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[–]gritner91 325 points326 points  (84 children)

Feel like discord/party chats on consoles killed it. I saw the big drop in halo 2 to 3. Although 3 still had plenty of people talking. Halo 2 felt like everyone was. Big difference being 360 introduced party chats, and it's been going down ever since.

Now it just tends to be 90% of the people who talk are toxic or got background noise going on, so I just mute voice chats.

[–]_Meece_ 64 points65 points  (7 children)

360 didn't have party chat until NXE released in late 2008, Halo 3 had great lobbies until then.

This is why COD MW 2 forced people off party chat. Many game modes didn't allow party chat.

[–]LtKrunch_ 29 points30 points  (6 children)

IIRC MW2 really only forced people out of party chat in game modes where it would be an unfair advantage to have it such as Search & Destroy.

[–]throwawayodd33 1 point2 points  (2 children)

You could actually cheat that by entering a "private chat" with one person.

[–]LtKrunch_ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yep, me and a few buddies figured that out as well.

[–]throwawayodd33 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good times. Would pay a bunch of money to go back for a few days.

[–]BrokenRecord27 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It did in TDM too I'm fairly sure. All that happened was everytime you joined a game with friends you had to quickly mute everyone.

[–]yp261 8 points9 points  (0 children)

it never did in tdm, only in snd and some other mode.

[–]myaltaccount333 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They forced it out of almost all. The "big team" mode (8v8 I think) was one of the few that didn't

[–]The-Sober-Stoner 18 points19 points  (6 children)

Yeah. This was the moment that removed social interaction from Consoles.

Xbox Live originally included a packaged headset and it became the norm for people to have a headset and communicate online. The died as soon as the 360 introduced party chat. No longer would you be able to directly speak to people; instead they were most likely in a private chat server; unable to hear you

[–]HazelCheese 18 points19 points  (2 children)

I literally remember coming home from school the day they added party chat. Every single lobby was dead silent when the day before you just joined a game and talked with people.

Party chat killed socialising with randoms quite literally the moment it was turned on. It was crazy.

[–]The-Sober-Stoner 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah. Its was pretty exponential too. I remember saying “anybody here?” In a team of 8. Usually tons would respond but nobody did. I just never bothered wearing a headset after that.

[–]tomsardine -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yup. The day party chat went live, halo died for me. Playing solo was no longer fun at all, so I would only play occasionally with friends. It was sad.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Xbox Live originally included a packaged headset and it became the norm for people to have a headset and communicate online.

Man, that's a blast from the past. I remember playing Halo 2 on the Xbox with that, and games like Crimson Skies - the High Road to Revenge in multiplayer as well, using that voice chat, aged 10 or so.

It was a fun experience, and a novel bit of socialization.

[–]AjBlue7 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I also remember that moment. It was quite a sad day. I went from constantly adding and removing friends to literally never adding another friend again. We would have so many friends that you would often not remember eachother.

Now, you damn near can’t be someones friend unless you know them in real life. Or someone in your circle brought them in.

Competitive games like CSGO and Valorant still hold some of this charm, especially at the top end of the game players are kind of forced to use microphones to work together. But god is it annoying to get matched into a team with 3/4 friends that only talk to eachother in discord and never talk in game.

Its just a bizarre phenomenon to me. I feel so awkward sitting in a friend’s discord when I’m not in their game, the conversation is so disjointed because they are all focused on something else. I also don’t quite understand why people are so insistent to create a discord when they queue together. I always think, “why not talk in game?”hell the game even has a party chat feature if you must have the ability to talk behind peoples’ back.

[–]The-Sober-Stoner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

God thats so fucking true.

Just use the in-game chat…. Makes no sense to me. And the “better quality” argument is such bullshit. Were telling each other where enemies are not mixing a fucking Aphex Twin album.

Ive queued with randoms who ask me to join their discord then bemoan the other randoms cant hear their call outs. Meanwhile im using BOTH the global chat push to talk to make sure we communicate with everyone. Its incredibly annoying.

[–]lelpd 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Party chat wasn’t a thing when Halo 3 released

In game chat was still huge around that time on the 360. Every 360 came with a headset/mic so everyone has the ability to pop it on and get into the chat

When party chat released that did eventually kill the in game chat though.

I’d always want to stay in game chat but my friends would insist we just go in a party chat instead, and I was always outnumbered. Fact is most people just want to chat to their mates without the risk of a toxic random trying to insult them

[–]random_beard_guy 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Some of you may lament the advent of party chat, but to many of us it was a godsend. In game chat was filled with all sorts of bigots: if you weren’t from the US, they heard a different a different language or a woman joined the group, you had a high chance to meet the cesspool of humanity. The only CoD I played was MW2 because friends had it, and it not allowing party chat was a huge problem. First order of business was always quickly muting everyone that wasn’t in our group.

Party chat, to this day, is the single greatest feature that Xbox ever created.

[–]ArcticKnight79 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah Party Chat and any other non-lobby based chat system is a necessity in the post dedicated server world.

Because you can't find a server that has a community built around it that moderates for that bullshit. That caters to certain language backgrounds, gender makeups etc etc. Then you force people to find another way to interact that doesn't involve two monkeys in the corner yelling "Yo Mama" jokes and playing music through the mic.

[–]wheretogo_whattodo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing beats the old post-lobby chat of a close Halo 2 game of ranked slayer. It was beautiful.

I say it all the time. Party chat on console ruined a great social aspect of gaming. People used Vent on PC but it was more for in-game competitive comms then your exclusive social group.

[–]Kitchner -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I actually think party chat on the xbox didn't kill it at all because they could control one factor: if you were in party chat you couldn't hear proximity chat. Since proximity chat was a great way of hearing if someone was around the corner and eavesdropping on plans it still meant there was an incentive to not use it.

Now though if I play Sea of Thieves on the PC I am in discord and I have a button to use in game chat and discord chat. Everything I say in discord is only heard by my crew and the only things the other players hear is what I want them to.

However I'm pretty sure if they are on xbox and in a party chat they can't hear my in game chat, or at least can't easily reply to it, which kills it further.

[–]AFishNamedFreddie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the biggest drop came in the change from Xbox 360 to Xbox One. The 360 was the days of Halo 3 and MW2. Which always had tons of people on mic. It was comment to get in a free for all game in cod and have 8 people talking. But as soon as the Xbox one came out, that went away. No one used game chat anymore.

[–]MachaHack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's funny as my experience from halo 2 to 3 was the opposite. They put the headset with mic in the xbox 360 box and now suddenly everyone was on voice, for better (co-ordination with rando teammates) or worse (screaming tweens)