Voice-Chat, a pleasant surprise

[Veteran]

I used to really avoid voice-chat because I thought I would sound stupid, or say the wrong things, or generally make an ass of myself, but once I actually set up the microphone and tried it, I discovered that after about five minutes, the fear totally evaporates and everyone has a great time. People are generally very friendly on voice-chat, and there's no doubt that it's easier to speak a sentence than to try to type it in the heat of combat.

I use TeamSpeak, which is freeware, but there are many others. Check with your outfit to see which one you use, or if you don't, show initiative and set up a voice-chat server. You can get some pretty amazing things done with teamwork, and voice-chat is the best way to facilitate it.

If you're new to voice-chat, set a button to press when you want to talk. This will keep you from broadcasting breathing sounds, which some microphones pick up more than others, and also prevents you from accidentally broadcasting "OH COME HERE MR. FLUFFY PANTS KITTY OH SMOOCHY SMOOCHY WHO'S THE CUTEST LITTLE KITTY.. oh shit is this thing on? <gales of laughter from team-mates>".

Also, what's up with PlanetSide's built-in chat? It sucks! Nobody praises it, and it doesn't seem to work too well. This is one of the features that I bought the game for, and while I'm not angry about it not working well, I think that if they did get it working, it would be brilliant and make for big-time bragging rights for the devs.

I'll make this into a poll to see what people think of voice-chat.