Online games with voice chat?

[ChadTower]

I keep seeing comments all over the place about voice chat in online games being overrun by 11 year olds spewing slurs and swearing every 3rd word.  Basically that there are so many of them, all acting the same way, that anything else is completely drowned out.  Is that actually the case?  I could see it being true - but I'm curious if this isn't just a case of the net only capturing complaints.

[versapak]

There are a bunch of them out there.

A lot of it depends on the game you are playing, and obviously how popular it is.
 
The key is developing a quality friends list (as far as Xbox Live online gaming goes anyway). Over time I have gathered a great group of guys to play online with, and it is very seldom that I have to endure any 12 year old annoyances. Even at those seldom times though, there is the mute player option, which ensures that at least to my ears my gameplaying experience is pleasant.

[Samstag]

When I play Halo public matches I generally mute one or two people in the lobby before the game starts and then it's fine.  I only rarely mute people in Call of Duty 4, and I've only rarely muted people playing Uno and Texas Hold'em.  That's about it for my experience.  I usually try to play with other adults from 2old2play.com.  And in general when those guys brings their kids online with them they tend to be very well-behaved.

It's not everybody, but all it takes is one annoying punk (of any age) and one person to either argue with them or encourage them and it can really kill the fun until you can get to the mute feature.

[ahofle]

I hear that crap a lot in Team Fortress 2, although that's the PC version.  Unreal Tournament 2004 has an occasional tard on the voice chat, but mostly it's useful strategy stuff.  UT3 voice chat doesn't seem to be working yet.

[Dartful Dodger]

The first time I played Rainbow Six Vegas someone was talking gibberish trying to sound Arabic(maybe they were speaking Arabic)  Everyone was telling him to speak English or get out.  It was hilarious.  Because of that I bought a headset and started doing it.  If you drop in an accented "American/America" between the gibberish they really go nuts.

[Sir Auros]

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been annoyed by a racist and/or homophobic little miscreant online, and I've played a LOT of Halo and Gears of War multiplayer. I wouldn't say it's as bad as some people make it out to be.

[BORIStheBLADE]

I keep seeing comments all over the place about voice chat in online games being overrun by 11 year olds spewing slurs and swearing every 3rd word.  Basically that there are so many of them, all acting the same way, that anything else is completely drowned out.  Is that actually the case?  I could see it being true - but I'm curious if this isn't just a case of the net only capturing complaints.

Yes it gets quiet annoying. Just imagine your in a game with 8 -16 people and the majority of them are kids. They think they are funny but they are really annoying. As some others have said you can mute them.

[AtomSmasher]

I've been TF2 on the PC a lot recently and I actually can't think of a single time where a person was excessively racist and/or homophobic through voice chat.  It's pretty often that you'll get one who just talks constantly, sometimes people will start singing, and the new fad seems to be piping their mp3's through the microphone, all of which is extremely annoying, but not offensive.  I have the incoming voice audio turned down 50% so that I can still hear it when everyone is being useful and working together as a team (which also happens often if you play on the right servers), but not loud enough to annoy me when someone immature gets on.