[Discussion] Voice changers/MorphVOX

[JC Denton]

It has came to my attention that there are no official rules about using voice changers such as MorphVOX to adjust the pitch or completely alter your own voice.

Rule 2.2 state "The in-game voice chat may not be used for anything other than to allow for verbal conversation; where voice chat is of an unacceptably low quality, the offending player should immediately cease its use."

By this, it's pretty much communicating that if someone were to adjust his/her own voice using a voice changing program would be completely acceptable within the rules, as long as it is audible i.e able to be understood in a conversation.

Now, someone might bring rule 2.1 to attention, which is playing realistically. How would a voice changer be realistic within roleplaying standards?
It's not an uncommon sight to see someone with a male sounding voice role playing as a female character *cough creepis* which would in theory be a violation of rule 2.1 seeing that Caucasian European or American women do not generally have masculine voices.

In order to play realistically with the voice changer (for example, I used MorphVOX to change my voice to Bane's voice from the Batman films), I'd had to role play having a mask with a voice changer within it. These actually existed, I used to have a Darth Vader helmet that would change my voice to his (sort of, was aids).
This would be done through the usage of a /me. For example;
** Tom puts on his Bane mask.
[desc] Voice now sounds different like Bane. (Tom Hill)

Plus we've all heard and seen Hung Chow ask if we had any crisps too and became involved in some serious Hogwarts RP.

By making this thread, I am pretty much stating that it's perfectly fine to have a voice changer in PERP as long as you are easy to be understood.

If you are banned for having a voice changer in the past, you'd better be disputing it.

 

[Creepis]

As the rule already says "The in-game voice chat may not be used for anything other than to allow for verbal conversation" as long as your voice changer isn't too low quality or it's not a chipmunk that just got his balls cut off then it should be allowed in my eyes as long as you can have a verbal conversation that doesn't sound too unrealistic. Make sure there isn't any distortion, pitch, high/low volumes and you should be golden.

Myself (as you have mentioned) however am not using any kind of voice changer to suit my roleplay character which would be Angela (Shelly) in this case. I would use a voice changer where it fits but to be honest, there just isn't any good enough one's that make your voice sound female without having a terrible pitch or other noise so it's a no for me. Unless you are a born natural like @Pusheen then you sound like a female but in reality you are just a male

Oh, I also heard Luke as the Lieutenant having a chipmunk voice once (long ago, somewhere at the start of V2 IIRC) to fake a drug deal. Literally called the people, made a deal with some chipmunk voice and told them to get on their

with his real voice afterwards. Not recommendable as that voice was very horrible which just gave away that it's a voice changer.

 

[JC Denton]

@MrLewis wouldn't let me use my Bane voice today because he deemed it as "non-serious for serious role playing situations".

Tell that to Gotham City.

 

[John Daymon]

@MrLewis wouldn't let me use my Bane voice today because he deemed it as "non-serious for serious role playing situations".

Tell that to Gotham City.

This obviously depends on the quality of your voice changer considering it might sound like someone is rubbing their mic against their anus. Now it's also depending on the roleplaying situation, if it's a situation where you're shooting someone and it's just a massive clog of cancer then sure, go ahead and use it, however if it's a situation where you go to cops and talk to them then obviously you should not use it

 

[rogue]

Daymon always shouts at me when I have my voice changer turned on ;(

 

[DilanTheSkrub]

Thank you so much for putting this up here, Tom.
I find it hard to RP as a female character as I have a masculine voice, and it just seems weird that when a 16-year-old girl opens her mouth she suddenly sounds like a guy.
Like, if a girl did that IRL, I'd run away screaming.
totes downloading morphvox now

 

[Death Howl]

Game show host as dispatcher because everyone hates their usage of mics.

I have seen them in use and believe they should not be used as they have potential to distrupt rp if misused. However we have teamspeak and that also gets misused so im currently neutral on this.