Roblox VC Project DEVLOG 01-01

by · January 17, 2023

Ah, Roblox. I remember the early days in 2011 when me and my sister would go into an Obby and just have fun. It has changed so much since I made my account in 2010. Characters have elbows, the horror games made here look like they’re steam games, and within the past year or two, a Voice chat function has been added to the platform.

Naturally, I wanted to test the limits of VC in Roblox. To start, I needed to get access to the function. You have to provide documentation to Roblox to prove you are over 13. I am NOT showing the process because I am NOT giving away personal information like that…

Just like that, I had access. While my research partners looked into the functionality of Voice Chat in general, I went straight into the game to see what is currently being done by other users.

NOTE: As I only found the Voice Chat category on the front page when finalizing my devlog, I searched for games with either “Voice Chat” or “VC” in the title or tags… That most likely hindered my search results, as a lot of good games (Work at a Pizza Place, Natural Disaster Survival, etc.) Did not have those in their name.

GAME: OPEN MIC NIGHT

This game seems to have been made for the voice chat feature. My task, albeit self-imposed, was to go to Roblox levels and see how voice chat is currently being utilized. I went to three levels with varying degrees of success.

Photo of voice chat indicators in Roblox.

See the speaker symbols over everyone’s heads? That shows they have their mic enabled and unmuted. The mic symbol tells me that I am unmuted.

My first level was a place called open mic night. This level had the best integration of voice chat. This is partially because it was made for it. As I talked to people, a few things became clear with the voice chat:

I heard some stuff in the room above me. I didn’t even know this room existed until I got stuck in the floor/ceiling.

  • The voice chat was not inhibited by walls. The level worked around this by spacing out rooms in such a manner that the distance made it impossible to hear anyone within other rooms. The biggest exception to this was if a room was directly above you.
  • It is possible to mute people when they are talking around you. All you have to do is click there microphone when they are speaking. You have to be within the range to hear them in order to do this, however.
  • Unmuting people is harder. I do not know why, but even when it came to activating it manually through the settings menu, I was unable to unmute a person until they came back within range. However, I do not know if they have muted themselves.

I honestly respect the work that this game did for accommodating voice chat to make it feel special. However, most of the voice chat was just voice chat. There was no unique thing to where it required voice chat, even if I went on the “voice only” server.

I did hear that there is a game that apparently adds an echo effect to anyone that is speaking. I was unable to confirm this information as I was unable to find the game.

If you want to check out the Game I played, here is a link to its page:

Open Mic Night [VOICE CHAT 🔊] – Roblox

FINAL NOTE:

This was not the only game I played. I also tried a City Simulator and Work at a Pizza Place. However… both games either had similar results or did not work at all.

City Sim was a game I was unable to get to work.

And Work at a Pizza Place? While I love it to death, the only thing I really learned is why it is so important to space out your rooms. This was an older game, so it was never optimized for voice chat.

I think this was a successful mission. Further investigation on my end could be on why in the world My Word Speech to Text sucks if I speak at a certain speed, and if the root of that problem that will pose any issues with our Roblox Project

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