Built-in voice chat functionality

[gilrad]

Before people come in and call this unnecessary, let me start by saying that the OCTGN experience is absolutely AMAZING when you're chatting in real time with somebody. Seriously, the game is LEAGUES apart from a normal match when there is no voice chat. Give it a shot if you don't believe me, it completely changes the way the game is played 100% for the better.

Now with that said, the reason why I think it would be beneficial for this to be an integrated feature and not one that is suggested through, say, Skype, is because it encourages people to make use of it. The change is so positive, I think it is worth the extra work just to encourage the players to take advantage of it. And when the only limiting factor becomes whether or not you have a microphone set up (which is becoming less and less likely in this age of Skype), the opportunities where one could play a game with voice chat increase dramatically.

Not only does it improve communication, but it also improves the community. Humanizing your opponent is a great way to keep strong ties between players. Strong ties make a healthy community and lays a good foundation for growth (and, it seems to me, OCTGN2 IS growing in popularity).

Again, before you criticize the idea, contact a few friends through Skype and set up a casual game using voice chat. You will quickly realize that this is the way it should be played, and that steps should be taken to make sure more games are played like this. I don't like playing without voice chat anymore.

[Oen386]

I disagree.

First it adds more weight to the client, and adds more work for jods that isn't necessary. You can easily use a chat program solely for VOIP like Vent or TeamSpeak. This solves the whole multiple users issue with Skype.

I don't see a reason for jods to duplicate work already done, and also most people will not use it. In games like Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead where the team benefits from talking, people with mics will often times say nothing.

Lastly OCTGN is international, which makes having audio conversations that aren't translated a little tough.

Anyways the main point I had is I don't see why jods should duplicate work already done or worrying about maintaining it when other free and simple solutions exist.

For instances Mumble is free, and you can setup a server for free. So the cost is nothing, and it works in multiple games. We could easily join a public server and all talk through that.

[rico]

Also as noted in another thread i use wippien which is an alternative to Hamachi for games and it has voice speak in as well, comes in handy a lot!

[Oen386]

Also as noted in another thread i use wippien which is an alternative to Hamachi for games and it has voice speak in as well, comes in handy a lot!

This might be something to look into, if there isn't a VPN limit.

[jods]

I am pretty sure that using voice makes a game much more fluent and comfortable to play.

That said, you can use many 3rd party programs to add this feature, so I think that at the moment my time is better spent on core functionnality.

[rico]

Actually OEN after a couple weeks of using that voice thing with my brother I noticed it tends to cut out a lot.
My other alternatives : Tokbox = Video & Voice chat (but doesnt do the ip thing that hamachi/wippien does) or of course google .

Tokbox is pretty light with its desktop app thing, but u can just go to the webpage. The desktop app is cooler though because you can shrink the window to the left and have all the cams lined up and still have like 80% of octgn  up . But if u arent using cams then not a big deal

[Oen386]

I personally suggest Mumble if we are concerned about voice only. It is free, there are lots of private servers were we could set up a channel for talking, and it sounds the best.

I don't particularly care about a video chat/feed.

[Edwin20er]

Hmm, easier to just grab a free ventrilo server in my opinion, good chunk of people are already familiar with it, easy to use, the quality's solid and a server can be set up easily enough.

[Oen386]

Hmm, easier to just grab a free ventrilo server in my opinion, good chunk of people are already familiar with it, easy to use, the quality's solid and a server can be set up easily enough.

You are limited to the number of user, which is less than the number of people typically in IRC. So people will get left out. Also you have to determine a place to host it, and that isn't free. If you use another company's server, it will probably have ads, or you have to register.

So once again I suggest Mumble, it is newer, has better quality audio codecs, and server size is not limited if someone does host one, and there a free servers already set up to use.

If people here wanted to keep using things they were "familiar" with I am pretty sure we would all be on MWS or OCTGN1 still. 95% of people that move on from Ventrilo realize they should have done it sooner, it is the same battle I see with getting people to use OCTGN2. You can slap someone in the face with a better product, but people often times don't like change it seems.

[cracky]

I agree with Oen386, Mumble is great.