Can We Mute All On Team Fortress 2?

I could probably dig it up, but I recall an old IGN article about Valve adding voice to Counter-Strike. Interestingly, I first remember the old V talking about this in accordance to the redesign of TF2. This was back when it was going to get all military serious on us and you could shout orders to men in the field.

Well, TF2 is here, and its not military serious. And I think I'm going to go on record as saying that the biggest failure of gaming technology in the last decade might be voice over the net.

Oh sure, I know there are guilds and clans out there that won't play a match unless everyone is on voice and knows how to use it. I realize there is the potential for voice to be great. And in personalized settings, I'm sure it is.

However, when swimming within the morass of your average multiplayer game ... it is a slightly different story.

In order of likelihood, this is what I hear in my headphones:

- Random noise and static. I'm amazed at how many players apparently chew on their mic during games.

- Cursing at, swearing at, bitching at a random player that the person talking doesn't realize probably can't actually hear them. Surely by now they'd figure out that just because that person is standing in front of them in the game it isn't like you can just shout at them like they were in front of you.

- Singing. WTF?

- Annoying and not terribly funny comments about the state of the game. Like "oh, were we supposed to defend that circle thing?" Or "hey, maybe we should attack them".

- Wild panic about the state of the game.

- Two players who are probably actually in the same room as each other making fun of each other.

- Someone actually trying to be useful, but gives so little information that it really isn't all that useful, or nobody even cares if it were. "Someone should play a medic" or "Why is anyone playing a spy on this level" are possibly valid points, but people will continue to play what they want.

- Something actually useful.

No, wait, scratch that last one. I don't think it has happened yet. So - is there a mute all?