VoIP-How to enticing/lure people to use it?

(Zarlor) #41

[QUOTE=Jamieson;227102]SD should consider reversing the defualt VOIP off decision for this very reason. It may be good for consoles but for the PC it does not make sense.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, please don’t turn it all off by default. I never found ETQW’s default on a problem -I even turned on global VoIP which I think was off by default? People talked enough in ETQW and it really enhances the game. In BFBC2 you’ve got everyone running around shooting with zero chatting or typing. It distances you from the players and the game I think.

I remember Richard Ham saying VoIP would be off by default so you wouldn’t have to hear screaming kids. C’mon, that’s a stereotype I have never experienced in PC games. Maybe he is thinking about XBOX or something?

Just make it an option to mute any “screaming kids”, or make it so VoIP works once you’re part of a fireteam (squad). Just please don’t disable it all by default because this game is all about customizing and personalizing characters and having VoIP in the mix really enhances that.

(coolstory) #42

yea it should be on by default, but also easy to mute a particular person or mute everyone if you feel you don’t want to be annoyed by some kid screaming.

(Jamieson) #43

Wells that my point

I have never and I mean never, in all my years of playing PC games ever heard a screaming kid or had any bad encounters over VOIP.

That includes the following games that have VOIP
Enemy Territory Quake wars
Team Fortress 2
Half Life Death Match
Section 8
Call of Duty 4 (limited)

The devs need to wake up and cater for the PC audience, defualt to off is a good decision for consoles because the communciation is ****ing horrible from what I have heard but not for the PC.

Not that I have ever had the need, but how hard is it to locally mute someone? Limbo menu > select player > mute VOIP locally. Problem solved, probably took me 5-10 seconds at most.

or go to settings and turn global voice chat off, don’t want to hear teammates turn team voice chat off, don’t want to hear anyone turn fireteam voice chat off. Easy simple solutions that already existed in ETQW. That didn’t take long.

(Szakalot) #44

the only reason i can think of why someone never heard a screaming kid on voip is because they are one :wink:

More seriously though, it might be region related, but I had plenty game-distracting encounters,
and well, i find irrelevant information or an excited adult screaming ‘i killed him! i killed him!’ a reason to turn it off anyways.
You wanna talk to your friends, use ventrilo :stuck_out_tongue:

(Crytiqal) #45

Yea, or have the VOIP on by default in fireteam only then?

(Jamieson) #46

[QUOTE=Szakalot;227531]the only reason i can think of why someone never heard a screaming kid on voip is because they are one :wink:
[/QUOTE]

Really well I’m not a kid and like I said above I have never heard a kid screaming over VOIP. I think its important to distinguish between a high voice and screaming. Sure I have heard few kids online who have high squeaky voices but they have all been polite and knew what they were talking about (i.e. game tactics) its not as if they can do anything about their voice as well.

Hell back when I was a recuiting officer in TAW (offical term DI aka Drill instructor) We once had a kid try to join, he sounded about 8, we told him we did not believe he was 18 (age he stated on his application) and he just accepted it and admitted it, no abuse or anything.

Thats my experience, I have been gaming on the PC now for 15 years, online around 10. VOIP in games i.e. not TS or Vent is quite new. Maybe your view differs but what you define bad VOIP experience in general probably differs from my view point. Like i said though, no angry annoying kids in my experience, unless you include Crytiqal and Nilco lol although they are not kids and have no excuse ahahah, just kidding guys. (I know them both very well)

RE: Crytiqal how did you get the Aero thingy in your sig?

(.Chris.) #47

I remember one Sunday on Custom Nirvana server we had two very young TAW members whining on VOIP that as a soldier I didn’t have the right to drive the MCP and that one of them should drive it instead. After a while I came out of the MCP to rocket some stuff proceeded by them two boys arguing about which of them should drive the MCP. It was pretty funny in a sad kind of way.

So yeah, what was you saying about maturity in (young) members of TAW?

(BioSnark) #48

and I have yet to hear anyone screaming in quake wars.

I don’t even need to bring up a difference in maturity levels. It does NOT make ANY sense to have voice activated voip on by default because there are random fans, static, TV’s, dispute resolution ;/ (background yelling), etc… It does make perfect sense if it’s team restricted push-to-talk activated voip in a highly cooperative-oriented game with a small player cap*. Global voip only has a social function (or dysfunction?) and could well be muted by default.

*Near quake wars comp levels (before 4v4 I mean :wink: ). Obviously, this means fewer people talking. More importantly, however, it means less class redundancy and greater need for coordination.

Why does player count matter, again?!
To clarify what may be an obvious point, higher player count means greater difficulty clearing an objective for both sides (some players are killed, respawn and dribble back in without either side being able to removing the other from the objective area). This means it’s more difficult for offense to clear an objective before completing it but it also means it’s easier for them to maintain objective progress (prevent build/hack bar resetting or plant disarm). Both of those mean more lemming and less coordination.

(Jamieson) #49

[QUOTE=.Chris.;227568]I remember one Sunday on Custom Nirvana server we had two very young TAW members whining on VOIP that as a soldier I didn’t have the right to drive the MCP and that one of them should drive it instead. After a while I came out of the MCP to rocket some stuff proceeded by them two boys arguing about which of them should drive the MCP. It was pretty funny in a sad kind of way.

So yeah, what was you saying about maturity in (young) members of TAW?[/QUOTE]

  1. I’ am no longer in TAW, However I can assure you that when I was a DI in TAW I ensured no one who was bellow TAW’s age limit was accepted. This is also the case of my ex DI colleges. This is stated in TAW’s application policy and terms and agreement, i.e. lying on your inital application results in your app being terminated. I have extensive knowledge and experience of this, I was a DI (drill instructor) for over 6 months and carried out numerous members applications.

  2. My initial statement was not concerned with the maturity of TAW members, I was describing an event I had with a kid who had tried unsuccessfully to join TAW and how he reacted i.e. in a matrue way, this was an isolated event. All TAW bootcamps (i.e. introductions into TAW) are carried out on the TAW TS server. I brought this up because it reinforces my point about the times I have spoken to kids online over VOIP and their maturity so don’t miss quote me.

  3. Although it was silly for the young members to argue I would agree with them that they had a point. As a Soldier you have no tactical advantage or business in driving the MCP if an engineer is availalble to drive it. This applies more if the MCP is disabled, you are preventing an engineer from jumping out reparing and jumping back in (a common tactic used by myself). A better use of your time and effort would have been to help escort the MCP by taking out any AVT’s and vehicles with your Rocket Launcher preventing the progress of the MCP.

4. As I’ am no longer a member of TAW, I left on the 12th of November of 2009 I have no way of knowing how they currently operate, as a Non member its not my business to know and nor do I care.

(Cankor) #50

@ Bisnark. So you are saying smaller team sizes VOIP is more useful? And probably less chance to run into obnoxious people as well I would think.

As far as development time for VOIP, can’t the VOIP system from ETQW be re-used? It works perfectly as far as I can see, great combinations of options (talk to fire team, talk to team, talk globally). So develoment effort shouldn’t be that great? Or do they frist have to make a console VOIP system and then port it over to the PC? :slight_smile:

Remember, when ETQW came out without VOIP many reviewers critized it for not having it available. I guess it will be there for sure right? Just maybe not on by default?

(BioSnark) #51

Yes. VOIP, and coordination in general, is more useful and less confused with fewer people. There is VOIP in Brink. The problem is that SD wants it to be (steam?) friends-only by default IIRC.

(LyndonL) #52

I’ve had a few instances (albeit not more than 10) where there’s been some obnoxious annoying person on voip singing and not listening when people as them to stop. That has been on TF2 and L4D.

I have always felt that Push to talk voip is the best solution. I always map it to C (Having found it works brilliant with Source games) so that I can use my thumb to talk whilst still being able to move/interact freely with my 3 middle fingers.

(light_sh4v0r) #53

I very much agree with push to talk only. It’s VERY annoying when you hear people sneeze, breathe or the television in the background all the time.

(Jamieson) #54

I thought VOIP defualt to off was concered with people being able to hear VOIP rather than push to talk or voice activation etc.

i.e. in ETQW by defualt you can hear your teammates and fireteam, in Brink you would not be able to hear anybody unless you specified you wanted to hear others using VOIP. Thats the impression I got.

(LyndonL) #55

That’s what I understand too, but then there are different transmission methods - vox (voice activated) or PTT. I would like to see VOIP receive active by default but with PTT as the default transmission.

(Jamieson) #56

This is what I want to, its the option that makes the most sense for PC users, We don’t have the same problems as console users do with the cosntant bad language/abuse and screaming kids etc. The only thing its going to do is limit VOIP even more which is a bad thing because not many people on the PC use it, we want more people to use it not less.

(Crytiqal) #57

VoIP on by default in fireteam, and PTT as the transmit method.

+1

(Apples) #58

Is this that hard to check a thickbox to get VoiP on? I would back you up for many concern about this game, but not this time oO

Knowing where they come from i’m pretty sure SD will make the choice obvious, not hiden ala bc2 when I simply never bothered to check how could I activate the thing.

Peace

(Jamieson) #59

[QUOTE=Apples;227695]Is this that hard to check a thickbox to get VoiP on? I would back you up for many concern about this game, but not this time oO

Knowing where they come from i’m pretty sure SD will make the choice obvious, not hiden ala bc2 when I simply never bothered to check how could I activate the thing.

Peace[/QUOTE]

Thats not the problem Apples, The problem is not knowing who can hear you or not.

On ETQW the defualt is VOIP on so you can safely assume most people can hear you unless they go out of their way to turn it off.

With brink its the opposite so I can just see servers empty of VOIP because there will be no point talking if no one can hear you. VOIP will just be reserved for clan play and matches like the old days which is just sad, might as well just use TS or vent only.

(Apples) #60

Not really, cuz (dont fool yourself here) you pretty much know that many player from qw will play the game, and you also know that they’ll turn on voip, inciting other “new” player to do the same IMO.

I can agree that its not the best choice maybe, but its not such a big mistake (I wont enumerate the many others :D, I sweared to myself not to get med over brink anymore ;))

Peace