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From http://www.zam.com/s...tml?story=29458
Quote
Paul: This was a discussion we had early on in the design and engineering phase of MWO. We had thought it would be cool to have VOIP interrupted by scrambling signals or have a snooping device that would let you listen to the other team's VOIP channel. But immediately, those of us who play competitive multi-player brought up the 3rd party solutions like TeamSpeak and Ventrilo as a means to bypass these distortion and snooping mechanics. It was decided that we would not include VOIP with MWO as most players would have their own TeamSpeak/Ventrilo running anyhow.
I have a fairly major problem with this statement. It implies that EVERYONE playing the game is going to have a third-party VOIP channel, and they're all going to know each other before the match.
But let's face it: there are some people out there who, outside of specific games (and MWO might be one) don't use VOIP, so they don't have it installed. This excludes people who don't want to set up that third-party software, and don't want to have to pay for a voice server. Or, what if I know people who play MWO, like my brother in Kentucky, but aren't part of my 'inner circle' of Mumble-friends? I'll have to stick to text with them.
The second problem is that not everyone in a match knows each other. I have 2, maybe 3 friends who will be playing MWO. It'll likely be the case that our Lance will have to be filled by a random pub mercenary. We're fine with this. What we're not fine with is being totally unable to communicate with that pubbie except through text.
If MWO included a built-in VOIP, I'd be able to hit the button and EVERYONE on my team--the pubbie included--would be able to hear my commands. But no. Since MWO won't include VOIP, I'll have to use voice for two of my lancemates, and text for the third. Extremely inconvenient.
I really think that second issue is a much bigger thing than the first... how often do I wish LoL included VOIP so our group could talk to the pubbie... and now, MWO is mimicing that bad design decision, preventing us from forming a tight team even with random pubbies.
It'd be even WORSE if I didn't have ANY friends playing MWO, which is also possible. I know I'm going to want to play this for years. But what if _I_ am the random pubbie? I'll have to use only text, even though I have a microphone wired to my face 100% of the time I'm playing a videogame. That's just, STUPID. Not including VOIP means when I have to play the game on my own, I won't be able to communicate with teammates except through text--which is clumsy, at BEST.
What do other people think? I don't know about you guys, but I don't have 12 people on my friends list who want to play MWO for company-sized matches--I think we NEED built-in VOIP to manage that many people on a map at once. Text won't do.
EDIT: Here are Bryan's responses in the thread:
Bryan Ekman, on 05 April 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:
We always weigh what is of the most value to the consumer. While VOIP is a reasonable value, a high quality MWO VOIP solution was not feasible for launch. We have a backlog of features, VOIP being one of them. Post launch, we plan to revisit VOIP and see what we can come up with.
Bryan Ekman, on 05 April 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:
We have contextual command/order menus that all players can use. So that should go a long way to solving the OPs needs (I hope).
Bryan Ekman, on 05 April 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:
That aside, your OP is definitely valid and falls into a grey zone. The core users will most likely use their own solution, the casual users will most likely use none. However a tight knit small group as you have mentioned, is left out in the cold. I wish I had a solution in place that filled this middle ground. Know that it is on our radar.
Edited by Mr. Smiles, 06 April 2012 - 09:33 AM.
