Voice Chat

Since patch 2.2.0, a VoIP client was built into World of Warcraft and its features include:

• The default user interface will display voice chat information, making it easy to identify who is talking.
• The interface allows for clicking the portrait of the speaker to allow for easy assisting or healing.
• Expanded API to allow interface addons the ability to interact with the voice chat system.
• Push-To-Talk as well as auto.
• Can talk to party, raid or chat channels.
• Mute function (Same as Ignore).
• Automatic volume control for in-game sound if you or someone else is talking.

The patch went live on September 25, 2007 and included the built in Voice Chat. At the time of release, only a few realms were slated to have the chat service turned on as to test it with all remaining realms to be enabled within the following week. Upon implementation, there were a few problems reported and Blizzard did rolling restarts on the realms to turn off the Voice chat functionality. September 28th, Blizzard had voice chat running on a very small list of realms since 7 pm the previous night and was actively monitoring them. By late afternoon on October 1st, Blizzard had fixed the issue with voice chat and has since turned on the service for all realms.