The rise of TS and Vent isn't just because of the fact that people want to be with their friends, it's also at least partially because very few games offer a decent voip solution. When they do offer a voip solution it's oft-times executed very poorly. You will end up with punks making noises or people who didn't take the time to set up their mic properly and are picking up everything in the world, but you can mute those people.
The difficulties with an in-game voip setup are, in my opinion, far outweighed by the advantages. Any serious immersion-style company/squad/clan who had the option to use it with built-in descrambling/scrambling possibilities would almost certainly do so during organized play simply for immersion. The time saved on typing out something or attempting to pull off some abstract como-rose style thing would be huge for those that chose to benefit from it.
I sigh every time a multiplayer team-based game come out and not incorporate some form of voip, or one that does it so poorly that they might as well not have tried. The team we have developing this game seem really on the ball and I believe that they would be more than capable of both implementing a solid voip experience, but also integrating it into the game in such a way that it added the possiblity of further depth to gameplay.
For those implying that the voip system would only benefit lone wolfers, don't forget that if you have four friends you play with you might end up with 6 or 8 or whatever people who aren't on your TS/Vent server. Suddenly you have two teams in your team, with little communication between the two because them talking to their friends has insulated them from the others on the server. Without a means to chat outside of text many people are more inclined to talk about their allies than to or with.
Edited by Kymlaar, 01 June 2012 - 12:16 PM.