Voice Communication

[Yenzarill]

Anyone ever tried Voice communication? (programs like roger wilco or teamspeak (www.teamspeak.org)) Me and shadow-rodent tried it for a few private and a couple of public games.

I must say, I'll never think of typing as fast or efficient again. We Thieved grange and won, then we guarded Theatre and won.

The potential for lameness is great, I must admit. But when used with your own team it definatly is a great tool. Problem arouses when one player in the voice channel dies and becomes a spectator, or is on the opposing team.

So, what do you all think, Is it OK if we continue to use TeamSpeak in future games?

[PhaeThorn]

" I don't use it to cheat " I heared a 9994567.293 times before. but in the end they did use it to cheat.

Other then that , it's like teamsay , only faster. It's legal to use when your alive and on the same team. BUT I don't like it. It gives the users too much advantage.

[Mr.K.]

I don't see how using teamspeak or any other voice communication by themselves is cheating (you just hear some people saying that just running them is lame, no matter what you speak about). It's just like team say but faster. I also think it'd give the team using it a *HUGE* shitload of advantage, even if not used for cheating, because voice communication is so much more efficient than typing. You can't just compare stopping playing to type "thief in rectory", with the potential threat of losing him/her, to what you could do with teamspeak: "Thief in rectory! He came through the kitchen and dodgede me. I think he's gone upstairs and ran into the fireplace room. I'm chasing him, someone go to the basement and wait for him there" while you are still chasing the thief without having to stop at all.

But i'm AGAINST it because quite a share of the TUT players are not native english speakers and it can be difficult to follow an english conversation with accuracy while playing (as it seems it'd be the language most people would use because of common knowledge, if crappy).

[Rodent]

perhaps it would be good if the devs made it so you could only spectate people on your own team when you die. That could eliminate the possibility of lameness.

[Yenzarill]

Well, I still used whisper to communicate with other team mates.
And It is only me and rodent that were using it, no foreigners.

[Mr.K.]

Being able to only follow your team mates is teh sux. I usually like following the opposite team so i learn how are they doing and try to find out how did they play better than me.

Don't understand me wrong, i think teamspeak is one of the best tools for a team, but it's only restricted to self censorship, which may be fine with most of the people here, but you never know what kind of unhearted beings you might find in a random game. Also, problem is with the language because not everybody would understand everything fine. And then too, if someone's not using the voice communication/not understanding, they'd end up not being a part of the teamplay, because lack of communication.

I feel that the only proper and fair use of voice comm is when *everyone* is using it. Just on one team gives them too much of an advantage and you cannot force everyone to use it. Maybe for clan matches or something, it'd add a lot more of depth to the gaming. As a thing to use everyday, i don't know... I've been playing Natural selection, which has tons of american players using the built in voice system and it's hell of difficult to follow them. They have a whacky accent and never speak properly. :grin: The games i've played with other spanish people were a blast, though. So much easier to coordinate and perform complicated team tactics!

[modetwo]

Well, my 5 cents.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't like voice communication in multiplayer-games.

Take CounterStrike. A lot of people were looking forward to the possibility to communicate with microphones/headsets. How many of you use it now? The few times I've played CS, this feature has been turned off - cause I hate it. Almost no one used it wisely.

If you want to use Roger Wilco (whatever) on a private server - fine by me! But please, don't put a feature like this on a public server. Many of the players aren't from a english-speaking country, and therefor they have problems with speaking english. I have no problems with communicating on english, but I know a lot of other people have. They can nearly write english, so how do you expect them to speak it? Or understand it? And wouldn't it be kind of lame if not all of the players had the same possibility to use a feature like this? 3 guys from the US chats about everything, while 3 dutch (whatever) guys don't catch a single word.

Maybe it isn't as bad as I'm conserned of, maybe it is. Beats me!

[Yenzarill]

No, was just wondering if people would see it as an unfair advantage that we (members of ATG) were using Teamspeak.

We cold use it without anyone knowing, I just wanted to know if it would be considered unfair or cheating.

[modetwo]

We cold use it without anyone knowing, I just wanted to know if it would be considered unfair or cheating.

Cheating? No. Unfair? Well, maybe - cause you're able to communicate quicker than the players that's just got the keyboard.

[Yenzarill]

Same if people are quicker typers.

Same if people ahve the knowledge to set up speech binds... =Enemy Here!= etc.

[modetwo]

Good point.

[Biohazard]

In my Ghost Recon clan, Gamevoice was a requirment to join. But Ghost Recon is slightly different in that you can only spectate your own team. I feel that in Thievery some people would use the voice communication fairly, but others would give away positions to their team. So I would consider voice communication a way of cheating, just for the few who would use it that way.

[Shug]

Mode, I don't think you're on the right track. First off, the way you use TS is by connecting in BEFORE the game. Therefore, it won't be a confused babble of mixed languages. It will be between consenting adults who love and care about each other (and organize it before entering the server).

Secondly, I think you're pretty firmly mistaken about the use in other multiplayer games. Sure if you go on some public CS server there will be idiots abusing the function for a laugh. If you play wars (and I have) you'll find it adds an extra layer of immersion and strategy to the game.

Which brings me onto my next proposal. Would it be possible to alter server settings for wars to switch off any possible screen-cheating or "ghosting" attempts, thus enabling clans to use the efficiency of voice comm while eliminating cheating and lame tactics?

With regards to public playing, as long as you aren't playing tossers I think it's fine. A couple of measures against abuse wouldn't go astray, however.

[Kiech Bepho]

Ok...not a fully formed idea, but try this:

If you use a headset in game, then your voice is actually broadcast in-game, and from your position. No using the headset to talk to others across the map, unless, you can actually yell that loud! This would add some nice realism to the game for those who use headsets exclusively, since no one had walkie-talkies back then. As a server option, you may also want to turn off the automatic messages such as 'thieves have taken the objective' or whatever.

Ok, still needs some fleshing out, I think. Any thoughts?

Kiech

[Mad_Gerbil]

Voice communication when everybody has it: Good Idea
Voice communication when only one team has it: Bad Idea