VocalText

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VocalText brings realistic proximity-based communication to your Minecraft server. Players can only hear each other when they're close enough — and the further away someone is, the more their words blur and garble. No more global chat. Every conversation feels grounded in the world.

How it works

When a player types in chat, only players within the configured radius receive the message. As distance increases, characters are gradually replaced with _ and ?, simulating a voice fading in the distance. Past the radius, nothing is heard at all.

Features

💬 Local Chat

Distance-based chat with real-time text muffling. The further away, the harder it is to read.

🤫 Whisper (`/vt w`)

/vt w <message> — whispers to anyone nearby (tighter radius, still muffled by distance)
/vt w <player> <message> — sends a directed private message to a specific nearby player; bystanders only see "… whispers something to someone nearby" — not the content

📢 Shout (`/vt shout`)

Server-wide broadcast for important moments. Cuts through the distance limit entirely.

👻 Dead Chat

Dead players are automatically placed in a ghost channel. Only other dead players can hear them. On respawn, they return to the normal channel. Admins with spy mode can still observe.

🔍 Spy Mode (`/vt spy`)

Admins can toggle a mode that lets them see all local chat, whispers, and ghost channel messages regardless of their position on the map.

🌐 Multi-language

Built-in support for English, 繁體中文, and 简体中文. Players can switch languages on the fly with /vt lang, and the choice is saved across sessions.

🔗 PlaceholderAPI

All format strings support PlaceholderAPI placeholders (e.g. %vault_rank%) when PAPI is installed. Fully optional — no errors if PAPI is absent.

Commands

Command	Description	Permission
`/vt w <message>`	Area whisper to nearby players	—
`/vt w <player> <message>`	Direct whisper to a specific player	—
`/vt shout <message>`	Global broadcast	—
`/vt spy [player]`	Toggle spy mode	`vocaltext.admin`
`/vt lang [code\|reset]`	Switch display language	—
`/vt reload`	Reload config & translations	`vocaltext.admin`

Alias: /vocaltext → /vt

Installation

Drop the JAR into your plugins/ folder
Restart the server
Edit plugins/VocalText/config.yml to tune radii and message formats

Requires: Paper or Spigot 1.21+ Optional: PlaceholderAPI

Config overview

chatRadius: 50.0                  # local chat range in blocks
enableDistanceMuffleText: true    # enable the character garbling effect
constrictionRatio: 0.25           # whisper range = chatRadius × this value
enableDeadChat: true              # ghost channel for dead players
...

Full config reference is in the GitHub README.

Vocal Text