Communication methods and apparatus for online games
View Patent ↗By providing voice recognition in a gaming environment, an IVR server may operate to revoice a player with a voice tone pitch and accent more appropriate to the player's character. This improves the quality of the illusion of the game play. Furthermore, accurate volume may be applied to particular voices dependent on their location relative to the player and the game may be controlled using voice commands.
1. Communication apparatus for an online gaming network comprising a voice input, voice recogniser, voice generator and voice output connectable to a voice bridge, the voice recogniser being operable to recognise voice data received via the voice input and to generate data, other than voice data, representative of recognised words, the voice generator being operable to regenerate voice data from the data using a predetermined voice type and to pass the regenerated voice data to the voice output.
2. Apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising an audio controller operable to adjust the volume of the regenerated speech for a plurality of respective players dependent on at least one known location in the game, of the players relative to one another.
3. Apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a voice database containing data representative of at least one said predetermined voice type and the voice type being selectable under control of the apparatus dependent on user settings and/or a gamer server operating in the online gaming network.
4. Apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the data comprises text data.
5. A method of communicating in an online game comprising, receiving speech from a game player, performing speech recognition on the received speech, generating data, other than voice data, using a processor representative of recognised words, regenerating the speech from the data using a predetermined speech type and passing the regenerated speech to at least one other player in the online game.
6. A method according to claim 5 , further comprising adjusting the volume of the regenerated speech for a plurality of respective players dependent on at least one known location in the game, of the players relative to one another.
7. A method according to claim 5 , further comprising selecting the predetermined speech type during game setup.
8. A method according to claim 5 , further comprising selecting the predetermined speech type during gameplay.
9. A method according to claim 5 , including filtering the recognised speech to block a predetermined set of blocked words by arranging for the speech regeneration step to generate a different word or sound to that recognised in the speech recognition step when a blocked word is recognised.
10. A method according to claim 5 wherein the data comprises text data.