589 replies to this topic

[Orzorn]

Victor Morson, on 06 April 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

That is anecdotal experience that's disconnected with my own experiences. Sure, I've seen that before, but the bottom line is it depends on the game. In games that are very laid back towards tight teamwork, you'll see this more. You'll see some annoying people in all games.

But I've also seen VoIP be absolutely vital to games where tight teamwork is key. MechWarrior has always been one of those games.

I mentioned Left 4 Dead before, but it's the most easy example of this. People without microphones are considered a hindrance - people who mute the team are a disaster. Voice communication is so extremely important, I don't even know how to explain; in particular in realism modes. I play a lot of Versus, where you need to call out who's attacking, where and in what order to have any chance of winning infected - and clearly call out what's going on when you are survivor and it his the fan. Sometimes you need a timed countdown - you want to hit, or jump a one-way location, EXACTLY at the same time - you do a 3.. 2.. 1. That won't work with typing, not without having your hand off the mouse. Someone not listening to a warning or cry for help - just once - can sink the entire game in seconds.

Your experience and mine are hand in hand, friend. In Dota, its literally the exact same. People who do not communicate are a hindrance and a threat to the team, while people who communicate, even if they're bad, are still far more helpful than someone who doesn't say anything.

Communication in a team game like this is top priority, and I would hate to see the community split between those who are privileged enough to have a server, and those who aren't.

[walkingraven]

Sorry, I skipped several pages to post at the end...
I played StarTrek Online. Both before and after they opened the in-game voice chat. There it was limited to a guild channel and a team channel. And you had one or the other on. The team channel expanded in 'fleet type' engagements to include the dozen or so members allied with you.
Teamwork wasn't exactly vital, but those who could fake it well enough could pass the episode. Others got dragged along for free rewards or blown to smithereens every few seconds distracting hordes of enemies who might have been avoided.
I have seen the same group lord over the environment mobs with voice where three days previous they had to retreat, tails firmly between their legs without it. And that was without the need for advanced tactics and something resembling co-ordination.
I would hope that they eventually include a team speak option. To not do so would undermine the point of having a commander to issue orders in the field.

[Insidious Johnson]

Unreal. Wow. Those of you in favor of VOIP act as if a third party program cost millions of dollars and is impossible to install on the same machine that your supposed in game VOIP would run on. I have YET to see any 3rd party VOIP which is not FREE, downloaded in less than a minute and installed and working within 5 minutes. Further, I've seen half these names screaming for immediate beta and the other half screaming "take your time, get it right". So your only real concensus is that VOIP should be in the game? I've even seen some people wailing that no VOIP is a deal breaker. C'mon, really?

[Orzorn]

Insidious Johnson, on 06 April 2012 - 09:59 AM, said:

Unreal. Wow. Those of you in favor of VOIP act as if a third party program cost millions of dollars and is impossible to install on the same machine that your supposed in game VOIP would run on. I have YET to see any 3rd party VOIP which is not FREE, downloaded in less than a minute and installed and working within 5 minutes. Further, I've seen half these names screaming for immediate beta and the other half screaming "take your time, get it right". So your only real concensus is that VOIP should be in the game? I've even seen some people wailing that no VOIP is a deal breaker. C'mon, really?

Yes, it is a deal breaker. Do you honestly expect the tens of thousands of pubs to all have the same VOIP. Hell, do you even expect them to know what the big three VOIP programs even are? What VOIP even stands for?

The fact is, when the game releases, we on the forums who are in teams will be vastly outnumbered by lone wolves, who themselves will be without voice chat.

If you want to see why I think VOIP is so important, I invite you to play Dota 2 (I have two keys).

[00dlez]

Orzorn, on 06 April 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Your experience and mine are hand in hand, friend. In Dota, its literally the exact same. People who do not communicate are a hindrance and a threat to the team, while people who communicate, even if they're bad, are still far more helpful than someone who doesn't say anything.

Communication in a team game like this is top priority, and I would hate to see the community split between those who are privileged enough to have a server, and those who aren't.

Totally agree

But...

If 8 of my crew all long on and get matched with some lone wolf/random faction players, nothing is making them listen or participate in team work any more than they would in the absence of a VOIP system.

What's more, anyone who has played an online game in the last 10 years will agree that there are plenty of mic spamming, lonely latch-key children that are acting out because their parents won't hug them and take their frustrations out on my ear drums... Insta-mute.

Or say 2 groups of 6 log on, each group knows each other well, play often with one another, has their own tactics and style. Great!

Team Leader 1:
Take your team to the south ridge while we sweep the river bed and flank.

Team Leader 2:
No, We'll be skirting the western valley to check for scouts, you hold the ridge in the mean time.

As most things on the internet, this often ends poorly.


In short, the only reliable comms are going to be groups of friends using whatever method they choose and though working "independent" of others on the team, team work can still be employed. Look at most (getting fewer and fewer, but still) TF2 servers. Folks cannot say a word and the medic will start healing the heavy, engineers will build teleports, etc etc. - folks assume a role and go about their team oriented business in the game, and don't need mics to do it.

[Orzorn]

00dlez, on 06 April 2012 - 10:26 AM, said:

In short, the only reliable comms are going to be groups of friends using whatever method they choose and though working "independent" of others on the team, team work can still be employed. Look at most (getting fewer and fewer, but still) TF2 servers. Folks cannot say a word and the medic will start healing the heavy, engineers will build teleports, etc etc. - folks assume a role and go about their team oriented business in the game, and don't need mics to do it.

I understand this, but, back to Dota (again), some games have so much information that you can't expect each player to know, like what items people have, if you need a gank, etc. Some games don't require as much information as others do.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps MWO will be one of those games like you said, where people just know what to do. But I think, in the end, I would still like having the ability to communicate with other folks, not to mention not having to get a server. I'm a poor college student, literally every dollar counts at this point (seriously, I was just counting quarters!).

[DarkTreader]

Orzorn, on 06 April 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

Yes, it is a deal breaker. Do you honestly expect the tens of thousands of pubs to all have the same VOIP. Hell, do you even expect them to know what the big three VOIP programs even are? What VOIP even stands for?

Not exactly giving people a lot of credit, are you? 10 years ago, when online PC gaming was really just starting to take off, sure I'd buy that argument. Now? Anyone with two neurons rubbing together knows that you run TS or Vent on the side, specifically for games that don't provide an in-game VOIP option.

I played EVE for close to 2 years, and ran with the same people the entire time. From the day I started with the group, I was camped in their TS server, and never left -- even AFTER EVE got the Vivox software playing nicely on their servers. On the rare occasions it was necessary, we had a public side of the TS server which had the rest of the server channels hidden, and we would invite 'pubbies' into that during ops... but we never used in-game VOIP.

Left 4 Dead: Used in-game VOIP. Why? Because it was there, because I was logging in to just kill some zeds, and because I was rolling solo. Would I have been just fine without having VOIP in game? Sure. Was it helpful? I suppose. Was it 100% necessary? Nope.

Mass Effect 3: There's VOIP provided, but I'll be damned if I've heard more than 10 people use it in game across about 80 or 90 hours of multiplayer matches. I about peed my pants when I dropped into a match where -everyone- was using VOIP.

So even if it is provided, a majority of people will ignore it, or use a 3rd party app.

Quote

The fact is, when the game releases, we on the forums who are in teams will be vastly outnumbered by lone wolves, who themselves will be without voice chat.

I do believe that is what we call a 'Target-Rich Environment'. It really isn't THAT hard to make friends and meet people. And if someone really has the chops, invite them onto a private server. Get to know them there in a public channel before pulling them into the Unit comms.

As has been stated, I'd prefer PGI work on the actual GAME part, rather than fluffy stuff that can be handled externally.
Or, hell, if you all are REALLY that hard up for it, nab the TS3 SDK and have it prepped and ready for when beta happens. Then go all code monkey on it, MAKE a TS platform that'll jive with the game, then pass it to PGI, take the work off of their backs for a change. DO something about the 'problem' rather than whining until it goes your way.

[00dlez]

Orzorn, on 06 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps MWO will be one of those games like you said, where people just know what to do. But I think, in the end, I would still like having the ability to communicate with other folks, not to mention not having to get a server. I'm a poor college student, literally every dollar counts at this point (seriously, I was just counting quarters!).

I hear you, and was in your shoes not to long ago... Well, I'm still poor, just not in college anymore

And yeah, some games are a lot more complex than others and voice chat is beneficial, but again, I think you are underestimating how a majority of players act, especially in an F2P game. It was rare enough in CS, TF2, Command and Conquer etc etc to truly operate as a cohesive unit rather than just using some basic team work.

Hell, most players don't even have or use mics anyway. Some listen to music in the background and have game sound entirely muted.

Like I said, I totally agree with your points, but as a non-essential part of actually playing the game itself (essential to success, not actually running a glitch free game), I don't think it needs to be included, at least not at launch when so many thousands are craving to play.

[soulfire]

There is a difference in 2d games and 3d games in the amount of data that is moved. Oh team fortress has 32 guys they move faster so on.Not the same band width wise. I've played games with built in voip right now World Of Tanks no one that I know uses the in house voip in public grind games.They diffinitely dont use it in the clan battle games. They either use outside programs or not at all . Those of us that have played for years online hate dealing with the ones that will disrupt constantly, play loud music, farts whatever, then theres the ones who think themselves natural born leaders and if the group doesnt do what they want they start pronouncing how the teams failing, they'll single out a player and tell them what a jerk they are and how they have lost the match for us. Its bad enough that these guys have to type it because we dont chat with them. Last thing a game designer wants is during a game is having an older person verbally attack a younger child in the game just becasue the kid didnt follow orders. I've personnely heard it happen.
Left for dead, Dungeons and dragons Wow these are long drawn out affairs I use to play them We havent heard yet of coarse but I am betting the mech battles are single battles no respawn. Maybe 10 min. Wow has a good voip system and believe me when you are in a group where fighting the bosses in instances, you needed voice chat to time things no one used in game chat because it made a noticable lag in the game. It wasnt because community was already set up for something many went in and tried it so they wouldnt have to have outside programs to rely on, everyone noticed same thing, lag when it was used. I dont think anyone in wow uses it to this day. Other than maybe one or two friends. Even in the open public instance excursions when they are forming they just type out someones Ventrillo server everyone gets on it. I've heard that the average age is mid thirties if you cant figure out how to connect to vent or whatever have your kid help you he will know I bet.
Leave the band width for better things in the game so I dont have to relearn to lag shoot...oh those MW3 days gad.

[Victor Morson]

Insidious Johnson, on 06 April 2012 - 09:59 AM, said:

Unreal. Wow. Those of you in favor of VOIP act as if a third party program cost millions of dollars and is impossible to install on the same machine that your supposed in game VOIP would run on. I have YET to see any 3rd party VOIP which is not FREE, downloaded in less than a minute and installed and working within 5 minutes.

The programs are free. The servers are not. At least if you plan on more than 4 people connected to you without starting to lag horrendously, or go back to programs designed to run on dial-up.

DarkTreader, on 06 April 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Left 4 Dead: Used in-game VOIP. Why? Because it was there, because I was logging in to just kill some zeds, and because I was rolling solo. Would I have been just fine without having VOIP in game? Sure. Was it helpful? I suppose. Was it 100% necessary? Nope.

Anyone that says voice chat in L4D isn't necessary is not good at L4D. I'm sorry but this is just unavoidable. You could probably get through co-op alright (but hindered) but in Versus this reduces you to a bottom-tier player no matter how good at actual shooting you are.

Orzorn, on 06 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

I understand this, but, back to Dota (again), some games have so much information that you can't expect each player to know, like what items people have, if you need a gank, etc. Some games don't require as much information as others do.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps MWO will be one of those games like you said, where people just know what to do. But I think, in the end, I would still like having the ability to communicate with other folks, not to mention not having to get a server. I'm a poor college student, literally every dollar counts at this point (seriously, I was just counting quarters!).

My experiences with past MechWarrior games indicates MW is probably at the very top of my "must communicate at all times" franchises. This will be doubled in an environment where you are blind dropping with other players and aren't even familiar with their load outs. Is that guy's Cata packing LRM, Arrow, or SRM? How can I support him best? Etc.

Target calling, coordinated fall backs and repositioning (drop passive and go to grid X#!) are all absoultely vital to success in past installments. I see no reason that'll change with MWO.

One last thing - without voice chat, radial menu stuff tends to get entirely abused/ignored. If there's a command that is "Go, attack!" someone will be spamming "Go, Attack! Go, Attack! Go, Attack! Run away! Go, Attack! Go, Attack!" the whole time you're walking to target. Nobody ever, ever takes these things seriously.

soulfire, on 06 April 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

Left for dead, Dungeons and dragons Wow these are long drawn out affairs I use to play them We havent heard yet of coarse but I am betting the mech battles are single battles no respawn. Maybe 10 min.

Having played many, many 1-life no respawns MechWarrior games I can say your assessment and what you are picturing in your head is entirely wrong. 10 minutes is a "Holy crap something went wrong" drop.

Many matches I've played have lasted an hour or more, often ending with surviving 'mechs still on the field. The reason is MechWarrior no-respawn play is heavily about positioning, recon, using terrain, etc.: There's lots of maneuvering and finding each other. Lots. I'd say the typical match is 30-40 minutes minimum.

EDIT: And we have heard.. the two launch game types are 1-life, No Respawn and "Dropship" which lets you bring 3 'mechs to the battle, one dropping after your last is disabled.

Edited by Victor Morson, 06 April 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[Jaegerwolf]

Victor Morson, on 06 April 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

One last thing - without voice chat, radial menu stuff tends to get entirely abused/ignored. If there's a command that is "Go, attack!" someone will be spamming "Go, Attack! Go, Attack! Go, Attack! Run away! Go, Attack! Go, Attack!" the whole time you're walking to target. Nobody ever, ever takes these things seriously.

Anyone who doesn't believe this, go look up "Need a dispenser here". I'll wait.......


Ok, I believe this was mentioned somewhat before, but I've gone through so many pages tonight stuff is starting to blur:

You and 3 friends sign on for a match, and you're all on TS

Another group of 4 joins on your side, but they have Vent

last 4 spots get filled up with pubs, two of which always seem to have crashes when running 3rd party stuff along side MWO

Have fun.......

[Garuss Acine]

Garth Erlam, on 05 April 2012 - 09:33 AM, said:

Keep in mind there's also text chat - which honestly I use about as much as verbal.

the one problem with Text Chat is your fingers aren't controling the mech while typing, so before the match starts, yeah its fine, but in game when comminacation is vital and needed on the dot, you can't, as you would have to decide to either type and interact with your team, and get shot to hell, or fight decently and deny being part of the planning.

[Kyuui]

each and every time a game I've played had Voip, I've shut it off. Starting way back in my MW4 days I've used voice. from RW, onward. I'm also in a Merc Corp, We already have a Voice Server. I've NEVER had issues with joining someone elses server, I have TS3 mumble and Vent ready to go with a click, and I can type fast.
Will it effect the PUGS? Yeah, maybe, but ya know what I don't think its going to be game breaking.

Besides, I don't think most Pugs know what S,3T,1a,1un,1s, 090,Mvrs. means anyhow

[pursang]

Kyuui, on 06 April 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

each and every time a game I've played had Voip, I've shut it off. Starting way back in my MW4 days I've used voice. from RW, onward. I'm also in a Merc Corp, We already have a Voice Server. I've NEVER had issues with joining someone elses server, I have TS3 mumble and Vent ready to go with a click, and I can type fast.
Will it effect the PUGS? Yeah, maybe, but ya know what I don't think its going to be game breaking.

Besides, I don't think most Pugs know what S,3T,1a,1un,1s, 090,Mvrs. means anyhow

Pfft, as if! Built-in VOIP is clearly needed because most players are stupid and need thier hands held all of the time, right? Most people are too stupid to use common sense, or take five minutes out of thier time to set up a third-party program. I mean clearly since every MechWarrior game before has had built-in VOIP this game needs it as well! Any person who doesn't use it sucks! My logic is infallible!

Oh...

...Wait...

Edited by pursang, 07 April 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Warwulf]

pursang, on 07 April 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

Pfft, as if! Built-in VOIP is clearly needed because most players are stupid and need thier hands held all of the time, right? Most people are too stupid to use common sense, or take five minutes out of thier time to set up a third-party program. I mean clearly since every MechWarrior game before has had built-in VOIP this game needs it as well! Any person who doesn't use it sucks! My logic is infallible!

Oh...

...Wait...

Every other Mechwarrior game is at least a decade old lol
Welcome to the new millenium where being able to talk without taking your hands off the controls is pretty much the standard, join us or futilely try to prove you can co-ordinate a public match using text chat lmao

[Fiachdubh]

Why waste game development time and resources on VOIP when TS3 and others do the job perfectly well and are free.

[Victor Morson]

Fiachdubh, on 07 April 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

Why waste game development time and resources on VOIP when TS3 and others do the job perfectly well and are free.

Read the thread? heh. Sorry, this just keeps getting said over and over with apparently not bothering to read the actual problems with it.

• Not everyone runs the voice chat software.
  
• Not everyone will be connected to the same voice server.
  
• Not everyone will WANT to connect to the same voice server.
  
• Unaffiliated pubbies have no voice server.

There's more reasons and more detail to each of those, but seriously, I wish people would read the bloody thread before saying this and stop to consider that 12 random people (or 8 random, 4 teammates, you name it) in a game in no way will be connected to the same voice chat, or have time to connect to the same voice chat or even WANT to connect to the same voice chat. There's also a huge chance that organized teams that have voice chat don't want to give their server out to everybody, they have to pay for it and don't want people connecting at random they don't want to talk to.

The list of problems with not having VoIP to organize public matches is a mile wide. If you still really feel strongly (not just you, but anyone that wants to reply) please reply, but at least skim the thread first?

[Archtus]

Very well said, Victor.

I honestly hope the Devs reconsider their position on this. Don't even bother with the cool, kick *** ideas y'all had, as THAT would be painful. But seriously, built in VoIP will be a massive retaining factor for PUGs and casuals. Most set teams/guilds/clans will not share their voice server info.

[Aegis Kleais]

Render, on 06 April 2012 - 09:42 AM, said:

Yes... this is exactly what will happen. It will happen over and over.
the result... The teams where each player has the same Voice system will win again and again.
The people, PUB, will be SOL and may eventually just give up in frustration.

I agree that it will happen and IN the event there are teams on comms, chances for success will be much higher; but I also guarantee that without the inclusion of VOIP, the vast majority of pub games out there will not have anyone on any form of VOIP, in game or not. Pubbers will be fine.

[Giftmacher]

Victor Morson, on 06 April 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

But I've also seen VoIP be absolutely vital to games where tight teamwork is key. MechWarrior has always been one of those games.

I mentioned Left 4 Dead before, but it's the most easy example of this. People without microphones are considered a hindrance - people who mute the team are a disaster.

Beat me to it, but... this, so THIS. The L4D community doesn't have close to the lunacy xbox live does. Most people are all about the game, quite simply because you have to be if you want to keep playing (especially in L4D2). (Well that and I think more foul mouthed 12 year olds seem to have access to a game console than a PC).

Now don't get me wrong if VOIP isn't in the game I will ask my fellow players if I can hop on their server, but I wouldn't blame guilds if they didn't want to let some random onto their private servers, and even if they do let me on I'm still going to have to tab out of the game to sort things out, which is time wasted (especially for a scout pilot, which I intend to be).