What I am referring to, I have been searching for a group for a while to play online with. I have started using roll20 as some people have suggested. It's great for finding games, it's horrible for actually getting into one (in my opinion, thus far). I post on the forums that I am a player, looking for a group to play in, everyone comments saying "If you find a game, let me know. Or, if you want to DM a game, I'd gladly play."
If I wanted to DM I would of said in a post I wanted to DM...
Another problem, each game has applications you have to fill out to actually join and play? With dozens of people applying to each game! How am I supposed to play a game that requires 4-6 people (the min-max I want to go) if X amount of people already applied?
Then, I find some games that don't have a lot of attention, but they want to use Skype or Google Hangouts or be on a web cam or something. Why? I don't want to sit and have face time with a stranger or hear every annoying sound in the background with them (unless we're using headsets). But still, I have no desire to talk with a bunch of people I don't know, heck, I'd rather not Skype a D&D session with my own real life friends. Can't we just type? What happend to plain ol' typing? Is everyone so illiterate that they can't type semi-legibly? I suppose it's more of an ease of use thing, so the DM doesn't get flooded with massive amounts of text messages and doesn't have to play keep up, and Skype could be used to send private messages to the DM and vice versa. But what about the potential yelling over each other? Sure, most could be civil and not talk over each other, but I am sure it will still happen depending on the group and it's players. Then, there will be some problems with some people dominating more of the talking/actions more than other players. At least with typing, it's possible to type out your response and the DM could review each one, one by one. But then again somebody could just say their action on their own initiative. But what if you're not in battle?
I miss Open RPG, does that still exist? I tried to install it a few days ago, but it tells me I am missing certain dll files.
Sorry for the roll20 rant by the way. Just wanted to vent my frustration with it.
Slit518 wrote:
I can see your point, CCS.
Thank you for your insight, iserith! Though I think I would prefer a transcript myself. I'm a bit old school for when it comes to playing online, when we played, it was all typing.
Also, another nag I have with roll20.net, it is weird on the way you need to invite players. First, you give them the special link, then once they have it, they click it and are automatically invited in to the game... It would be nice if they could just view the page and send the creator of the page for a permission or something to accept them. Being new to roll20.net sure does take time getting used to things!
You sound like me in preferring text-based gaming versus voice/video. 
I like being able to scroll back and read if I missed something during game play or re-read through things later for fun.
I know of two Twitter-based campaigns going on right now that might be of interest to you:
1.) A 1st Edition AD&D campaign (I am playing in this one and it is very active), the Dungeon Master is (https://twitter.com/1stEdDM)
2.) A 5th Edition D&D campaign (I am not playing in this one, so not sure how active it has been), the Dungeon Master is (https://twitter.com/FallingStarDnD)
Hope this can help you find the kind of game you are looking for (if Roll20 continues to be "problematic")! 
Roll20 is awesome if you like grids, tokens, etc. With its dynamic lighting it makes exploration and combat lots of fun.
People avoid text games because they're slow. I run voice for mine because I don't care too much for roleplay, however I find it WAY easier to roleplay in text based games - even with friends. I do play in a text game, and the roleplay is great, but the DM also misses a lot. And yeah, it's slow.
I ran a text game back in 3.5 that went for a year using openRPG and it was great back then, but I've moved on now.
I don't get the web cam thing though.
I started roll20 with webcam, thinking it was important to see everyone's faces. But then I played some other games where it was voice only, and funnily enough - I preferred it! It is more immersive, and that surprised me. I prefer Skype for voice and roll20 for the rest - Skype is more stable, and if accidentally click roll20 off, you dont lose everyone!
I could not play text only. Too slow. I do type and talk in my roll20 games as a player though. You can get good value out of text chat sometimes.
Best of luck OP!
On the whole voice thing, it's what's expected for most games because honestly it's probably the best option. Communicating through text is slow and hard to emote sometimes. As far as webcams go, in my games I dont require it, I provide a webcam though because most of my games are hybrid, with players local and a few coming in from remote. Especially in that instance voice is definately preffered.
When I play at an actual table, with actual people, we use Voice to communicate. There is very little problem with crosstalk nor people shouting over each other. We could solve all of that by no one talking and just writing everything down on pieces of paper....but that sure seems slow and cumbersome.
For the same reasons, I prefer voice over typing online.
I see a lot of pro voice supporters here. At least they are answering the question of "why voice chat?"
Typing isn't really that slow. I guess I can see some people's points in why they wouldn't want to type and play. Because in being descriptive while they play, they don't want to have to be a New York Times Best Selling Author just to get the point across and make the game interesting.
P.S.
I don't mind voice chat, I used to voice chat on Everquest and Everquest II. But like I said, I'm old school, for some reason I enjoy typing more.
Voice chat is a lot more spontanious
Both work, but I tried both and we found voice worked nicer for us in the longrun for describing what we do or what we say, then using the inbuilt systems for rolls
for someone who claims to be good at typing, you don't seem to care much about the wall of text effect.
and as for skype, who wouldn't want the added clarity and convienence of actually being able to talk to the people you're playing with? you're already playing dnd over the internet, does the experience need to be diluted that much more because you want to have another layer of removal?
As a DM I never have a problem finding players. The problem is finding a good group of players. With roll20 you have to start a gaming group and not simply focus on finding a "game" to play in.
Make sure everyone in that group enjoys the same style of game and shares your interests. If you don't, the game won't last long or there will be a very high turnaround rate.
With that said, there is a group on roll20 dedicated to text only games. The campaign is called "Knights of the Written Word: text-based gamers alliance" and there are almost 200 players there.
Slit518 wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
I enjoy both. Text seems to add an additional layer of immersion for me. Much like reading a book I can allow my imagination to formulate a lot more information in my own way than if I KNEW what that character sounds like or the tone of what is being said.
On the other hand, as people who play with me on roll20 are likely aware, my E key on my keyboard is funky and does not always agree with me. So it can be frustrating to type a large chunk of text for actions or flavor only to have missed the 'e' in /me, or other words within.
Istbor wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
trebor_rjf wrote:
I do fondly remember the good ol'days in EQ and even LordOf the RingsOnline, where Text ruled supreme in the RP world especially.
but,..for D&D, I prefer voice. For one, as mentioned, it is faster. Next, it is much more in line with how I experienced the TableTop days of youth. I mean,..back then ,.we didn't have cell phones to Text our Dialogue back and forth, we shouted across the table!
But most importantly, and this is more a personal thing, I enjoy the Laughter and utter spontaneous stumbling of words or raw reactions from all of us. As opposed to a tiny 'lol' in the chatbox,.or an edited 'proper' response scroll by. That is the reason I play D&D.
my 2 copper.
Tabletopconnect.com - makes roll20 look like kindergarten drawings. Can't wait to try its 3d dungeons out in a session.
I stilll prefer people, pencils/pens, and paper.
EthanSental wrote:
iserith wrote:
Excellent points by both replies. I'm curious and I am looking forwards to some of the vids or twitch so I can see it in game as well. I think I read you can add sound triggers so when a player moves through a square with a trigger, a sound like knock, ghostly sound eye is played, neat to see that in use and the players reaction.