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Voice server for teams?
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TheTriforceKid Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:08 pm Posts: 50	Voice server for teams? I'm not realy sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes. I recently heard that, at one point, there was a voice server for each team, allowing for maximum coordination between players. This is apparently not the case now. If there never was a voice server, I should smack my friend for telling me there was. Regardless of whether-or-not there was or wasn't, there ~should~ be. THis game tends to take up a lot of RAM and Video Memory as it is without having to resort to an outside voice program to talk with teammates. If a voice server were implemented with options for muting unruly players and trolls, teamwork would skyrocket, the battles would become more challenging, and you wouldn't have people complaining so much about "Llama Grabs". It's just an idea, really, but I'm sure more people would like there to be a voice server so they're not having to memorize a myriad of abbreviated commands and messages to tell teammates what they're doing.
Tue May 22, 2012 3:00 pm

c0mad0r Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:54 pm Posts: 604 Location: San Diego, CA. USA	Re: Voice server for teams? There are several Team Speak and Mumble channels dedicated to in-game play, but the game itself does not support Voice overlays. _________________ Try My T:A TS3 Skin: Download Try My T:A Mumble Skin: Download (Mumble Note: Click "Download original" from top right or "File, Download Original")
Tue May 22, 2012 3:10 pm

hvcterr Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am Posts: 1567	Re: Voice server for teams? Or how about: HiRez takes the BSD-licensed Mumble client innards. Integrates them into the game. Administrators of custom servers can set metadata on their game-server which tells what mumble-server to connect to. Anyone joining a private game-server has their built-in mumble client automatically join the associated voice-server. Plugins are available for the mumble-server so that it can easily determine what game-server / team you are on, placing you into the appropriate channel. If someone in the voice-server is speaking who is in your current game, their HUD icon (if present) will be highlighted. That way you can tell whether the person speaking is the friendly on the flag-stand. Existing muting controls in-game will also affect the integrated mumble client. The disadvantage is the development work. But the advantages for HiRez: Encourages people to use (and regularly rent!) custom-servers Offers voice as a feature-set for promoting the game Managing abusive players / profanity is the responsibility of the individual custom-server renters. HiRez does not need to be in the business of hosting or managing voice-servers, that's handled out-of-band. _________________ Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.
Tue May 22, 2012 3:18 pm

AlloyRabbit Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:02 pm Posts: 42	Re: Voice server for teams? hvcterr wrote: Or how about: HiRez takes the BSD-licensed Mumble client innards. Integrates them into the game. Administrators of custom servers can set metadata on their game-server which tells what mumble-server to connect to. Anyone joining a private game-server has their built-in mumble client automatically join the associated voice-server. Plugins are available for the mumble-server so that it can easily determine what game-server / team you are on, placing you into the appropriate channel. If someone in the voice-server is speaking who is in your current game, their HUD icon (if present) will be highlighted. That way you can tell whether the person speaking is the friendly on the flag-stand. Existing muting controls in-game will also affect the integrated mumble client. The disadvantage is the development work. But the advantages for HiRez: Encourages people to use (and regularly rent!) custom-servers Offers voice as a feature-set for promoting the game Managing abusive players / profanity is the responsibility of the individual custom-server renters. HiRez does not need to be in the business of hosting or managing voice-servers, that's handled out-of-band. +1 Built-in voice chat would be pretty cool. Battlefield 3 tried [an arguably worse implementation of] external voice chat, and nobody uses it. There's virtually no coordination/teamwork in that game, either. Compare that to something like Team Fortress 2, where the VOIP is built-in. It's not used terribly often, but it can be quite a powerful tool when it is.
Tue May 22, 2012 3:39 pm

IronKane Beta Tester Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:07 pm Posts: 497	Re: Voice server for teams? We have our own TeamSpeak server that we use. I've never noticed any gameplay degradation. If Hi-Rez was to integrate VOIP, it'd be best if it was on a seperate server so that there's no load on the game server itself. Btw, TeamSpeak has a DirectX overlay that shows who's speaking currently and nothing else. Works really nice. Anyways, VOIP would be great as long as it was split up into channels so you wouldn't have to be forced to listen to all the BS that you'd get from all the A$$Hats that would want to talk $hit or be the teams DJ. Whomever created the channel would have to have booting rights to be able to deal with abusers. And now that you have channels, you've basically have created squads so that you could coordinate strategies. We've been using TS from day one. Even though a lot of our chatter is just us shooting the $hit, we do end up winning more matches than we lose (65-70%). Of course this leads to the inevitable accusations of Team Stacking. But, hey, this is supposed to be a Team Work oriented game is it not? It's nice to be able to call for help and actually get it. And if our team is comprised of 40-50% of my clan mates...our winning percentage usually will jump to 80-90%. Adding integrated VOIP would do a lot to help level this playing field. And if Hi-Rez were to do this, they really should just license an existing VOIP solution and not roll their own as most game VOIP communications sucks a$$ with the exception of some games like L4D which has awesome sound quality.
Tue May 22, 2012 3:41 pm

hvcterr Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am Posts: 1567	Re: Voice server for teams? AlloyRabbit wrote: Built-in voice chat would be pretty cool. Battlefield 3 tried [an arguably worse implementation of] external voice chat, and nobody uses it. Yeah, and the reason for that is that their solution ("BattleLog Party Voice") has fatal flaws for both competitive and public play: Competitive: Wants control over the administration, performance, and location of the voice server. It is mission-critical to them. They may also want to set up a hierarchy of communication or link and unlink channels. BattleLog doesn't give them any of that, but the role is already well-filled by third-party apps like Mumble, Teamspeak, etc. Public play: Needs to be on by default and needs to clearly separate people who are on different teams from one-another, without requiring you to alt-tab all the d*** time to manage things. You need to be able to "Just Communicate" with the guy who joined your squad. Just like with BF3 and EA, the place HiRez can add the most value is in the public side, because that relies heavily on things working out-of-the-box, without requiring users to install third-party programs. I want to be able to jump into a game and easily be able to talk to the HoF and warn him about an incoming capper, or coordinate with another gen-attacker to hit the turrets from both sides, etc. As long as the muting features are good, it's well-worth needing to occasionally mute people, particularly if you never need to mute that user again. _________________ Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options. Last edited by hvcterr on Tue May 22, 2012 4:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Tue May 22, 2012 3:59 pm

AlloyRabbit Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:02 pm Posts: 42	Re: Voice server for teams? @IronKane: Yeah, Valve figured this one out a long time ago. I'm pretty sure VOIP is built into Source, as all of their Source games seem to feature it, and it looks/sounds/works the same way. TF2, L4D/L4D2, Portal 2, even stuff like Garry's Mod, all use the same VOIP stuff and it works really well. @hvcterr: I know, right? =P It's quite stupid to do voice through a browser extension that requires you to find and invite whoever happens to pop into your squad to your party, hope that they somehow notice and respond before the game ends, and then start up a voice chat with them--all while the game is going on literally in the background. Nobody's going to bother with that. Console versions have some kind of built-in VOIP (and server browser, ironically), but, I digress. Any modern team-based game should have text and voice chat built in. It's as simple as that. Last edited by AlloyRabbit on Tue May 22, 2012 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tue May 22, 2012 4:00 pm

hvcterr Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am Posts: 1567	Re: Voice server for teams? Yeah, not to be too much of a Valve fanboy, but Source is my #1 example when I want to point out Gaming Voice Done Right from a user-perspective. It shows you who is talking in the GUI and also in 3D space (indicator above their head), muting is fast and permanent, and it works-by-default. Having the feeling that you're not just playing with a bunch of bots is part of the reason I sank so many hundreds of hours into TF2. I don't care so much if my teammates can't aim, or have nothing unlocked, or die a lot, as long as we can communicate like reasoning beings. _________________ Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.
Tue May 22, 2012 4:04 pm

TheTriforceKid Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:08 pm Posts: 50	Re: Voice server for teams? Well, doign a search for "Tribes: Ascend Teamspeak server" doesn't bring up anythign useful. It only brings up a myriad of links for skins. And how do you know you're joining the right channel for a given Tribes game? It really sounds confusing to me so far. Like, how do you even know you're joining the TS of the right match?
Tue May 22, 2012 4:10 pm

hvcterr Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am Posts: 1567	Re: Voice server for teams? TheTriforceKid wrote: And how do you know you're joining the right channel for a given Tribes game? You mean, right now, or under some possible future system? Right now there often is no "right server" or "right channel". Sure, there might be "that voice-server where some people hang out that are also usually on that custom game-server", but that's often the limit of it. _________________ Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.
Tue May 22, 2012 4:13 pm

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Voice server for teams?

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TheTriforceKid

Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:08 pm
Posts: 50

Voice server for teams?

I'm not realy sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes.

I recently heard that, at one point, there was a voice server for each team, allowing for maximum coordination between players. This is apparently not the case now. If there never was a voice server, I should smack my friend for telling me there was.

Regardless of whether-or-not there was or wasn't, there ~should~ be. THis game tends to take up a lot of RAM and Video Memory as it is without having to resort to an outside voice program to talk with teammates. If a voice server were implemented with options for muting unruly players and trolls, teamwork would skyrocket, the battles would become more challenging, and you wouldn't have people complaining so much about "Llama Grabs".

It's just an idea, really, but I'm sure more people would like there to be a voice server so they're not having to memorize a myriad of abbreviated commands and messages to tell teammates what they're doing.

Tue May 22, 2012 3:00 pm

c0mad0r

Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:54 pm
Posts: 604
Location: San Diego, CA. USA

Re: Voice server for teams?

There are several Team Speak and Mumble channels dedicated to in-game play, but the game itself does not support Voice overlays.

_________________
Try My T:A TS3 Skin: Download
Try My T:A Mumble Skin: Download
(Mumble Note: Click "Download original" from top right or "File, Download Original")

Tue May 22, 2012 3:10 pm

hvcterr

Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am
Posts: 1567

Re: Voice server for teams?

Or how about:

HiRez takes the BSD-licensed Mumble client innards. Integrates them into the game.
Administrators of custom servers can set metadata on their game-server which tells what mumble-server to connect to.
Anyone joining a private game-server has their built-in mumble client automatically join the associated voice-server.
Plugins are available for the mumble-server so that it can easily determine what game-server / team you are on, placing you into the appropriate channel.
If someone in the voice-server is speaking who is in your current game, their HUD icon (if present) will be highlighted. That way you can tell whether the person speaking is the friendly on the flag-stand.
Existing muting controls in-game will also affect the integrated mumble client.

The disadvantage is the development work. But the advantages for HiRez:

Encourages people to use (and regularly rent!) custom-servers
Offers voice as a feature-set for promoting the game
Managing abusive players / profanity is the responsibility of the individual custom-server renters.
HiRez does not need to be in the business of hosting or managing voice-servers, that's handled out-of-band.

_________________
Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.

Tue May 22, 2012 3:18 pm

AlloyRabbit

Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:02 pm
Posts: 42

Re: Voice server for teams?

hvcterr wrote:

Or how about:

HiRez takes the BSD-licensed Mumble client innards. Integrates them into the game.
Administrators of custom servers can set metadata on their game-server which tells what mumble-server to connect to.
Anyone joining a private game-server has their built-in mumble client automatically join the associated voice-server.
Plugins are available for the mumble-server so that it can easily determine what game-server / team you are on, placing you into the appropriate channel.
If someone in the voice-server is speaking who is in your current game, their HUD icon (if present) will be highlighted. That way you can tell whether the person speaking is the friendly on the flag-stand.
Existing muting controls in-game will also affect the integrated mumble client.

The disadvantage is the development work. But the advantages for HiRez:

Encourages people to use (and regularly rent!) custom-servers
Offers voice as a feature-set for promoting the game
Managing abusive players / profanity is the responsibility of the individual custom-server renters.
HiRez does not need to be in the business of hosting or managing voice-servers, that's handled out-of-band.

+1

Built-in voice chat would be pretty cool. Battlefield 3 tried [an arguably worse implementation of] external voice chat, and nobody uses it. There's virtually no coordination/teamwork in that game, either. Compare that to something like Team Fortress 2, where the VOIP is built-in. It's not used terribly often, but it can be quite a powerful tool when it is.

Tue May 22, 2012 3:39 pm

IronKane

Beta Tester

Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:07 pm
Posts: 497

Re: Voice server for teams?

We have our own TeamSpeak server that we use. I've never noticed any gameplay degradation. If Hi-Rez was to integrate VOIP, it'd be best if it was on a seperate server so that there's no load on the game server itself.

Btw, TeamSpeak has a DirectX overlay that shows who's speaking currently and nothing else. Works really nice.

Anyways, VOIP would be great as long as it was split up into channels so you wouldn't have to be forced to listen to all the BS that you'd get from all the A$$Hats that would want to talk $hit or be the teams DJ. Whomever created the channel would have to have booting rights to be able to deal with abusers. And now that you have channels, you've basically have created squads so that you could coordinate strategies.

We've been using TS from day one. Even though a lot of our chatter is just us shooting the $hit, we do end up winning more matches than we lose (65-70%). Of course this leads to the inevitable accusations of Team Stacking. But, hey, this is supposed to be a Team Work oriented game is it not? It's nice to be able to call for help and actually get it. And if our team is comprised of 40-50% of my clan mates...our winning percentage usually will jump to 80-90%.

Adding integrated VOIP would do a lot to help level this playing field. And if Hi-Rez were to do this, they really should just license an existing VOIP solution and not roll their own as most game VOIP communications sucks a$$ with the exception of some games like L4D which has awesome sound quality.

Tue May 22, 2012 3:41 pm

hvcterr

Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am
Posts: 1567

Re: Voice server for teams?

AlloyRabbit wrote:

Built-in voice chat would be pretty cool. Battlefield 3 tried [an arguably worse implementation of] external voice chat, and nobody uses it.

Yeah, and the reason for that is that their solution ("BattleLog Party Voice") has fatal flaws for both competitive and public play:

Competitive: Wants control over the administration, performance, and location of the voice server. It is mission-critical to them. They may also want to set up a hierarchy of communication or link and unlink channels. BattleLog doesn't give them any of that, but the role is already well-filled by third-party apps like Mumble, Teamspeak, etc.
Public play: Needs to be on by default and needs to clearly separate people who are on different teams from one-another, without requiring you to alt-tab all the d*** time to manage things. You need to be able to "Just Communicate" with the guy who joined your squad.

Just like with BF3 and EA, the place HiRez can add the most value is in the public side, because that relies heavily on things working out-of-the-box, without requiring users to install third-party programs.

I want to be able to jump into a game and easily be able to talk to the HoF and warn him about an incoming capper, or coordinate with another gen-attacker to hit the turrets from both sides, etc. As long as the muting features are good, it's well-worth needing to occasionally mute people, particularly if you never need to mute that user again.

_________________
Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.

Last edited by hvcterr on Tue May 22, 2012 4:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Tue May 22, 2012 3:59 pm

AlloyRabbit

Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:02 pm
Posts: 42

Re: Voice server for teams?

@IronKane:
Yeah, Valve figured this one out a long time ago. I'm pretty sure VOIP is built into Source, as all of their Source games seem to feature it, and it looks/sounds/works the same way. TF2, L4D/L4D2, Portal 2, even stuff like Garry's Mod, all use the same VOIP stuff and it works really well.

@hvcterr:
I know, right? =P It's quite stupid to do voice through a browser extension that requires you to find and invite whoever happens to pop into your squad to your party, hope that they somehow notice and respond before the game ends, and then start up a voice chat with them--all while the game is going on literally in the background. Nobody's going to bother with that. Console versions have some kind of built-in VOIP (and server browser, ironically), but, I digress.

Any modern team-based game should have text and voice chat built in. It's as simple as that.

Last edited by AlloyRabbit on Tue May 22, 2012 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tue May 22, 2012 4:00 pm

hvcterr

Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am
Posts: 1567

Re: Voice server for teams?

Yeah, not to be too much of a Valve fanboy, but Source is my #1 example when I want to point out Gaming Voice Done Right from a user-perspective. It shows you who is talking in the GUI and also in 3D space (indicator above their head), muting is fast and permanent, and it works-by-default.

Having the feeling that you're not just playing with a bunch of bots is part of the reason I sank so many hundreds of hours into TF2. I don't care so much if my teammates can't aim, or have nothing unlocked, or die a lot, as long as we can communicate like reasoning beings.

_________________
Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.

Tue May 22, 2012 4:04 pm

TheTriforceKid

Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:08 pm
Posts: 50

Re: Voice server for teams?

Well, doign a search for "Tribes: Ascend Teamspeak server" doesn't bring up anythign useful. It only brings up a myriad of links for skins.

And how do you know you're joining the right channel for a given Tribes game? It really sounds confusing to me so far. Like, how do you even know you're joining the TS of the right match?

Tue May 22, 2012 4:10 pm

hvcterr

Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:41 am
Posts: 1567

Re: Voice server for teams?

TheTriforceKid wrote:

And how do you know you're joining the right channel for a given Tribes game?

You mean, right now, or under some possible future system? Right now there often is no "right server" or "right channel". Sure, there might be "that voice-server where some people hang out that are also usually on that custom game-server", but that's often the limit of it.

_________________
Did you know you can disable annoying signatures? Look under Board Preferences >> Edit Display Options.

Tue May 22, 2012 4:13 pm

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Voice server for teams?