We’ve been playing Uno online since we acquired our Xbox 360. Uno supports voice communications using a headset attached to your controller. We have not been able to chat with people since it didn’t come with a headset. From what I’ve seen, a lot of people assume if a player doesn’t have a headset that they won’t be able to hear players communicate among other. Let me give a word of advice here: Yes, we can hear you.
The other night the wife was playing Uno, and happened to get matched into a game with a bunch of 9 year olds. They asked a couple of times if she had a headset, and since she couldn’t reply they assumed no. From that point, they began talking among each other on how to play, essentially ganging up on her. Stuff such as “I’m out of red, switch it to green if you can” and similar strategy moves. This was pretty funny considering she could hear them, and adjusted her strategy accordingly. When one of them would say something like that, she would do whatever she could to get it switched back to red.
Later on they began to talk using vulgar terms and call her names. “That stupid ***** will pay for that one!” Not only is it bad coming from obviously 9 year old kids, but Microsoft has a specific gamertag category to sign up under if you don’t mind the language and other bad behavior, the Underground. Since our kids are near by most of the time when we’re playing (or they are playing themselves) we have ours set to Recreation. These kids had theirs set to Recreation as well. After a while they began to realize she was able to hear them and they finally kicked her from the game. Rest assured reports were filed against the profiles involved.
We’ve also had some very interesting conversations as well, by listening to the conversation and sending a text message to one of the players. We’ve met some interesting people this way. Now that our headset has arrived I can’t wait to actually take part in these conversations directly and make some new friends. Its been a frustrating feeling to be the odd one out and not have a voice among others that do. I can only imagine what people who have sensory handicaps must feel on a regular basis, especially considering they can’t just buy a device to be accepted into the group.