Is There Voice Chat in League of Legends
In the past year, Riot has been slowly working through the community’s list of demands. We’ve gotten Practice Tool, Replays and Ward Pings, all to mixed reviews. Perhaps the most controversial demand in League of Legends has been for voice chat. It’s a regularly implemented but often negatively received function in many games. League of Legends can be a frantic, messy and confusing game, especially to newer players. Team fights are chaotic and disorientating and certain laning match ups can be incredibly frustrating even with team assistance. Could voice chat be the solution to simplifying the game? Back in May, Riot’s Lead Producer New001 dropped that while his team was beginning to work on implementing it, there had been ongoing discussion of when and why it would be needed in League.
Since May, there hasn’t been a lot of light shed on the topic from Riot’s standpoint other than Riot Maple, the Live Gameplay Team Lead, talking about the need to balance community expectation with the games long-term goals last month.
Finally though, Riot has given an official update in its developer’s blog /Dev. Riot Soundwave states, “League Voice is finally in production. It’ll be built into the party system, so as long as you’re in a premade party, you’ll all be in the same voice room. If you’re unable to or don’t want to participate in voice communication, you’ll be able to opt out.”
He goes on to clarify that voice chat won’t be available outside of non-premade parties. This decision stems from voice chat’s main issue: controlling abuse and providing a safe environment for players. By only allowing premade parties to use League Voice, the host of the party has much more control over who says what, giving autonomy to the players. This isn’t to say that there will never be a fully implemented voice chat, but Riot wants to wait until they have the appropriate tools to deal with the downsides before launching for everyone. Keep an eye out for the official release date and get ready to shot-call you and your friends to Challenger.
That’s all you need to know about the voice chat situation in League of Legends (LoL) for now. For more on League of Legends, be sure to search for Twinfinite.
This post was originally written by Dustin Glymph.
