589 replies to this topic

[Howlin Wolf]

I would like to see VOIP after launch.

This topic is not a dead horse if we are stating our desire to have VOIP after launch. Complaining about people posting their desire sounds more like whining for people not to state that desire. If this has turned into beating a dead horse which one person has mentioned several times it seems as if he would have moved on before his second post restating what he said the first time.

I'm not sure why certain people have to get so pissy about others voicing their opinions on this matter. It is up to the devs whether or not it happens not pissy posters.

Edited by Howlin Wolf, 07 April 2012 - 09:33 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Victor Morson, on 07 April 2012 - 04:34 PM, said:

kind of attitude definitely won't earn many com invites. That said, not everyone will be on the same third party software, want to give out their server passwords or - in the case of multiple teams that BOTH have it together - want to leave their TS channel to join someone else's for a single drop. If I'm on the Aces channel and we drop with, say, Gray Death Legion and they're on their channel because that's how the teams happened to work out, neither team is going to want to tab out and dick around with setting up TS to join another channel. You can't do this stuff without losing a LOT of time. This isn't a League situation where you have hours advanced notice before a fight to prepare - you should be able to find a drop anytime, anywhere. It's not the same thing.

This seems a very odd statement to me, in this day and age a significant portion of the computer gaming population have 2 or more monitors, Alt-Tabbing is a thing of the past (hello fullscreen windowed mode) and given that at least on TS3 and Mumble have multiple different com servers open, you can be connected to multiple units comm servers.

If your dropping with GDL because your both allies or working for the same house....it would be kind of wise to either be sharing comms or at least have each others details saved.

Something else that has not been considered here, is that rather than putting $$$ and time into developing a ropey ingame VOIP, PGI could well host several TS server instances on their own backend, as there are going to be hosting servers for gameplay this is not such a far stretch.

[Victor Morson]

DV^McKenna, on 08 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

This seems a very odd statement to me, in this day and age a significant portion of the computer gaming population have 2 or more monitors, Alt-Tabbing is a thing of the past (hello fullscreen windowed mode) and given that at least on TS3 and Mumble have multiple different com servers open, you can be connected to multiple units comm servers.

No, they don't. I do. You probably do. But we are not the norm. People are really misjudging this.

DV^McKenna, on 08 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

If your dropping with GDL because your both allies or working for the same house....it would be kind of wise to either be sharing comms or at least have each others details saved.

You still aren't getting the scale of this. There will be battles, 24/7, 365. This isn't a League where people plan their 20 drops a week. There will probably be ten units named Gray Death Legion or some variant and we'll bump into randomly at 9PM on a Saturday. After that drop, we might end up in entirely different games for the next, and the next after that.

DV^McKenna, on 08 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

Something else that has not been considered here, is that rather than putting $$$ and time into developing a ropey ingame VOIP, PGI could well host several TS server instances on their own backend, as there are going to be hosting servers for gameplay this is not such a far stretch.

Something again I think is going woefully unrealized: Over 70,000 people have signed up for the game. Without advertising. Or a game existing yet. Once launch day is here, that number will likely be in the hundreds of thousands. Success willing, it will be in the high several hundreds of thousands, with 100k+ people on at the same time, around peak time.

PGI is not going to be hosting enough TS3 servers to support 100,000 people in addition to the massive computer server bill required to run the game. In addition, integrating with TS3 on any level is going to cost them money.. but even if TeamSpeak was endorsing this course of action, it'd still have all the drawbacks mentioned before plus the whole insane bandwidth issue.

This is not Living Legends, where peak time has maybe 60-70 people on and a player base of under 500. That is largely, in fact, the reason I haven't been playing MWLL lately - I love the game and the work they did, but there's not enough people to sustain a League, let alone anything like a persistent always on MMO. I keep telling people to expect a flood of folks who at best have nostalgia from past MechWarrior games and at worst don't know or care if this is Robotech, BattleTech or Robot Jox. They will be the majority. We're very very lucky PGI is catering to our hardcore audience because I think the masses will see the depth the game offers and hopefully quite a few will convert to appreciating the deeper game, but we'll always be outnumbered by a wide margin.

Long story short: TeamSpeak isn't a solution for the public. It's a solution for the hardcore, of which this forum represents more than is accurate.

[soulfire]

The game designer spoke it was decided not to have it in the game and he gave their reasons. They later said it maybe encluded at a later time. We then get over 300 posts of people telling Devs they are wrong. You just need to read the title of this topic to know what the person is not positive i.e. "Should they add voip after the game gets going?" Ah there,... there is an opinion based subject where people may think its an important issue can post and rattify the idea. This is a positive response to the news that it would not be included at the start. This is a better way to show the Devs what some of you think. Instead it is more confrontational topic," MWO will not include VOIP: A Mistake? You can try to fool people but clearly in the way the person worded it and capitlized words, he showed that his opinion of the voip not being included at the start was less than positive news. Like Paul said Pitchforks and torches. Heck all he had to do it make a poll let everyone vote, ah there it is for the Devs to look at in black and white and consider. I maybe wrong but the intent of many of these posts seemed instead to be "we are going to bludgeon the Devs with our opinion until they fold to our way of thinking." Well this is real world, this game belongs to them, they paid for the rights of it, they work long hours to make it,they have allot of money invested in it. They have had to decide what to put in the game to get it done on time, and what to save for later. Be positive, show them in numbers that there are players who would like this and other items added, hopefully they will indeed add it down the road.When they add it I will shut it off like I do in other games and continue using vent or teamspeak so will the people I play with because that is what we have been doing for years.

[Victor Morson]

I just want to say I am entirely understanding of them adding VoIP post-launch. I'm even supporting of it, and think it's wise of them to prioritize what needs to be done as such. Just to make it clear here that I'm entirely behind the devs on this one.

That said, my main reason for posting so much in this thread is there seems to be a few different groups outright attacking VoIP, demonizing it and bitterly fighting against it's inclusion, ever. Really this can come down to not understanding the scale of it, not understanding the complexities of using an external program in a fast-launch environment outside of teams and the occasional *edited* you, got mine.

A lot of people, even Paul from the sound of it, have had very bad VoIP experiences. I think our extreme usage of voice chat in past MechWarrior units combined with my extreme amount of time playing Left 4 Dead (I design maps for the game) have given me a different view point on it. I've gotten exposed to good VoIP that's outright vital.

If my only experience had been terribly implemented trash (Borderlands, vanilla Crysis) and terrible communities - seriously, I felt like I was replaying the plot to Idiocracy trying to coordinate with people in GTA4 ("Hey I'll pick you up, get in the car!" "Whatchya usin' big words for ya (edited for forums)?") - my opinion might fall in line with some of the detractors. That's why I think it's important to try and explain why there is more to it than that.

Anyway, I'm defending VoIP here and it's eventual inclusion - I think it's actually important to the long-term appeal of the game for those that haven't signed onto organized groups, of which there will be many. But I in no way am trying to argue that they need to change their plans to do it right now.

I just thought I should clear that up because I can see how it'd be confusing.

Edited by Victor Morson, 08 April 2012 - 02:24 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Victor Morson, on 08 April 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

No, they don't. I do. You probably do. But we are not the norm. People are really misjudging this.



You still aren't getting the scale of this. There will be battles, 24/7, 365. This isn't a League where people plan their 20 drops a week. There will probably be ten units named Gray Death Legion or some variant and we'll bump into randomly at 9PM on a Saturday. After that drop, we might end up in entirely different games for the next, and the next after that.



Something again I think is going woefully unrealized: Over 70,000 people have signed up for the game. Without advertising. Or a game existing yet. Once launch day is here, that number will likely be in the hundreds of thousands. Success willing, it will be in the high several hundreds of thousands, with 100k+ people on at the same time, around peak time.

PGI is not going to be hosting enough TS3 servers to support 100,000 people in addition to the massive computer server bill required to run the game. In addition, integrating with TS3 on any level is going to cost them money.. but even if TeamSpeak was endorsing this course of action, it'd still have all the drawbacks mentioned before plus the whole insane bandwidth issue.

This is not Living Legends, where peak time has maybe 60-70 people on and a player base of under 500. That is largely, in fact, the reason I haven't been playing MWLL lately - I love the game and the work they did, but there's not enough people to sustain a League, let alone anything like a persistent always on MMO. I keep telling people to expect a flood of folks who at best have nostalgia from past MechWarrior games and at worst don't know or care if this is Robotech, BattleTech or Robot Jox. They will be the majority. We're very very lucky PGI is catering to our hardcore audience because I think the masses will see the depth the game offers and hopefully quite a few will convert to appreciating the deeper game, but we'll always be outnumbered by a wide margin.

Long story short: TeamSpeak isn't a solution for the public. It's a solution for the hardcore, of which this forum represents more than is accurate.

True to an extent, what you also have to remember is that some of those signup are multi accounts reserving names etc, then you need to account for multiple time zones and half the world being asleep while the other half play, some of thouse accounts will be social players than play once/twice per week.
You can also multiple instance host Voice programs on one server, much like you can multiple host game servers, and i would imagine PGI will be paying a company to host their game servers for them.

Now something i don't know about is the bandwidth difference between making a VOIP and hosting TS3 etc, the VOIP bandwidth still has to go through MWO servers i think. Which would make it the same as hosting TS3 servers.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 08 April 2012 - 03:13 AM.

[Doogerie]

it's nota mistake I mean i woulf be useful in clan v clan games to coordnate your team in battle but we have stuff like team speek for that

[plodder]

Howlin Wolf, on 07 April 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

I would like to see VOIP after launch.

This topic is not a dead horse if we are stating our desire to have VOIP after launch. Complaining about people posting their desire sounds more like whining for people not to state that desire. If this has turned into beating a dead horse which one person has mentioned several times it seems as if he would have moved on before his second post restating what he said the first time.

I'm not sure why certain people have to get so pissy about others voicing their opinions on this matter. It is up to the devs whether or not it happens not pissy posters.

What? Horse is dead? Not that I ever heard????

YOU HEAR WHAT YOU WANT>>LOL

Edited by plodder, 08 April 2012 - 12:34 PM.

[Giftmacher]

DV^McKenna, on 08 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

This seems a very odd statement to me, in this day and age a significant portion of the computer gaming population have 2 or more monitors, Alt-Tabbing is a thing of the past

Citation (for both) needed, I feel.

Edited by Giftmacher, 08 April 2012 - 01:26 PM.

[Giftmacher]

Victor Morson, on 08 April 2012 - 02:18 AM, said:

I just want to say I am entirely understanding of them adding VoIP post-launch. I'm even supporting of it, and think it's wise of them to prioritize what needs to be done as such. Just to make it clear here that I'm entirely behind the devs on this one.

That said, my main reason for posting so much in this thread is there seems to be a few different groups outright attacking VoIP, demonizing it and bitterly fighting against it's inclusion, ever. Really this can come down to not understanding the scale of it, not understanding the complexities of using an external program in a fast-launch environment outside of teams and the occasional *edited* you, got mine.

A lot of people, even Paul from the sound of it, have had very bad VoIP experiences. I think our extreme usage of voice chat in past MechWarrior units combined with my extreme amount of time playing Left 4 Dead (I design maps for the game) have given me a different view point on it. I've gotten exposed to good VoIP that's outright vital.

If my only experience had been terribly implemented trash (Borderlands, vanilla Crysis) and terrible communities - seriously, I felt like I was replaying the plot to Idiocracy trying to coordinate with people in GTA4 ("Hey I'll pick you up, get in the car!" "Whatchya usin' big words for ya (edited for forums)?") - my opinion might fall in line with some of the detractors. That's why I think it's important to try and explain why there is more to it than that.

Anyway, I'm defending VoIP here and it's eventual inclusion - I think it's actually important to the long-term appeal of the game for those that haven't signed onto organized groups, of which there will be many. But I in no way am trying to argue that they need to change their plans to do it right now.

I just thought I should clear that up because I can see how it'd be confusing.

This in spades, I'm not Dev bashing, priorities are priorities. That said, I do think the decision will impact negatively on some players, and consequently feel the need to say as much because post launch, when the the priorities won't be the same... well I would like to see VOIP on the list. In the interim I hope dependence on the kindness of strangers doesn't deter lone wolves from playing, we'll have little enough rewards IG as it is; beyond answering to ourselves and people with big a cheque books.

[Melvin]

VOIP is good. I would rarely use it, but I do like being able to HEAR teammates as they give direction and intel.

[Khorneholio]

This is a mistake of game breaking severity in my opinion. It's ludicrous that the devs believe most players will be using 3rd party solutions. Those with 3rd party coms will be a small, organized, frustrated percentage of players who will end up spending most of their time talking with each other about how useless and disorganized the other 90% of players on their team are since there's no way to communicate efficiently with them.

I'd rather see 16 player games, no mechlab, a mandatory $60 box, a monthly subscription, and a year long release date delay than MWO releasing with no integrated VOIP.

[Vashts1985]

im getting the impression that many people want this to be the panacea of team play games where everyone comes together and executes perfect teamwork every game, when infact its gonna end up like every other team play game where that stuff does not exist 70% of the time.

[Insidious Johnson]

[Thanatos1973]

Khorneholio, on 27 May 2012 - 01:13 AM, said:

Was my post really that unclear? We are on exactly the same page. The question was "What one thing do you NOT want to see in MWO?" My answer was "No integrated VOIP."

If MWO is to succeed as a tactically cooperative game then free and automatic communications between all team members is a MUST.

Ya, could you see a bunch of guys running through a battlefield texting each other movements and sitreps? They wouldn't last very long.

[Ranibito]

I have never played a game that included voip and used its voip. i always use skype and im fairly sure anyone who will be playing this game will probally use skype if they play with friends or not talk if there not playing with friends. and thats based on experience playing mmos, noone ever really talks unless its super important to the game and even then they wont talk they will type.

[Oversight99]

Yes. I think it is a mistake. Consider these points in brief list form (many of which the OP or other posters have brought up)

In relative order of importance to the success of the game and teamwork within the game:

- Not having built in VOIP raises the barrier to entry for new players.

- In this day of built in chat in most other similar games, many don't know how to setup or configure VOIP. They certainly don't have a desire to do so.

- It decreases the chance that random matches will have good teamwork. Nobody will have the time to setup a new voice connection at the start of a match.

- VOIP is more fun

- It makes the game seem "second class" when every other first person shooter has this built in. (Make no mistake, this game is more FPS than RPG or MMO)

- It makes the game seem outdated for the same reason as above.

It is important to not assume that most players will be in an organized group. That is unlikely, especially new players. If the game is to grow, effort must be spent to make the new player experience superb. Mechwarrior is complex enough without making it hard to use voice. (and setting up Teamspeak, Ventrilo, Mumble, or Skype for each match would be hard for many.)

[Oversight99]

To those who compare built in VOIP based on MMO implementations. Well. Don't.

MMO built in chat has always been peer to peer. In other words, it sucks. Thus some other client is required

FPS games use a server side VOIP implementation. This works very very well. Try any Source game to test. Absolutely flawless.

Edited by Oversight99, 27 May 2012 - 10:51 PM.

[dogowar]

Every game I have ever played that had it's own VIOP setup has always be full of imature morrons who think it is funny to Team Kill players and go around shouting abuse to those who have just started playing and are learning the game. Personally I think not including it and having groups use a third party Voip setup such as ventrillo or teamspeak will hopefully negate this issue and foster better teamwork rather than just having a few idiots spoil it for all.

My tupence worth

[Tryg]

Vashts1985, on 27 May 2012 - 09:31 PM, said:

im getting the impression that many people want this to be the panacea of team play games where everyone comes together and executes perfect teamwork every game, when infact its gonna end up like every other team play game where that stuff does not exist 70% of the time.

And removing the ability to communicate with team members who aren't in your specific 'unit' voip server is a sure way to stretch that 70% out a bit more.

I'm all in favor of third party programs. But if I load up a game at 2am, I can promise you most of my unit won't be on. So now my choices are pass out private server info to some random players before a match and hope they can get connected...or forsake any form of voice communication?

For all those folks who don't like it, don't use it. The inclusion of VOIP in-game will not impair your ability to use third party programs of your choice. The exclusion of in-game VOIP WILL impair the ability of players who cannot join a third party voip. And before you say "Everyone can" consider how often you hard core gamers give out access to your private servers?

I've played CS since the early days, then later CS source, and several of the CoD and Battlefield titles. I have to say, in that time, I've found I very much dislike inviting random sorts to my private servers. But at the same time, I do like being able to communicate with random players who are willing to work with the team. This in fact, has led to several players being recruited. Without in-game voice, my gaming group would be less these players and worse for it.

I'd encourage the devs to consider the fact that one decision limits player options, the other places no limits (provided the 'normal' tools to opt-out through options as well as individually apply mutes are included)