Although MMO players who desire voice chat have always had the option of third party voice chat services such as TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, their offerings have always stood behind daunting licensing terms and high monthly fees. In mid-2008, SOE sought to give players an in-house option: free in-game voice chat provided by Vivox. The Vivox service has had its ups and downs, but we can only assume that it is widely used. Sometimes, a certain amount of fiddling with firewall or sound card settings has been required, or a cycle of leaving and re-joining channels to force a connection,...