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Some new changes in EVE Online will be deployed on Tuesday, July 1, Community Manager CCP Wrangler announced today. Empyrean Age patch 1.0.1 will reportedly bring fixes to EVE Voice and will also include the previous two optional patches. Further details on what Empyrean Age patch 1.0.1 will include are not currently available, but will be noted at EVE's Patch Notes site, with updated information highlighted in green text. The patch will add roughly 30 minutes to the regularly scheduled downtime, meaning Tranquility will be down from 11:00 to 12:30 GMT.

EVE Online's website -- in its entirety, including the EVE API -- will also be down on July 1, from 12:00 to 16:00 GMT, as CCP Games upgrades its website database server. CCP Wrangler began a discussion thread on the patch at the EVE Information Portal.

Massively Speaking Episode 11 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of June 18th - June 24th. This week it's a pretty straight-shooting show, as Michael, Shawn, and Massively blogger Will Dobson tackle the news of the week. Join us as we talk about everything from the recent Richard Bartle interview to Age of Conan's patch troubles. Join us ... won't you?

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

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Vivox has recently been picked up by SOE for use in EverQuest II, and in an interview with Ten Ton Hammer, one of the company's founders Monty Sharma discussed other deals that they have made and where we can expect to see their technology popping up next. Some of their bigger partners include Wizards of the Coast and NCsoft, and Sony will be using them for more of their games soon.

The interview also covers the technology itself, and how features like voice-masking may evolve over the years. The possibility of customizing the voice "fonts" comes up, something that we think would be a double-edged sword -- there would be room for people to really get into character with their avatars, or, everyone could just run around talking like Tay Zonday from Chocolate Rain. Sharma encourages gamers to check out Vivox's official website to learn more about their progress in taking over the MMO world.

As we noted just a few days ago, Vivox integration will be coming to EverQuest 2 in the upcoming Game Update 47. Greg Spence, a designer on the EQ2 team, states on his personal blog that voice chat is already rolling out to the test servers. They don't expect GU 47 to hit the live side for almost a month, but they want to make sure this particular patch is tested as heavily as possible.

Greg goes into some interesting commentary about what people are experiencing as they use voice in EverQuest 2. For example, SOE's engineers assumed people would know that the 'push button to talk' feature was remappable. Instead, users would continue to click with their mouse - a problem a simple tooltip hopefully fixes. The designer concludes with a Q&A between himself and a fictitious player, attempting to clarify any questions you might have about the patch. It's well worth looking into.

EverQuest 2's Technical Director Joshua "Autenil" Kriegshauser has released some very interesting news via the official forums. The GDC announcement of Vivox and SOE's partnership appears to be reaching fruition, as in-game voice chat will be added to EQ2 with Game Update 47. The system's implementation appears to offer effortless discussion with groupmates, guildmates via private voice channels. Settings can be tweaked to allow non-guildies into guild voice chats for convenience, and will even allow for communication across EQ2 servers.

There's an official thread for player feedback and questions already up and running. Kriegshauser has been in there since yesterday, clarifying elements of the UI, system, and integration. Some tidbits from that discussion include:

• Initially cross-game chat will not be possible, though that's likely to change as other SOE titles integrate the technology.
• At the moment there are not assignable permissions for guild ranks, though that may change.
• Players are restricted to only speaking in one channel at a time, though again that may change in the future.
• Private channels (requiring just a password to access) are still in the works, with hopes it will be available when the service launches.
• Logging a character out disconnects you from a chat, but you will still be in the voice channel while zoning.
• Voice masks (which Vivox calls 'fonts') are planned for future updates.
• Likewise, proximity-based free-for-all chat is a hoped-for addition down the road.

If you've ever searched the web for a comprehensive list of the biggest and the best in the MMO industry, Beckett Massive Online Gamer magazine has done it for you in a recent article entitled "Top 20 Influential People in Massively Multiplayer Video Games of 2007". The top half of this list should reveal no surprises for you, including such industry celebs as John Smedley, Scott Hartsman, Raph Koster and number one on the list: Rob Pardo. But the bottom half of the list may contain a few names you don't yet recognize. Interestingly enough, NCsoft makes an appearance four times on this list with James Phinney of ArenaNet, Richard Garriott and Starr Long of Destination Games and Jess LeBow of Carbine Studios.

This list highlights the most talented people in the industry and how they've influenced the future of MMOs, as determined by Beckett. You can find more details on each of their stories in the printed issue itself (Issue #13 for July-August) which hit newsstands on May 28th.

Anyone who has ever listened to a teenager on Xbox Live knows how it goes. He's saying WHAT? Racist, homophobic, bigoted language ... and that's just in their handles. Given easy voice chat, conversation heads straight to the lowest common denominator. But unfortunately perhaps, it's not possible to censor voice chat as easily as it is to censor text in order to make the chat safe for children.

That's a pretty difficult design problem. Given you have written a game for children where chatting is possible, is it even remotely possible to make sure conversation stays friendly and helpful? This very question is the subject of this week's Game Career Guide Design Challenge. Now, this would be a hard enough challenge for text alone, and luckily, that's all the challenge covers. With the growing pervasiveness of voice chat, though, even the best text-based filtering solution will fail utterly. SOE has promised to integrate Vivox voice chat technology in its future games, including its "M"-rated The Agency and its "G"-rated Free Realms. This is a challenge SOE will face at launch. How would you guarantee a safe environment for a child, one where they could not give away any personal information, where they wouldn't be exposed to hateful speech or threats, but where they could speak freely with the friends they know?

David Craddock at our sister site, Big Download, reports about a group of kids who are monitoring chat and reporting unhealthy chat or just tasking the game publishers themselves to monitor chat. Club Penguin's developers claim two-thirds of their staff is devoted to monitoring chat and customer service. Kids will always find a way around restrictions, and the only real solution is for parents to closely monitor their kids when they are online in any capacity. No other system can possibly take their place.

[Via Gamasutra]

Gamasutra is reporting that Vivox and NCsoft have signed an agreement to offer voice communication services across the entire NC games library. NCsoft joins the likes of Multiverse, Sony Online Entertainment, CCP, and Wizards of the Coast in using the Vivox tech to connect players over IP.

As with these other companies, Vivox will offer "voice fonts", voice mail, in-game transmissions to external phone and text services. There are no details as of yet whether this technology will be incorporated in any way to the NCLauncher the company uses to update its games. NCsoft, of course, is publisher responsible for MMO titles such as Lineage II, Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, and City of Heroes.

Text communication is perhaps the easiest to grasp for a new player. The key difference between text chat in EVE and text chat in many other games is the sheer volume of available channels. By default, every player is in the channel for their local chat, their corporation, and their alliance (if applicable). In addition, there is an uncountable number of channels out there that you could be chatting in.

Metaverse development company Multiverse has announced a partnership with Vivox, the voice service provider for virtual worlds and MMOs of many stripes. Being able to provide integrated voice chat, 3D positional audio, presence, speaking indicators, and management tools right out of the box will be a definite selling point for developers who are interested in using Multiverse's platform to create their virtual worlds.

Vivox is keeping influential company -- other partners include Wizards of the Coast, IBM, metaverse developers Electric Sheep Company, and EVE Online's CCP Games. With strong strategic alliances like these, they're quickly rising to the top of voice provider solutions for the industry. Let's hope their grasp doesn't exceed their reach.

[Via Business Wire]

Ryan McDougall has announced the formation of a new Sourceforge project, called VoIP for Virtual Worlds. The long-term goal is to create an interoperable open-source standard for all virtual worlds.

To help the project find its feet, the initial short-term goal is to create an open-source replacement for the existing Vivox component (SLvoice) that is used for voice in Second Life that can communicate with a SIP-based backend server. Developers who are interested in the effort can start with the project's new mailing list.

We don't presently know if an open-source solution could be fully compatible with the existing voice system in Second Life as the existing system relies heavily on Vivox servers and backend software.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced the most comprehensive voice chat plan ever, according to a press release dropped at GDC today. They've teamed up with a company called Vivox to not only bring integrated voice chat into all of their games, but also some features that MMO players have never even dreamed of. Vivox says they'll be able to bring voicemail into games, join raid chats via landline or cell phone, and even use voice manipulation over the connection.

Apparently the voice chat service will be also available just through Sony's Launcher, so you won't need to be in-game to use the applications. Gamers will have buddy lists, and games will all have volume controls and channel controls, but the other features they brag about apparently won't be available at launch-- while voice and guild chat channels will be available right away, the other features, like voicemail and "voice fonts," are only "anticipated" for later. Still, John Smedley, SOE President, is quoted in the release as being excited about bringing the two services together, so only time will tell how it will all work.

Time, and our interviews, that is. Massively has a few correspondents on the floor at GDC right now, and we are planning to speak with both Vivox and SOE before the end of the week. Stay tuned for more on these services and just what they'll entail for players in-game.

Linden Lab wants to know your thoughts on voice. As Eric Rice/Spin Martin puts it "after it's installed and after months of community bitching. Awesome."

Feel positive about Second Life voice? Negative? Ambivalent? Take the time to do the survey and let Linden Lab know - but you'll need Javascript enabled for qualtrics.com in order to make the survey work properly and store the results.

According to Wagner James Au at GigaOm, Benchmark Capital has joined the board of Vivox. We're not sure how much Benchmark Capital invested directly. The total was $7.8 million US dollars in Series B financing, some of which also came from Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital.

The man behind the deal was Mitch Lasky, formerly with Eletronic Arts' mobile division, now general partner at Benchmark Capital.

Linden Lab advises this-morning (and we're certainly seeing it reflected in the figures) that while they thought the issue had been resolved on Saturday evening, that it was not, and that the issues that plagued the Second Life grid over the weekend are still ongoing.

Additionally, all voice services went dark at 2:06AM SLT (US Pacific).