What do you do with them?

Do you guys just ramble on about whatever is on your mind? Or do you actualy stratigize and tell people where that damned sniper is? Or do you use it to talk trash to some random person a thousand miles away with a horrible connection?

I usualy only use my headsets to talk with my friends that i know (paranoid and all). Though i usualy wish people would actualy be stratigic and such. It's annoying when i hear some hormone-raged 12 year old talking in the voice-changer with a really high/low voice and won't shut up. It ruins my concentration (sometimes i forget the "MUTE" option)

I confess- I love to fight with people online. I'm not a complete jerk though, I only do it when they start trash talking to other people. The moment I find one of them, the objective shifts from what is was, to completely annihilating that person, both verbally and in the game. They usually leave the match or go completely batshit and embarrass themselves. It's so fun. It does get hard when there's a whole game full of them though.

As for the question, all of the above I guess.

lol, i just remembered, one of my friends always acts out when he's talking with his friends. If even one of them is in the game, he starts saying "Oh that was TOTALY fair!" in a sarcastic tone, and sometimes even throws the headset on the ground and yells. It's halarious.

I only really use my headsets for when my friends are online.
Other than that, all other players with mics on are muted as soon as possible, one thing Halo 3 did right.
Let your guns do the talking people.

I will talk with others about stuff, but mostly to strategize.

Talk to friends, run a team, record me talking about stupid things.

depends on my mood, if i am pissed off i yell at people for being being p*ssi*s. quite i dont talk or in a good mood i talk about a whole bunch of random shit.

Back when I still had and very occasionally used one...
I kept my conversations as simple as possible, and always pure strats.
"I'm flanking right, grenade cover!"
"Top of stairs! Sniper!"
"Hurt bad! Covering fire!"
"Placing bomb/Stealing Flag. Sniper cover!"
Stuff like that.

I deeply hate anyone who's too stupid, or have too small a dick and feel a need to enlarge it by arguing with some idiot, to keep the line clean.
Guys, I'm trying to net us victories with expertly executed strategies. You try to increase the imagined size of your diminutive nads by screaming that someone sucks cause they use a weapon/class/whatever you don't like. Guess which deserves more airtime during the actual gameplay?

I only talk to my friends. I mean, I'm sure that I'd win more games if I'd talk with my team, but you get tired of people shouting "OMG WTF NOOB" in your ear all the time.

Most of the time I just plug it into my controller and put it on the ground where I can't hear it. I have no desire to talk to anyone on my team and I have no desire to hear 8 year old children screaming about how good they are and about how much everyone else in the world sucks...

I sometimes try to strategize. Other times, I'll just talk to people. Depends on the game and situation.

My ex-wife flirted with every guy that played Star Wars BattleFront II

I rarely say anything to anyone I don't know.
Why would I? So I can hear someone yelling a random swear word over and over? Pass. Voice comm. is growing in the world of online games and I honestly fear the day when it becomes the status quo (if it isn't already) and if your left wondering why, go play gears over xbl for about and hour.

I rarely talk, as most games I play seem to be with the worst kind of people alive.
But if I get a good game, it'll be mostly chat about strategy.

Mostly to strategise, but between matches I'll chat with friends.

I do think that integrating Xbox Live chat with MSN is a baaaad move. Too many chuckleheads ignoring the game to exchange cat memes in private chats.

As for the yammerers/screamers/"smack"talkers, well, every game should have some sort of easy-to-use "mute this jerk" button. Makes things so much better.

-- Steve

I only use it in one game - EVE Online. And there, I only use it while on ops, so mostly for strategizing. If we're waiting for someone, it will get hijacked for idle chat.

I use it to narrate literotica.

Seriously.

I used to run a fairly popular guild on WoW about a year ago. We had our own Ventrillo, but only about fifteen or so of the 100+ members actually had working mics. The rest of 'em used to just listen to our causal antics. One such occasion happened to be around 2AM, where I made up a humorous sexual anecdote/fan-fiction which dragged on for about three hours.

Good... thymes?

My ex-wife flirted with every guy that played Star Wars BattleFront II

I needn't bother to ask why she's your ex, then, heh.

Almightyjoe:
if you cant reduce some poor fool at the other end of the earth to tears, you have failed, its the single most enjoyable experience you can have with your pants on, or not, depends on the game.

But then again, when i played WoW i would randomly state over general chat:

"i slept with your sister"
"my balls are itchy"
"my god, i hate (insert band i was sure would be popular at the time)"
"Chuck norris plays a rogue"
"You are all going to hell for your sins"

and arguing with everyone at every opportunity

good times...

Oh so your that jackass I'm always arguing with lol.

I tend to rant to myself when I die in a way that I deem unfair (e.g. any way), but other than that I at least try to talk strategy with my team. I also tell people I find annoying to shut up and, if they don't, mute them. I only tell people they suck if they refuse to pay attention to the people who don't.

Well I pretty much only talk to clan members, and generally only in vent (strictly speaking I don't have a headset, they annoy me). I don't know if it's because I'm a Brit, or because I'm a pc gamer, but I and everyone I know find over-intense strategising amusing.

"Sniper camping B" is fine, but when you get some lad giving it the whole "Moving on A, flashing, cover me, flank right, take cover, check my six, on my mark, ready set go, hoorah" business you just wanna tell him to stfu.

Used to get it on Day Of Defeat an awful lot - even clans who were based entirely on Band Of Brothers. Memebers would have their name given to them, along with their rank, based purely on the show. Chain of command to be obeyed at all times, demotions for insubordination etc.

Oddly enough I have never once heard anyone talking on in-game voice comms in CoD4 PC, I think most servers have it turned off. Having 50 people talking at the same time about noob tubes and p90 whores just isn't that appealing I guess.

I'll only really talk extensively with people I'm comfortable with talking to, which basically is limited to friends or clan/guildmates. As I'm an MMO player, though, I have no problem speaking to other people I don't know.

I totally stay away from doing it on FPSs. Maybe your experiences are better, but mine have been awful - I've had the 12-year old Napoleon, the online flirt, the extremely angry gamer, and the guy who won't stop talking about T&A in my matches. There's just no appeal.

I only ever use the headset to talk to my freinds, sometimes I will listen in and respond to some people and I have made a few freinds on XBL that way but for the most part I just end up turning it off and muting people.

And on that note I'd like to thank the guys at Infinity Ward for including a qiuck mute option with the recent Call of Duty 4 patch.

fsanch:
I totally stay away from doing it on FPSs. Maybe your experiences are better, but mine have been awful - I've had the 12-year old Napoleon, the online flirt, the extremely angry gamer, and the guy who won't stop talking about T&A in my matches. There's just no appeal.

I've had the angry gamer tons of times, and once i even turned on my headset ONLY to yell at a guy who had the voice changer on extremly low and wouldn't stop saying "I'm better than all of you! You guys suck! Ohh man you just got pwned! You ALL suck balls!". He just would not shut up. Didn't work though =_=

I use mine for trolling or playing some Weird Al music so that I can annoy other people.

I use it to talk to my friends.

My only problem is that I'm rather agoraphobic (I believe that's the correct term. Afraid of open places, groups, new people, etc.). So, when playing by myself, I tend to keep my mic off. Sometimes, I'll even go the distance to have a friend in the room, "Ehh. . . Yeah. He lost his mic. . ." . . . Just so I won't have to talk to new people.

But if it's just me and my best friend, oh man, we just keep going back and forth and back and forth and back and. . .

-D

First person shooters online.
That's just about the only situation where you really do *NEED* a headset/microphone.

Playing Camper-Strike or any rapid "realistic" shooter where you can instantly die from 2-3 bullets to the chest requires fast communication and good team effort and mic/headsets are pretty much your best friend.

Thankfully, I never play on Xbox live, because then I would have to either kill myself or seperate my ears from my head Van-Gogh-style