On Voice Chat, Expectations & Music

The truth is that the vast majority of people aren’t interested in simulating a scrim environment, and that simply is not what the ranked system is capable of. It pairs random players with each other, of similar enough skill level, essentially a giant automated PUG system. I believe that failing to understand this and setting specific expectations about how the game should be played only blinds you to how people actually interact with the game, and attempting to overregulate that hurts not only those minding their own business, but also your own self. 

Let’s not act ignorant about the many inconveniences of voice chat and its poster child : toxicity. Many will say that we should join voice chat and are free to leave or mute someone if toxicity arises, but the harm is already done. In fact in the very first ranked game I played in 2017, I thought to myself to join voice as was the expected thing to do, and was told to kill myself mid game. That single experience stopped me from touching ladder for a week. I have also received misogynistic and transphobic comments on top of the usual gamer toxicity. For me to go in voice chat with the hopes that things will go well would also be a way of setting, as the community currently is, impossible expectations. 

Funny enough, voice is not the only way in which communication is carried out, and I am not merely talking about the use of in game voice commands like asking for healing, telling your ult charge, etc. Most communications in game are non verbal ; as we get better and better at the game we become able to see and understand most people's intentions, in a mostly subconscious manner. It is its own specific game language that we have built as players, and although it may seem vague and confusing, this language is really exactly about itself, unlike words which are about something else. Much like how the lyrics to a song may be left to interpretation, but the music can only be taken as is, there is something beautiful about that. Of course, despite being maybe slower, perhaps sometimes inaccurate, voice does allow for the communication of very specific ideas, but its absence does not render a game void of potential, far from it. 

As a parting advice, I believe that regardless of the ideal you may have about the game and its community, it is important to truly look at how things are in their actuality, and to understand their causes and intricacies. From there, you may proceed to look not at a distant perhaps pipeish dream, but at the immediate next step you can take towards it. Every dive requires its setup. 

Also, ask yourselves : was the game ever meant to be played in any particular way ?


“I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.”

― Baruch Spinoza, Spinoza: Political Treatise