People join public channels full of strangers to have this experience. If they don’t want the full experience, they can switch to civilised Discords.
Perhaps the notion that they are only demented when using public and unmoderated voice channels will help you. As soon as they disconnect and turn off the computer, they put on their normal suit and blend in with the normal rest of the street’s grey mass, heading to a normal job with a normal coffee in hand.
People who act civilly during a public voice chat, on the other hand…
This is where things get dangerous.
I’ve just never had this experience (“Never” might be too strong of a word as I’ve been playing this game for a very long time and most of that time was on comms).
In general, I find voice chat (third party) very nice, but that’s probably because these are all people I’ve played with for years and years. We know each other.
We have a PTT rule in our raid channel, and anyone with an open mic in regular chat who starts eating in the mic, blaring music or TV in the mic, or somesuch other nonsense will immediately get muted and then soundly mocked for about 2-5 minutes.
We don’t have weirdos in our guild (or maybe we do, but we’re all the same kind of weirdo). We have a no kids under 18 in chat rule, suspended only rarely in the event a teenager raids with us whose parents are also members, so we have never endured an off-key toddler seranade in any of our chat channels that I’m aware of.
I think you’ve either been unlucky or else you lot play with some crazy folks. Joining actual ingame WoW voice chat would be like signing up for the rodeo and then complaining when you find out there are horses and cows involved. Gen chat is crazy…ergo…I would expect WoW vc to be crazy, too.
I’ve heard some wild stuff in rated battleground chat back in Shadowlands. I’m pretty desensitized as a healthcare worker, but some of that banter was next level absurdity.
You think WoW is wild? Try Fallout 76. There is no text chat in that game. There is only proximity voice (you can turn it off but, that is the only means of communication beyond emotes). Once I met a player following a railway track while making train noises. Another time a naked man in only his undies and a gas mask ran up and said “Are you my Daddy?!”
I haven’t used any voice since Vent in WotLK. It was maddening hearing everyone trying to talk over each other with crazy reverb and repeats. Luckily, I don’t really need it these days.
Halo live chat was 10x worse back in the day. In matches and stuff. Pretty brutal. ESRB says they do not and can not rate the chat of players.
No one uses Vent anymore. I can tell you don’t cuz no one who actually uses it types the whole name out. We just call it vent. And you sound like a Star Wars battle droid using vent as well. Vent voice chat still has not improved.
I have never experienced anything like this in the ~20 years I’ve been playing WoW and using voice chat to coordinate group content.
Occasional dad jokes? Yes. Someone who did a superb SNL Sean Connery impression? Yes. Someone whose mic malfunctioned so they sounded like Starbuck in the BSG reboot? Yes.
Otherwise it’s just be normal, everyday chatting about stuff, but mostly focusing on the encounter and the strat needed to beat it.
I’m sure in some weird world, some of the things you talk about happen. But this isn’t some shooter or crappy console game, where 6 yr olds wander in and start pathetic attempts at trolling or worse… did you say singing?
Halo was childs play compared to the Modern Warfare 2 lobbies. Those lobbies… is where boys became men, where they learned who slept with their mother, made you question who is really your father? It made you answer the tough questions. Also made you realize how active your mother was in her younger days.
Did a Scarlet Monastery pug many years ago with guildies and a fifth player we picked up on the way. All through the dungeon there were really evil sounding whispers saying some really scary and horrible things. I thought it was just some ambience that I’d not noticed before, until we’d finished the dungeon and it was still going on. That’s when we noticed it was actually our pickup talking to himself about scary awful things.