Ventrilo: Did it progress or destroy the MMORPG experience?

[Mcbard]

I can only think of one plus side for ventrilo: it speeds up communication between players.

There are a few downsides I can think of with it. I'm not sure if "immersion" is the term to describe how I feel when I used it, but it definitely ruins some aspect of the game. It takes you out of it for most of your communication. It solidifies the idea that the troll sk on your monitor is in fact a 20 year old dude in California. I'm not into roleplay or any of that stuff, but there is a difference between that being confirmed in your head and not. It's subconscious I think.

It also seems like some people are just too slow to handle communicating in both places at once. Frequently during raids people will completely tune out in game chat for 5-10 minutes at a time it seems. I personally don't have an issue with reading chat and listening at the same time, but a lot of people just expect to hear anything that is important over vent/ts and everything said in chat isn't relevant, which is COMPLETELY false and makes you a worse player for not absorbing all of the information presented to you imo.

So, did it destroy the MMORPG experience? No that would be a stupid thing to say. Did it alter it? Of course. For better or for worse? Both.