New Control Method: Voice Commands

Pilots,

If you’ve been with us long enough, you’ll have witnessed first-hand that here at Wargaming, we love pushing the envelope of what’s traditionally expected of a video game. Our developers are at the forefront of innovation, constantly trying to come up with the next big thing that will push the genre forward.

"My goal is to not just have one thing that pushes the genre forward but at least half a dozen things!"
- Chris Taylor at Gamescom 2014

 
Following their unrivalled pioneering spirit, our developers have come up with another bold design idea that will change the way you play World of Warplanes forever. That idea is… voice commands!

Wait, what? Why?

World of Warplanes is all about control. Steering your aircraft through the perils of ultra-dense, high-paced dogfights is no laughing matter and requires pilots to be able to make split second-decisions on the fly. The commands that you input through your device of choice need to translate into immediate and accurate reactions on the screen, making your plane follow your every keystroke, joystick rotation or mouse movement. While the offered control methods of joystick, gamepad and the two available mouse options are great, unfortunately, they all have some downsides that the new control type aims to overcome.

• The joystick is less pervasive and has quite a steep learning curve.
• The gamepad is more widely available but, depending on what model you own, you might not have enough buttons to map all necessary commands.
• Lastly, while the keyboard and mouse are, of course, universal, their different country-based button layout may put players of certain countries at a disadvantage against players whose keyboard layout is more World of Warplanes-friendly.

Just think of the ordeal that Turkish, French or the thousands of Belgian players have to go through when they need to reach for completely different places on their keyboard on the default mapping. What may seem second nature to you, controlling your plane with the trusted WASD combination, can lead to serious injuries if players attempt to reach the same buttons with one hand on say a Turkish or – heaven forbid! – a Latvian keyboard.

“I injured myself playing World of Warplanes on a Latvian keyboard!
I didn’t know what I was getting into. My body just wasn’t prepared for the ŪGJRMV layout.”
- Yuri "applewOw" Ilyin, former WoT Grand Finalist with Schoolbus

Until recently, Yuri "applewOw" Ilyin was a promising member of Team Schoolbus with hopes of playing in the Grand Finals later this month. However, his plans were crushed when he broke his hand playing a round of World of Warplanes. Now his team is feverishly scrambling to find a replacement for him – all because he played on a Latvian keyboard. 

How the New Voice Commands Will Work

The new control type will work with any headset or stationary microphone (e.g. like those used in webcams). If it works out as planned, it will allow for a more elegant steering of your aircraft by way of using the most natural method yet – your own voice!

Navigate your planes simply by shouting commands at your screen! “Left, Right, Up, Down, Shoot, Bomb” are just some of the possible manoeuvres at your disposal. You can also control the camera by yelling “Camera Back/Front/Top/Bottom” to rotate the view around your aircraft in mid-flight.

“You already know Push-to-Talk. Now you’re about to discover Push-to-Talk-to-Control.”
- Sergey Burkatovsky, Wargaming Designer Legend

To make the transition towards this unusual control method easier, you will have the option to choose between a “Push-to-Talk-to-Control” version, triggered only when you press the appropriate button, or the always-on variant, which will be all ears all the time.

New Level of Controlling Comfort

Here’s an example of how easy it’ll be to pull off a simple manoeuvre such as a ‘Basic Loop’ using these new voice commands. All you’ll have to say to perform the loop is:

Forward-Up-Forward-Up-Forward-Up-Forward-Up-Forward
Up-Forward-Up-Forward-Up-Up-Up-Up-Up-Up

 Even the more complicated manoeuvres, such as a bombing run on a ground target will become simple:

Forward-Down-Camera Down-Forward-Down-Camera Down
Forward-Bomb-Forward-Up-Up-Camera Up

As you can see from these two examples, clearly, voice commands are the much more comfortable steering method.

“I’ve got my microphone ready to go for the arrival of the new voice commands. It will be an exciting time!”

- Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net

Over time, the software will adjust to your tone of voice, learning your pitch and improving the quality of recognition. Should a command not be understood, a simple message will remind the user to repeat the command in a clearer fashion.

Endless Possibilities & Future Development

For most effective use, you can combine all of the available control methods in order to achieve pin-point accuracy and a maximum level of steering comfort. In the future, we plan to offer the ability to boost the efficiency of voice commands by having the players sing them instead of simple speaking. The system will recognise the melodic patterns in your voice and automatically grant a 50% efficiency bonus to the corresponding action. Shots will deal more damage, turns will be performed quicker (very good for heated close combat engagement) or planes will fly faster when singing “Forwa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-rd”.

At launch (soon™) the new voice commands will only work in English, but we will expand the service to include more languages and even regional dialects in the future. Use this control type for a total hands-free approach, leaving your hands unoccupied to engage in any other activity! Imagine playing World of Warplanes away from your desk while working out or even making yourself a sandwich in the other room. The possibilities are endless.

Are you excited for the arrival of the new voice commands, pilots?