Guild Wars 2

TS is a disaster for many – thumbing of noses at devs and anet’s abuse rules in general are being ignored by not being aware of, and in control of, voice communications.

Even console games which have much less memory but far more graphics can handle a voice stream, which is a very small ding on bandwidth – it’s just aonther sound so I’d like a switch turn off music or any sounds necessary to have voice capability.

Anet? Please, move MMOs forward where they should be.

Give us voice capability soon.

This would require in game mods/gm, they don’t even have gms in game to deal with all the exploits, I highly doubt they are going to take this 24/7 365 job on. And no you can’t trust players to moderate an in game voice system.

If you cant use ts since its such a disaster try ventrilo or mumble or if small enough 2-5 skype.

Or raid call, there is plenty of options out there.

Why any PC game bothers with integrated voice is beyond me. You’re on a PC. You have a huge variety of VOIP options. No need to burden developers with just another thing to spend money on.

Most instances of people not getting VOIP clients to work is user error or a bad host. if your TS doesn’t work properly, I suggest finding a different provider, fixing your rig, or using another VOIP client.

There’s also Discord.

Install is completely optional, it’ll run in your browser.
Text-to-speech if a user has no microphone.

I’ve been using it for the past few weeks, and I highly recommend it.

Don’t force people into in game voice service UNLESS it is somewhat incorporated in gameplay.
Honestly on PC having problem with VoIP/Voice communicators is problem of that player. Most of are lazy so it is their problem and this cleary is not a problem of a game.

There are tons of software to choose from. Anyway if they are going to bring voice service in game im going to just mute it (probably like many of other players – that prefer voice service that is out of the game).

atheria.2837:

TS is a disaster for many – thumbing of noses at devs and anet’s abuse rules in general are being ignored by not being aware of, and in control of, voice communications.

Even console games which have much less memory but far more graphics can handle a voice stream, which is a very small ding on bandwidth – it’s just aonther sound so I’d like a switch turn off music or any sounds necessary to have voice capability.

Anet? Please, move MMOs forward where they should be.

Give us voice capability soon.

I would like bandwith more. TS is something way better than a ingame solution. First of all TS activities are community build an based. Secondly on TS the community can decide on rulesets and decide in everything for themself.

Why should anet force ingame speaking and even have to control it and remove some fun&freedome from playing the game?
(I don’t understand what the discussion point is. What would be ingame better or what trouble is it just using ts or anything else?)

Other than the occasional FPS do any PC games even have VOIP? I’ve yet to hear of an MMO that has one.

Integrating voice into any game is a disaster. You soon wind up fragmenting the community into those who use it and those who do not. Some of them are reasons beyond anyone’s control, like some of the people who type are Deaf. I am sure a lot are in the same boat as me and we hate how our voices sound over most electronic mediums.

For example, in second life they implemented it despite a lot of people warning about all of the things I said above. It did fracture the community. What is worse, official in-world meetings were ONLY done in voice after that and transcripts often took days to appear.

TS can be handy for some situations, yes, to hear instructions from people rather than them having to stop and use the keyboard. I would hate to see it be integrated though as it would soon be de facto required.

In addition you also have another factor to consider: the breaking of immersion. That may not matter to some players but to others it is a HUGE deal.

Berelious.3290:

Other than the occasional FPS do any PC games even have VOIP? I’ve yet to hear of an MMO that has one.

The only one I know of is Second Life (well, technically not a game but will do for this). It was a disaster.

I believe Lotro has one. Those MMO’s that do have one generally the VOIP is terrible and the generally accepted stance is that ts/mumble/vent etc all do a better job, so let ppl use those instead.

External VOIPs have been the way forward for enough PC games for many devs not to warrant investing time into integrating their own.

An in-game voice system requires a LOT more resources than a new raid ui.

For an in-game VOIP to work well, you need:
– Additional infrastructure to support the added bandwidth
– New UI to accommodate the feature.
– Additional employee resources to monitor and enforce ToS and behavior in voice chat channels.

And even after all that, it’s possible that people will just not use it, making it all a terrible waste. That’s what happened with WoW (Proof: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10762336395).

Ultimately, it’s hard for a game developer team to completely build in any voice system that is good enough to compete with programs like TeamSpeak that are developed and maintained by teams devoted entirely to VOIP.

Even if you get all the resources and features developed, it’s just too easy to end up with a system that can’t filter background noise well, has tons of static, and just has overall low quality sound and if that happens, players will just go back to TS.

Artanis.4963:

There’s also Discord.

Install is completely optional, it’ll run in your browser.
Text-to-speech if a user has no microphone.

I’ve been using it for the past few weeks, and I highly recommend it.

I was recently introduced to Discord as well, and I’m quite pleased with it.

TS and Vent typically lag me (what can I say, my connection sucks), but I can run Discord just fine (or even from my phone). It has good voice quality and has a tiny bandwidth footprint. It also gives us a persistent out of game chat option, and it’s free.

I also recommend it.

My friends and I have used Dolby Axon a lot. We like it.

Berelious.3290:

Other than the occasional FPS do any PC games even have VOIP? I’ve yet to hear of an MMO that has one.

Yes… Dota 2 as well as CS:GO (I know CS is an FPS, but it is a really big one) have in-client voice. It makes quite a lot of sense for any game based around competitive matchmaking, but very little for a game such as GW2 in my opinion.

Berelious.3290:

Other than the occasional FPS do any PC games even have VOIP? I’ve yet to hear of an MMO that has one.

WoW had a very terrible voip which nobody ever used. It may still be there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizz swept it under the rug.

atheria.2837:

TS is a disaster for many – thumbing of noses at devs and anet’s abuse rules in general are being ignored by not being aware of, and in control of, voice communications.

Even console games which have much less memory but far more graphics can handle a voice stream, which is a very small ding on bandwidth – it’s just aonther sound so I’d like a switch turn off music or any sounds necessary to have voice capability.

Anet? Please, move MMOs forward where they should be.

Give us voice capability soon.

You are comparing apples to… sheep.

• Reworking squads requires a new UI and a few new mechanics, mostly making use of existing in-game technology.
• Adding voice stream requires adding the equivalent of an entire new bit of client-server architecture, additional server infrastructure, and the QA/configuration management support to go with it. On top of that, it requires ANet to also provide customer service for anything that happens in voice.

It’s far, far easier to let people arrange their own VoIP solutions.

A in-game VOIP? Breeeeee I just had a cold feeling down my spine. How could they possibly do something better in-game that you can have right now with a 3rd party program. I’m not against it. It could be fun, but it would be more for giggle than anything else.

Even with all its resources, Blizzard’s attempt at in game voice chat was an abysmal failure. I don’t know if they even still have the option or they wisely gave it up. I remember when it came in and how horrid it was in terms of transmission quality, volume, consistency of signal, etc. It took very little time for everyone to go back to TS or Ventrilo (no Mumble back then). I never bothered with the in-game resource after the initial attempts to use it.

If they couldn’t do it with all their extra money and staff, I see no way for ANet to manage it even with advances in voice chat tech that have come since Blizzard’s failure.

Just imagine the many account bans and IP bans after the first 24 hours of in game voice from PvP?

Blizzards huge failure also saw MANY account bans from their PvPers as people (read: mental midgets) immediately assumed they could talk like they were in CoD or GoW and cuss every few words over open comms.

Randulf.7614:

I believe Lotro has one. Those MMO’s that do have one generally the VOIP is terrible and the generally accepted stance is that ts/mumble/vent etc all do a better job, so let ppl use those instead.

External VOIPs have been the way forward for enough PC games for many devs not to warrant investing time into integrating their own.

That is another problem too. With either voicing or text a lot of people choose voice who really should not, either because they do not speak clearly, their connection, or both. Then you have the oddities: like hearing the person with narcolepsy start to loudly snore in the middle of something. Even with ideal conditions, using TS or skype gives you a better signal as they are optimized for that task.

Sazaraki.1970:

My friends and I have used Dolby Axon a lot. We like it.

My friends and I have used Dobly Axon as well. It’s a good option for a small group, but I don’t think it will handle a large guild well.