[Question] Communication habits in online games

I've found that the game and who you're playing with are the biggest factors.

Right now I mainly playing BF2 online with the group we have here at Gamingforce, and we seem to have a pretty even amount of in-game and out of game chatter. Usually just commenting on when something extraordinary happens or reacting to getting killed by another person from the group. Sometimes we do a bit of planning too, like having everyone spawn as a group and try to take out a point together. But overall there's a bit of goofing off since we all know eachother.

In a strategy game like Warcraft 3 when playing with strangers...most of it pretty much consists of teammates saying "rush" or "units?" at the start of the game and then maybe following up with pointing out who to hit and saying when. Even though it's a strategy game, there really isn't much communicating with anyone else aside from saying the basic units you're getting and telling everyone when to attack. Counter-Strike Source and Dystopia (another HL2 mod) seem to have a bit more general talk while you're playing. Not much about the game except for calling people noobs or saying owned, mostly it's just people commenting about how they're playing when they're drunk or about how they've lost friends to World of Warcraft.

But if you're in a clan or are playing seriously with people you know (I did for a little while in Natural Selection and to a lesser extent Planetside), everyone is MUCH more focused on the game and there isn't as much time for small talk. Sometimes they'll require voice chat even so that noone is distracted from typing. That's usually when the real strategizing and planning happens.

Jam it back in, in the dark.