to you instead of just voicing them in voice chat. If that doesn’t work, subtly show him your fangs. If he is main tank, switch up a few raids and let the secondary tank be main. If he is a healer, bench him and bring in the young rookie eager to prove himself. There are polite ways to handle these things. As a final note, if Captain Hammer isn’t replaceable, you might as well just make him guild leader!

The Horror

Before the hate mail rolls in I want to say that I’ve intentionally exaggerated some of these “demons” for the sake of humor. Don’t make a mistake though; they are real and they will match this article pretty well. If you read this an it hits home then you might be one of these folks and that is something to work on. Hopefully you had a good laugh and hopefully this will help someone out!

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