In-game voice comms
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I’d like an in-game chat client. It would make connecting to others easier. Different irl friends and random people I encounter online use different clients, like Mumble and Teamspeak, or sometimes (to my chagrin) even Skype. It would be nice to have an in-game client for the sake of a basic, universal chat option. If people wanted to continue using other 3rd party clients, they could. It’s just that I find it’s a hassle to rely on another gamer to set up and maintain a server, for me to remember/store even more password and account info, and to juggle clients. It would also make communications for pick-up groups a lot easier. Dungeon runs would, in general, be smoother. Many other games use the in-game chat as an optional asset, only for use between people who choose to use it together, and somehow they’ve got a situation with abuse liability that they’re comfortable with. I mean, just allow people to mute anyone they don’t want to hear, and most of the problems are solved. I honestly don’t see why Anet can’t figure out a way to implement it.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
Thanks for the information.
I feel an in-game voice comm would be far more reliable than third-party software, not to mention more convenient for Ad-hock grouping.
Definitely something you guys should consider implementing , especially if you intend to develop more dungeons and fractals, or dare I say it? raids.
See below:
There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
I’ve used all three, and they work well. No need to spend money to reinvent the wheel, when you can get the wheel for free.
I have also used all 3 and in my experience they can go down for hours, usually at the worst possible time too.
Is that truely your experience?
Yes.
There are a number of communities that host team speak servers and they hand out the access like candy. There’s one for the European GW2 community and a number of guilds also have access to TS which they grant access to for purposes of Tequatl and Triple Wurms.
I run a small one for my guild which I rent off a friend. The best thing about hosting your own server is control. As host, I can grant and revoke admin rights as needed not to mention ban or blacklist people.
Having an in game voice feature would be nice, but ultimately would be so daunting for Anet to maintain control over that it really isn’t worth their while to invest in it.
If they had an in-game chat feature, I would demand an “opt-out” option because there is no way in hell I want to hear every random 12-year-old with a crappy ears-bleeding laptop mic.
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
No. It would be too easily abused in game, just like dueling in PvE, therefore we can’t have it.
Wow….dig up any dead horses lately….(and do you wanna use my club or are you just gonna use the shovel)?
While the thought of an integrated VoIP communication is valid, the SUPPORT costs and issues would be horrific. Everything from voice lag to cursing would spawn endless issues the just don’t have to deal with now. Anyone that want voice communications can get it from a variety of 3rd party apps and services.
But it not being in the game is obviously a conspiracy to prevent PvE dueling….
We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
(edited by Brother Grimm.5176)
No. It would be too easily abused in game, just like dueling in PvE, therefore we can’t have it.
Wow….dig up any dead horses lately….(and do you wanna use my club or are you just gonna use the shovel)?
While the thought of an integrated VoIP communication is valid, the SUPPORT costs and issues would be horrific. Everything from voice lag to cursing would spawn endless issues the just don’t have to deal with now. Anyone that want voice communications can get it from a variety of 3rd party apps and services.
But it not being in the game is obviously a conspiracy to prevent PvE dueling….
Hi, it is an honour to have someone with ur in-depth knowledge on the subject joining the discussion.
Can you please provide us with an detailed breakdown of the support costs?
Also
Can you elaborate on these endless issues? you mention lag and cursing (which is something we already have in-game) and everything in between. What exactly is the in between?
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
It does seem a tad ‘unprofessional’
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
It does seem a tad ‘unprofessional’
it would be cool to have an Anet sponsored TS server for each server.
Of course, the TS server that is owned and moderated by the players would still be the best for WvW (because you can keep spies off the server), but it would be nice to have the option of an open TS that players didn’t have to pay for that also didn’t require you to be verified by another player that may not be available all the time.
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
It does seem a tad ‘unprofessional’
alot less unprofessional then having a voice client built in that is extremely poor quality(played thousands of games with built in and they all suck in quality) that also causes extreme lag on the servers which barely handle the game in its current state.
hosting for the amount of people on gw2 would be huge and at a cost that lets face it would force anet to consider a monthly cost just to cover the voice servers alone.
Teamspeak/Mumble/Ventrillo have been developed over years and now are extremely reliable unless brought from bad host sites.
from what ive gathered you want it for dungeons well its not hard to find a group that do dungeons every day together and ask them if they wish to join a teamspeak/mumble or even skype but even then do u really need it for dungeons as lets face it dungeons are extremely easy.
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
It does seem a tad ‘unprofessional’
alot less unprofessional then having a voice client built in that is extremely poor quality(played thousands of games with built in and they all suck in quality) that also causes extreme lag on the servers which barely handle the game in its current state.
Hyperbole.
hosting for the amount of people on gw2 would be huge and at a cost that lets face it would force anet to consider a monthly cost just to cover the voice servers alone.
Hyperbole.
Teamspeak/Mumble/Ventrillo have been developed over years and now are extremely reliable unless brought from bad host sites.
from what ive gathered you want it for dungeons well its not hard to find a group that do dungeons every day together and ask them if they wish to join a teamspeak/mumble or even skype but even then do u really need it for dungeons as lets face it dungeons are extremely easy.
personal opinion.
Lets focus on facts?
Of course, the TS server that is owned and moderated by the players would still be the best for WvW (because you can keep spies off the server), but it would be nice to have the option of an open TS that players didn’t have to pay for that also didn’t require you to be verified by another player that may not be available all the time.
Stormbluff Isle seems to do this sort of thing – there is a TS3 server with channels for general PvE play (though megaserver changes a few things) and some channels for WvW, which someone has to verify you actually play on the server to join.
If the community had some sort of standard practices, I imagine most of the issues that in-game chat is typically introduced to fix would disappear. e.g. if there was an official-unofficial voice chat server for dungeon groups that you just generally know you should log onto for this sort of thing.
Setting that up is easier said than done, that’s the problem.
Just a random PuGgle.
Stormbluff Isle ( http://www.stormbluffisle.com )
Stormbluff Isle ( http://www.stormbluffisle.com )
Why is this thread still going? Anet answered this on the first page.
Want to know what this game would be like with in-game voice com? Go to Steam, download Team Fortress 2, and play a few games. Tell me how long it takes before you feel the need to mute an annoying 12-year-old.
Not just 12 year olds I have heard those in their 20s and 30s+ I’d like to reach through my mic and strangle in the BG WvW channels before even myself at 60 years old can be annoying at times which is why I just keep my mouth shut and listen to directions and try to follow without becoming an a**hole.
Mud Bone – Sylvari Ranger
An in-game comm would be convenient and player-friendly. But Anet has already stated that’s not of interest to them.
An in-game comm would be convenient and player-friendly. But Anet has already stated that’s not of interest to them.
Anet denied a kitten good idea. Even if this is only for spvp it would be amazing.
18 80s | 12 100% | r177 | wvw r970 | 9,000+ hours
BP → DR → FA → Mag → BP → FA
BP → DR → FA → Mag → BP → FA
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
Thanks for the information.
I feel an in-game voice comm would be far more reliable than third-party software, not to mention more convenient for Ad-hock grouping.
Definitely something you guys should consider implementing , especially if you intend to develop more dungeons and fractals, or dare I say it? raids.
See below:
There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
I’ve used all three, and they work well. No need to spend money to reinvent the wheel, when you can get the wheel for free.
I have also used all 3 and in my experience they can go down for hours, usually at the worst possible time too.
Is that truely your experience? I can’t speak for the the rest, but I’ve had a vent server for so many years that I can’t remember (back to Crimson Skies). It has NEVER gone down during play-ever. The only time it is down (in my experience) is during scheduled maintenance which the inform the owner about and even that is rare.
Bottom line-I thing your comment was more reactionary than based in fact.
So much what Blude says, in the time using Vent(in the GW1 years) and TS3 for GW2, the downtime accumulated for those 2 voice comms has been MAYBE 3 days(72 hours) total in the 8+ years of voice comm use during GW1/GW2
Mud Bone – Sylvari Ranger
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That is an interesting response.
Then what does GW2 need speex and opus for? :P
Both of those audio codecs are designed for VoIP.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That is an interesting response.
Then what does GW2 need speex and opus for? :P
Both of those audio codecs are designed for VoIP.
Sure they were DESIGNED FOR voip use, but, can and are used in/for other types of audio use, such as music streaming and more.
Mud Bone – Sylvari Ranger
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That might be fine for WvW and thank you for taking the time to respond, Mark. But, like others have eluded, not really a viable comm option for PvP (hotjoin) or PvE.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That might be fine for WvW and thank you for taking the time to respond, Mark. But, like others have eluded, not really a viable comm option for PvP (hotjoin) or PvE.
It would be a better use of everyone’s time and efforts if Anet invented a way to seamlessly integrate 3rd party voip in to the game. If there was a way to copy/paste a link into chat which, when clicked, automatically logs you in to TS3 and in to the server of the person who linked it. Or have an option when you right click a player —> join voip, and have it log you in to their associated voip client/server. There would be an option in game settings to specify if you use TS3, vent, or Mumble, and what the URL of your server is.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That might be fine for WvW and thank you for taking the time to respond, Mark. But, like others have eluded, not really a viable comm option for PvP (hotjoin) or PvE.
It would be a better use of everyone’s time and efforts if Anet invented a way to seamlessly integrate 3rd party voip in to the game. If there was a way to copy/paste a link into chat which, when clicked, automatically logs you in to TS3 and in to the server of the person who linked it. Or have an option when you right click a player —> join voip, and have it log you in to their associated voip client/server. There would be an option in game settings to specify if you use TS3, vent, or Mumble, and what the URL of your server is.
Wow that would be really cool finally an idea that makes sense and if the person that clicked the option to join the VoIP server didn’t have the client installed it would link directly to the appropriate web site to download the client. Wow I hope someone from Anet is still reading this thread because this would be fantastic. Also that linking system would include not only the server ip and password but a specific channel on the server for guesting and the server info should not be visible to anyone but the poster. Plus it need to be easily toggle on or off to prevent unwanted access.
Opinions are like ______ everyone has one I could
put the correct term in but not everyone has kittens
put the correct term in but not everyone has kittens
I’ve had it in other games and it was a mixed bag. And it only takes one bad experience to turn a person off, and next thing you know everyone is always mute/deaf. Overall, its just easier to be in a guild with mumble. More support for Mumble would be nice though.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That might be fine for WvW and thank you for taking the time to respond, Mark. But, like others have eluded, not really a viable comm option for PvP (hotjoin) or PvE.
It would be a better use of everyone’s time and efforts if Anet invented a way to seamlessly integrate 3rd party voip in to the game. If there was a way to copy/paste a link into chat which, when clicked, automatically logs you in to TS3 and in to the server of the person who linked it. Or have an option when you right click a player —> join voip, and have it log you in to their associated voip client/server. There would be an option in game settings to specify if you use TS3, vent, or Mumble, and what the URL of your server is.
That would be a good start, GW2 doesn’t necessarily need it’s own voip, it needs to better integrate existing voip into it’s grouping. If GW2 could somehow act as a kind of ‘connection broker’ or a mediator to set up voip for teams, that would really help smoothing things up.
… Overall, its just easier to be in a guild with mumble. More support for Mumble would be nice though. …
I am in a guild with TS3, that is not the issue, what is is connecting to a voip service for ad-hoc events, be it Wvw or Tequatl. It would be nice if you could right-click a pc you’ve just capped a keep with and join their channel on TS3 or mumble, just as you join a party, or they invite you to their party/channel.
(edited by frans.8092)
Why is this thread still going? Anet answered this on the first page.
Because this is the GW2 forum where everyone feels the need to get the last word. Wait.. Now I’m guilty as well. LOL
The Burninator
Why would ANet go through the effort of making and supporting a VoIP service when they can just shift all that effort on third parties?
It does seem a tad ‘unprofessional’
alot less unprofessional then having a voice client built in that is extremely poor quality(played thousands of games with built in and they all suck in quality) that also causes extreme lag on the servers which barely handle the game in its current state.
Hyperbole.
hosting for the amount of people on gw2 would be huge and at a cost that lets face it would force anet to consider a monthly cost just to cover the voice servers alone.
Hyperbole.
Teamspeak/Mumble/Ventrillo have been developed over years and now are extremely reliable unless brought from bad host sites.
from what ive gathered you want it for dungeons well its not hard to find a group that do dungeons every day together and ask them if they wish to join a teamspeak/mumble or even skype but even then do u really need it for dungeons as lets face it dungeons are extremely easy.
personal opinion.
Lets focus on facts?
You are going to call others out for expressing a personal opinion, and ask tor a focus on facts, while claiming that it, “seems unprofessional ?”
Wow.
There is an aspect not yet discussed and that is player protection. I believe Arenanet should have implemented Voice Comms and given worlds their own sub forums on here. This is mostly from a perspective of WvW and when PvE had it’s own instances.
[AwM] of Jade Quarry.
Here’s a fact:
Hundreds of hours of audio communication between players created daily would not be effectively moderated by GMs who already spend a full day working on player reports and issues in game. You have a company that’s very small who have a player base half the size of WoW’s.
The logistics of being able to police such a large amount of data with a small team is staggering.
(edited by Calys Teneb.7015)
Here’s a fact:
Hundreds of hours of audio communication between players created daily would not be effectively moderated by GMs who already spend a full day working on player reports and issues in game. You have a company that’s very small who have a player base half the size of WoW’s.
The logistics of being able to police such a large amount of data with a small team is staggering.
Then perhaps they could spend some of their profits on out-sourcing this task to India or something, for much cheapness.
Here’s a fact:
Hundreds of hours of audio communication between players created daily would not be effectively moderated by GMs who already spend a full day working on player reports and issues in game. You have a company that’s very small who have a player base half the size of WoW’s.
The logistics of being able to police such a large amount of data with a small team is staggering.
Then perhaps they could spend some of their profits on out-sourcing this task to India or something, for much cheapness.
You must have a very different idea of what cheap is than I do. Because I don’t see that being very cheap at all.
I’ve worked for various game dev companies for six or seven years. It’s a highly competitive industry, much like every other field in comp sci, but worse. A lot of people dream of working in games, so even though the industry is growing steadily, there’s more people trying to get and stay in then there is demand to keep them. People fall out of it all the time and never get back in. Outsourcing is a dangerous precedent that would make the competition to succeed much harder. I don’t want to set that precedent.
Further, it may not be Anet’s call, they’re owned by NCsoft. Even if it was Anet’s call, there are hurdles that they have to solve that all cost money and resources away from developing GW2.
Number one is that you have to have people program such a client. Simple? Even if you have four or five programmers who work on it a month, if those four or five programmers each get paid a hundred k a year, which is average to low depending on what you do, that’s around fifty k right there. Fifty thousand spent on this feature and we’ve only programmed it.
It also has to be integrated into the client and the servers. A VOIP client isn’t as simple as it seems, but it gets very complex when you have to integrate it into multiple game systems and then find server space for it. And then it has to be tested. That’s more programmers, hardware, and QA. Let’s call that another fifty thousand total, but you have your client done and ready in two months.
Now we’re at a hundred thousand spent and two months of time, that didn’t go into GW2 by the way, and it’s not even in player’s hands. And this is only if things go as smooth as silk, it doesn’t break anything, and it’s perfect. Which it won’t be, and it’ll have to go back two or three times, but I’m giving you a very generous scenario here.
It’s not even in player hands, because before it goes into the client, players have to agree to have it. And this comes into a major hurdle.
No online game company EVER has done this. For very, very good reasons. Players have an expectation of privacy when it comes to their interaction in-game. Namely, that their actions are public only in the environment of the game, as far as the company is concerned. Companies take this very seriously, which is why you see rules like “Don’t call out players by name” and the like.
(edited by Calys Teneb.7015)
To get players to use this system, they now have to agree to a new EULA (lawyer’s fees!) which expressly states that their private information is now monitored by a third party outside the game. Which I guarantee you will never happen. This new VOIP feature would not outweigh the outrage that would hit if such a thing were to ever show up in a EULA. Every company that currently has VOIP in game either doesn’t moderate it effectively or has the resources to hire full time VOIP moderation, but they never ever outsource it, just for consumer privacy.
I couldn’t even promise that such a move would be considered legal in a court of law even with a EULA stating the player agreed to it. It’s that drastic a change to any form of game moderation that has come before. Riot’s Tribunal was already experimental and a revolution of an idea at the time, and not every player even likes the idea of being judged by other players.
Let’s say, for sake of argument though, that this hurdle has been bypassed. You are now looking for an outsourcing agency that has employees that can speak three languages fluently, at the least. They already know their native language. They have to know English to communicate effectively with Anet. And now they have to also speak either Spanish, Dutch, French, or Chinese and must do so fluently enough to understand gender pronouns, figures of speech, tonal inflection, and so forth, all without the ability to rely on a script. It’s not like outsourcing to a help desk where they have a flow chart to follow. There would be no flow chart in natural conversation to help them out.
This also costs time and money and energy away from developing the game, by the way. Because these employees would have to be trained in Guild Wars 2 systems.
Let’s say you find such a company. I don’t know what a contract with such a company would call for, but I do know it would be an ongoing cost. And since you’re the only company to ask for this very specialized set of being multilingual (at least three languages, remember) and either familiar with or be trained in Guild Wars 2, which is a lot different than simply playing it. They have to know the systems and policies inside and out.
But whatever, you found one. They can ask whatever they want from you and you have to pay them if you want to continue this service. Sure, you can negotiate, but this is simple supply and demand. You’ve demanded a very strict, specific set of skills, and they are virtually the only supply. Even if they asked for two hundred thousand one year, they could ask for four hundred thousand the next. Maybe eight hundred thousand after that.
Eventually you have a choice. You can cut them loose, but that’s hundreds of thousands that’s effectively washed away that didn’t go into the game. Or you can keep paying them, and that’s hundreds of thousands that doesn’t go into the game. And this is all for a feature that a minority of players asked for, a feature that there are plenty of viable third party applications for that are already being used.
I would be really, truely shocked if between programming it, testing it, writing a new EULA, spending time and energy finding a company to outsource it to, training that company, and then signing the initial deal if this VOIP feature clocked in at anywhere LESS than a cool half a million in costs in its first year alone.
Not cheap by any standards.
It does appear that your idea of cheap and my idea of cheap is indeed different.
(Maybe I picked you up wrong on this next part, if so I appologise)
There are many other game with in-game voice , it has been around for years.
The current EULA (which Anet most likely has the right to change as and when they see fit) would maybe be enough to cover the use of in-game voice by simply including it under “Chat”.
Im not sure which part of the world you live but Im inclined to believe that out-sourcing is a common practice.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
That might be fine for WvW and thank you for taking the time to respond, Mark. But, like others have eluded, not really a viable comm option for PvP (hotjoin) or PvE.
It would be a better use of everyone’s time and efforts if Anet invented a way to seamlessly integrate 3rd party voip in to the game. If there was a way to copy/paste a link into chat which, when clicked, automatically logs you in to TS3 and in to the server of the person who linked it. Or have an option when you right click a player —> join voip, and have it log you in to their associated voip client/server. There would be an option in game settings to specify if you use TS3, vent, or Mumble, and what the URL of your server is.
Wow that would be really cool finally an idea that makes sense and if the person that clicked the option to join the VoIP server didn’t have the client installed it would link directly to the appropriate web site to download the client. Wow I hope someone from Anet is still reading this thread because this would be fantastic. Also that linking system would include not only the server ip and password but a specific channel on the server for guesting and the server info should not be visible to anyone but the poster. Plus it need to be easily toggle on or off to prevent unwanted access.
Yeah, I do hope the devs see my idea. I think it would go along way to improving cooperation. As for unwanted access, it’s mostly a matter of personal discretion and judgement. Don’t link your private server info into map chat if you don’t want random people. My intent would be to link it in party chat for arenas, or link your (gw2)server’s public (ts3)server in team chat for WvW. I see commanders constantly reminding people in WvW to hop on teamspeak. Having voip makes commanding a zerg many times easier and effective. The main barrier I see is people just being too lazy to minimize, bring up google, search for the voip client, download and install, enter all the server info, and find the correct channel. If Anet could somehow streamline that process (the same way you can type /wiki) it would be amazing.
The GW2 servers can barely handle the load of just the game, they would self destruct if fed even more load.
It is not the servers – it is your PC/CPU that can’t handle the load. This game is very CPU heavy and single threaded.
As for the OT, there are plenty of MMO’s that do not have COMM software built in. There are plenty of other free programs for this.
We on TC server have our own MUMBLE server and every guild has specific channels and special WvW channels.
(edited by Dusty Moon.4382)
The GW2 servers can barely handle the load of just the game, they would self destruct if fed even more load.
It is not the servers – it is your PC/CPU that can’t handle the load. This game is very CPU heavy and single threaded.
*As for the OT, there are plenty of MMO’s that do not have COMM software built in. There are plenty of other free programs for this.
We on TC server have our own MUMBLE server and every guild has specific channels and special WvW channels*.
Yes this is fine for organised grouping and zergballvZergballvZergball.
The problems arise when it comes to Ad-hoc grouping— the current lack of ingame voice comms is not pug-friendly. Its also very unfriendly to the casual gamer who may not have a large network of guildies/ allies/ friends to need a 3rd party programme to communicate with.
The ease-of-use of an in-game voice comm would be a great addition to this game.
(edited by Mac.3872)
I think asking ANet to develop a voice comm is unwise. You don’t ask a plumber to do your roofing — they don’t have the expertise. It would never be as polished and useful as a dedicated piece of software such as the third parties offer.
I remember when WoW got in-game voice chat. It was tinny, broke up all the time, had horrid volume issues, and ended up so useless everyone went right back to Vent and TS (there wasn’t Mumble back then). I don’t expect ANet would have the resources to do anything better than that.
We currently have no plans to implement an in-game voice communication client. There are plenty of viable third-party options available, such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Mumble.
how about making it possible to reach said thrid party services via an ingame UI? is that possible? would the thrid parties agree to soemthign like this?
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