My Argument for Adding Voice Chat to LOL for ALL Players (and not just Premade-based VC)

So today I was playing a game called Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, a game that I have fallen in love with since it came out last Spring of '17.

I was on a map called Ripcord and I was tasked with being a squad leader for my team. I usually shy away from being the SL (short for squad leader) because it entails a lot of responsibility and communicative skills in order to maximize the role's effectiveness, something that I usually feel I personally lack. [zombie-nunu-bummed]

I decided to accept the role I was assigned and carried on anyways, and I found that the one thing that allowed my team to win most of the engagements we that we fought in, above all else, was the BUILT-IN TEAM CHAT SYSTEM. [slayer-pantheon-rainbows]

This is my own anecdotal experience, but RS2's team voice chat system (and other voice chats like it, I feel) adds another dimension to my ability to foster communication and teamwork among my teammates in the game. For example, during that particular RS2 match I used the Voice chat to pressure my teammates and commander to work together, advise them on where to go and what to do, and generally just tell jokes and make light of the whole situation in general. I essentially embraced the roleplay of a real and true, flesh and blood US Army/NVA squad leader in the jungles of 'Nam, leading my not-real men into battle against my not-real enemies to attack and defend not-real locations. I had this cool character in my head the whole time that I decided to act out as to my teammates, and I felt that as I did so, so too did everyone else. And because of that my team was able to completely out-think and out-maneuver the enemy at every step, basically like real soldiers do in the fields of war. We would completely dominate them at every turn because we worked together to achieve an endgoal. I wouldn't have been able to do that without talking to them directly. [sg-ahri-2]

Type chat is good too but I feel that it lacks the spontaneity and humanity that hearing a voice lends to the other players. All type and no voice can sometimes cause people to easily dehumanize each other because it can make them seem almost robotic from a face value (my opinion of course). Sure, I can see the merit behind the argument that installing a voice chat system for all players to access leaves open the possibility for trolls, jerks, spammers, and all round grade-A D-bags to take advantage of the system. That I am not denying as a possibility, as trolls and idiots exist everywhere and they tend to make people cynical about progress if they start to be perceived as the majority. [zombie-nunu-bummed]

Also, it's worth considering that even though League might seem infested with trolls and d-bags that want to hurt your feelings, there is always going to be a solution to the people that suck: the mute button. This has always been a solution for dickheads (pardon my language) and its been used since League first started in the form of chat mutes. [zombie-brand-mindblown] [sg-ahri-3]

Next, you're probably wondering about people who react badly to being muted. My tactic for that is to simply not tell them they are being muted. I've found that when people get told they are being muted that they tend to take personal offense to that, as if they are being slighted, so they tend to act out in-game as a response to said perceived slighting. And the people that just troll anyways? My advice for that would be to adopt an attitude of "wanting to make the best out of a bad situation" or "working with what you are being given." What this means is that if someone trolls or acts like a jerk, sometimes the best thing to do is just to not let them get to you. Show them that they don't control how you feel and act and assholes tend to be dumbfounded by this attitude. [zombie-brand-mindblown] [sg-miss-fortune]

But, anyways, its getting late and I have work in the morning. Duty calls and such. I wanted to leave a little nugget of shite I just thought up (so take it with a grain of salt, but hear me out lol):

Gaming is amazing. It pitches real people into an unreal world, allowing them to work together to an end that doesn't really matter but is still fun because of the adventure that getting there creates. Winning is fun, I get it, but I think that I play game's for the love of the game itself and not for the win, because I think that is what really matters. If you like winning more than the game, that's cool too. Just don't be too cocky. Peace out. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]