Blizzard Voice Chat now works across all games

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

Nearly one year ago to the day, Blizzard revealed that it was working on a native, cross-game voice chat feature for its Battle.net client. That feature is now live for everyone although it’s taken on a different name (and isn’t as flexible as one might hope).

Blizzard announced the new feature, which it is now calling Blizzard Voice, on Twitter. In order to give it a try, you’ll simply need to update your Blizzard Launcher to version 1.5.1, Build 8098 or newer. Upon logging in, you’ll be greeted with a pop-up explaining that the feature is now available.

From there, navigate to your friends list, select “create a channel” then invite those that you want to chat with into the room. Optionally, you can simply right-click on a friend and select “start a voice chat” for one-on-one conversation.

As PC Gamer notes, Blizzard Voice doesn’t allow for system-wide chat. Instead, conversations are limited to friends and friends of friends. While this approach will no doubt reduce the amount of trolling you’ll have to put up with, it also essentially negates itself when you jump into a pick-up game with random players as you can't readily communicate.

Blizzard last month announced that it would be doing away with the Battle.net name, hence why the new voice chat system doesn’t carry Battle.net branding.

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Now if they could just work on getting a working chat app for mobile devices...

A nice unified experience on the desktop though, without having to rely on third party VoIP software to talk to your friends.
 
/sigh. Showed up on my notes and like a good privacy nut I tried to disable it. It directly uses windows microphone controls when its on. Move the battlenet controller windows controller moves too. Mute it. Mutes windows mike. Basically, if you log in and leave battlenet app on to switch between games, and use any other voip such as ventrilo, its active.

I'm truly going to love the lawsuits when parents discover their under 18 children's conversations can be monitored separately, not to mention anyone within mike shot without being able to turn it off. I want to see blizz use that 'Arbitrator' argument on a federal prosecutor, especially from Germany or France.

Since they destroyed the wow64.exe vanilla signon for whatever reason to force the app I've taken to killing the agent.exe app process with Process Explorer before it gracefully exits and I don't even want to get started on 'browserproxy'.
 
Yet another VOIP service no one needs cause we already have several hundred to choose from...
Do you play HotS? This is a step towards a massive big QoL improvement. Having native ingame chat would probably be the best thing to happen to the game in as long as I can remember.
 
Do you play HotS? This is a step towards a massive big QoL improvement. Having native ingame chat would probably be the best thing to happen to the game in as long as I can remember.

I play HOTs with a few of my buddies from time to time, but I mainly stick to Dota 2 as my prefer MOBA. I'll agree it helps with the QoL, but why stop using Curse, Discord, Skype, Vent or teamspeak for this?
 
Yet another VOIP service no one needs cause we already have several hundred to choose from...
Do you play HotS? This is a step towards a massive big QoL improvement. Having native ingame chat would probably be the best thing to happen to the game in as long as I can remember.
not to sound too troll, but apparently the concept of privacy escapes you. You CAN'T turn it off without turning off windows microphone. It is not a QoL item, that would be a SWITCHED item, it is a major privacy problem for anyone, let alone children.
 
Yet another VOIP service no one needs cause we already have several hundred to choose from...
Do you play HotS? This is a step towards a massive big QoL improvement. Having native ingame chat would probably be the best thing to happen to the game in as long as I can remember.
not to sound too troll, but apparently the concept of privacy escapes you. You CAN'T turn it off without turning off windows microphone. It is not a QoL item, that would be a SWITCHED item, it is a major privacy problem for anyone, let alone children.
Do you even have battle.net?
Cause you smell like a dungeon troll.
 
Do you even have battle.net?
Cause you smell like a dungeon troll.
No. Of couse I don't.. I don't know it links to Akaimai now and Amazon now and Microsoft now. I don't know the microphone controls the windows mike because I've never actually seen it nor did I test it which you obviously have and found that to be different than what I said. I didn't know Wow64.exe doesn't work anymore because the app is required now because it always checks for wowbrowserproxy on startup. Yeah...you're right. Because I complained about a major privacy problem, it means you might have to pay attention and that means work and that means, oh yeah, try to discredit the messenger. Go back and play with the little kids. Adults are talking.
 
First off, this is opt-in. You don't have to use it, it wont magically record you.

"I don't know the microphone controls the windows mike" - Do you expect it to magically capture your voice, or have you never used voice chat before. Wouldn't surprise me as you seem to be looking over your shoulder.

Not that it really matters, but source required. "I don't know it links to Akaimai now and Amazon now and Microsoft now."

Yes it opens with Battle.net now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . "Wow64.exe doesn't work anymore"

Major privacy problem my ***.
 
First off, this is opt-in. You don't have to use it, it wont magically record you.

"I don't know the microphone controls the windows mike" - Do you expect it to magically capture your voice, or have you never used voice chat before. Wouldn't surprise me as you seem to be looking over your shoulder.

Not that it really matters, but source required. "I don't know it links to Akaimai now and Amazon now and Microsoft now."

Yes it opens with Battle.net now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . "Wow64.exe doesn't work anymore"

Major privacy problem my ***.
ok..then turn it off. remember, its the desktop app. opt in means you can not use it. try not using the desktop app.

"...it won't magically record you....." seriously? Wonder where I've heard that before. One of the phrases I'm using now is: financially liable. That means blizz being held responsible repairs/replacement for any actions or exploits that come through from connections they've automatically made to other people's servers. The nice thing about logs is they can be used in other people's court cases even if nothing happens to you because you paid attention.

"...source required..." akaimai, et al. Do you have tcpview from microsoft. Turn it on. Start the app. Read it. I can show you may firewall logs but how does that compare to you trying it and then telling me how wrong I am because it didn't happen to you and that must be an artifact on my system(s).

And of course you don't care "... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...". Wow64.exe was all that was required for wow to run for most of it's life. Now, there's a tremendous need by blizzard to market blizzard stuff to me on the desktop while automatically connecting me to the clouds of other vendors that it take zero responsibility for their privacy and data retention policies. But that's ok with you, you get a wonderful tiny little ease in your ability to chat with other non-tech types and switch easily between games and peer into a tiny section on your phone.

Please go back to the little kid table.
 

No - opt in means you can just not create a chat channel - simple. Even if all their other chat services are provided by third parties, well - I guess you better get off the internet, cause your not getting away from that.

Financially liable: Yeah, Good luck with that.

Congrats - I don't care enough to verify, because even if this is true it does not matter - the vast majority of people just don't give a ****. Out of 7 billion people, the government isn't going to come to your front door.

This is even coming from someone who is somewhat conscientious of my privacy too - but you can't get away from it, and don't fool yourself into thinking that you can, or that the boogie man is coming after you if you don't.

Hell - I probably won't even use the thing, but people like you are ridiculous.
 
No - opt in means you can just not create a chat channel - simple. Even if all their other chat services are provided by third parties, well - I guess you better get off the internet, cause your not getting away from that.

Financially liable: Yeah, Good luck with that.

Congrats - I don't care enough to verify, because even if this is true it does not matter - the vast majority of people just don't give a ****. Out of 7 billion people, the government isn't going to come to your front door.

This is even coming from someone who is somewhat conscientious of my privacy too - but you can't get away from it, and don't fool yourself into thinking that you can, or that the boogie man is coming after you if you don't.

Hell - I probably won't even use the thing, but people like you are ridiculous.
Of course you say that. You just don't know enough. I'm one of those people that griped about Google and blocking it and all of 'people like you' laughed and said I'm ridiculous. Then a couple countries got involved. Oh well, you still say ridiculous but changes happened and all the while you just don't get it. You can't get it. You can't be bothered to look at something that isn't in your tiny little "I got to comment even though I know nothing world".

As to the financially liable, I'm not sure you even read here regularly, if you did you might want to take a look at Germany and France and their effects on privacy especially the part where the daily fines were mentioned. I know, you can't be bothered. Someone else will take care of it. Your part is ignorant ridicule and you're trying to be good at it, key word 'trying'.

There's a reason I told you to go back to the kids and play. Your "...I don't care enough to verify, because even if this is true it does not matter..." was discernible when you first commented. Yes, this set of comments looks down on you. You just don't get it. Worse than that. It's laziness not any inability.

I've said there's a problem. You've said literally nothing to show its not.
 
not to sound too troll, but apparently the concept of privacy escapes you. You CAN'T turn it off without turning off windows microphone. It is not a QoL item, that would be a SWITCHED item, it is a major privacy problem for anyone, let alone children.
It can be changed to push to talk and it only is active when you have setup a channel.
 
I have used it all week and I can say that it is much better than what it was a few years back. I have friends on different guilds, so it makes it easier to chat. I don't have to log into different chat programs. The voice quality was also pretty good and you can set a push to talk button for privacy.
 
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