Text to Speech (TTS) Has Arrived!

One of the features that has been requested consistently since we released Vitare has been Text to Speech. This is an important accessibility feature but also allows you to follow the lot chat without having to read everything. We are thrilled to say this is now in Vitare!

You will see a new Text to Speech icon on the Lot Chat Window, beside the emoji button. Clicking this will enable text to speech so you can hear other players as they type. We have made it so there is a masculine and feminine voice to match our personas too and help distinguish who is talking.

There are several voices to choose from which can be selected in the Game Settings -> Preferences panel. All text to speech is processed locally on your device, so nothing is sent to another provider. It is important to note that having TTS enabled will make loading a lot take slightly longer.

Chat and Safety Improvements

We've added a Safety option when you click another player to help make your experience safer and better.

  • You can Mute another player to hide their chat and speech bubbles for you only.
  • You can now Report a Player which sends the details to our moderators.

We have also received feedback in recent months about the profanity filter, and with Vitare being an 18+ game, we have now this. Ordinary profanities are no longer hidden behind asterisks.

Whilst that has been eased, we do still need to address hate speech, harassment and illegal content in chat, DMs, lot names and descriptions, and player bios. We want Vitare to always be a safe and enjoyable place for all of our players.

We've enhanced our systems so they will block anything it interprets as a slur, hateful or illegal content, and we will inform a player if that happens. Anything interpreted as threatening or harassing behaviour is flagged for a moderator to look at. Repeated flags by a player may lead to an automatic mute whilst we review.

No system like this is perfect, so we review anything flagged and correct it where we have got it wrong.

Other Changes and Bug Fixes

  • Notifications have been fixed so you will not miss anything important, such as neighbourhood notifications.
  • Lot Upkeep notifications will now flag on every log-in so you don't miss them
  • If a lot has failed to pay their upkeep, players will now get a message when they can't use specific objects on the lot (i.e. a money lot will not allow you to sell, a skill lot will not allow you to skill).
  • Bug fix: Roommates can now water, harvest and plant crops
  • Bug fix: Roommates can now move furniture that isn't their own on a lot
  • Bug fix: Skill speed notification discrepancy fixed
  • Bug fix: Various items will no longer clip in Create a Persona (i.e. fingerless gloves)
  • Bug fix: Object occupancy should no longer stop you using available objects in surrounding area