New programs hit the market every month that offer superb quality and administration ability. Some even say they use almost no bandwidth. Things like BattleCom and Roger Wilco are well known among gamers, but the best thing since SlicedBread.exe is still Teamspeak. German engineering coupled with quality translation (:D) keeps Teamspeak ahead of the VoIP competition.
Admin options are great too, people can register with the server and be givin the ability to Kick, Ban, Move, and a lot of other options by the server admin.
I would love to see a ChiefDelphi Teamspeak server. It’s a good way for people to be able to come in and get an instant answer, should the appropriate faction be around.
Teamspeak. . . I have used it before. it is a very nice program. I have even hosted some session’s on my 56k modem with 3-4 people on the server and no problems with Lag or Quality at all.
This may be a cool idea for the build season more. You can to main channels and then also subchannels.
I fear for anyone else with a roommate that uses this. My roommate uses this for EVE and the new Horizons Beta, and anything else he can talk to his buddies with while playing. It’s annoying as hell. He talks to them more than he does real people. Its really annoying because he is always having a conversation with someone too. Silence is golden folks.
Skype is a good service in my opinion…it’s not a ‘group’ thing but it’s sort of like NetMeeting but much better. You ‘call’ a friend on the other end, they answer, you chat. Pretty simple.
It comes from the great folks who brought you Kazaa!
M. Krass does have a point though, Matt Krass. I’m a ham extra and when there are more than three or four people trying to participate in a conversation, multiple people sometimes start talking after the same instinctive pause. This would not be as much of a problem in a war game, where most of your communication is done as necessary.
Gamer2028: “Have even hosted some session’s on my 56k modem”
Bandwidth limiters let people with 56k not get owned on bandwidth. ‘10k max TS upstream, 46k for other programs’ sounds like a long distance phone call. Clear, but quiter. Easily adjustable in sound options.
Servo888: “I liked Roger Wilco until it became a paid service… booo!”
Teamspeak Website, “About” Page
Additionally we have to say that TeamSpeak is a contribution to the gaming community and thus it is completely free for non-commercial users. Commercial users, defined as anyone who uses TeamSpeak as company or to earn money
Jeremy_MC: “Skype:…comes from the great folks who brought you Kazaa!”
-Teamspeak is spyware free.
M. Krass: “How does that remain intelligible with more than a handful of users?”
-The vast majority of people are intellegent enough to know when to talk and when not to. As if it were a conference call.
=Solutions for those who will yammer on and on:
== Admins. Should an admin not be around at the time, there are IP:Name logs and one can be notified to check the log about the IP and if there should be follow up. Being that CD Keeps track of user IP’s many people can be “caught” by comparing the log to the list of users.
== Mute/Unmute. Should someone be yakking to much for everyones taste, each person can choose to mute the player from having their voice played on each persons system. ex: John mutes Bill. Joe doesn’t mute Bill. Joe can hear Bill, John can not. ]
== Multiple Channels. Need to leave someone out of the picture? Leave the channel. Say Bill is talking to Jared, but John wants to talk to Joe… John & Joe can go somewhere else and be in peace.
David Kelly: “so is that just like a chat room?”
-Basically, yes. Real time, no need to type. Does not need to be “top window” on your screen. [Minimize and Multi-Task]
Jeff_Rice: “multiple people sometimes start talking after the same instinctive pause.”
-Right now, I’m in a room with 7 or 6 people, and we are having a quality conversation without a lot of butt-ins. Yes, it does happen (there is a 1-3 second delay depending on location. I’m in MI, server is in CA).
I invite you to join my gaming clan’s server to see what it’s like, please PM me for IP information.
*Originally posted by Gadget470 *
**Points brought up:
Gamer2028: “Have even hosted some session’s on my 56k modem”
Bandwidth limiters let people with 56k not get owned on bandwidth. ‘10k max TS upstream, 46k for other programs’ sounds like a long distance phone call. Clear, but quiter. Easily adjustable in sound options.
Servo888: “I liked Roger Wilco until it became a paid service… booo!”
Jeremy_MC: “Skype:…comes from the great folks who brought you Kazaa!”
-Teamspeak is spyware free.
M. Krass: “How does that remain intelligible with more than a handful of users?”
-The vast majority of people are intellegent enough to know when to talk and when not to. As if it were a conference call.
=Solutions for those who will yammer on and on:
== Admins. Should an admin not be around at the time, there are IP:Name logs and one can be notified to check the log about the IP and if there should be follow up. Being that CD Keeps track of user IP’s many people can be “caught” by comparing the log to the list of users.
== Mute/Unmute. Should someone be yakking to much for everyones taste, each person can choose to mute the player from having their voice played on each persons system. ex: John mutes Bill. Joe doesn’t mute Bill. Joe can hear Bill, John can not. ]
== Multiple Channels. Need to leave someone out of the picture? Leave the channel. Say Bill is talking to Jared, but John wants to talk to Joe… John & Joe can go somewhere else and be in peace.
David Kelly: “so is that just like a chat room?”
-Basically, yes. Real time, no need to type. Does not need to be “top window” on your screen. [Minimize and Multi-Task]
Jeff_Rice: “multiple people sometimes start talking after the same instinctive pause.”
-Right now, I’m in a room with 7 or 6 people, and we are having a quality conversation without a lot of butt-ins. Yes, it does happen (there is a 1-3 second delay depending on location. I’m in MI, server is in CA).
I invite you to join my gaming clan’s server to see what it’s like, please PM me for IP information. **
I share Gadgets experiences with large groups, I play on teams of 15-20 and in the middle of battle too, it still remains quite intelligible…until someone dies After the obligatory ranting though we’re fairly intelligible again.
On the point of “in battle” differences to normal conversation:
People can say “Bill, grab my waypoint” and then be silent for 3 minutes… or they can be like: “Bill, grab my waypoint, Northeast corner. Hurry up, enemy approaching southeast.” blah blah blah and have a skewed message.
Most people in clans like this in a large group know their position within the team. If the squad leader starts talking, everyone shuts up, almost immediatly.
I personally feel if someone such as myself were to be stammering out something about a gear ratio, and, say, Paul Copioli or Andy Baker started to correct me… I’d shut up and listen right away. I think many would follow suit.
*Originally posted by Gadget470 *
**On the point of “in battle” differences to normal conversation:
People can say “Bill, grab my waypoint” and then be silent for 3 minutes… or they can be like: “Bill, grab my waypoint, Northeast corner. Hurry up, enemy approaching southeast.” blah blah blah and have a skewed message.
Most people in clans like this in a large group know their position within the team. If the squad leader starts talking, everyone shuts up, almost immediatly.
I personally feel if someone such as myself were to be stammering out something about a gear ratio, and, say, Paul Copioli or Andy Baker started to correct me… I’d shut up and listen right away. I think many would follow suit. **
I agree, but at the same time… I’m sure we’ve all run into this… some people LOVE to cut others off in the middle of conversation… and since you are primarily there to chat, it might be hard to hold a conversation, whereas in games… your not specifically talking about something all the time. In a chat you’ll have people with varying opinions, and if people start to bicker with each other on who is right, which happens often, it could cause problems… and there’s enough people on CD that I think would all hop on at once, that you could have 25-30 people on there all talking about the same thing… and we all know that everyone isn’t going to wait their turn for 29 other people to speak, and some people are just gonna keep causing a disruption… I don’t know, I think it’s a great idea, but I’m not too sure about if you get some people in there who want to just goof off or will just cut everyone else off shrugs I guess I’d have to see it in action with a bunch of us all on there and see how it’d work, but I know I sure as heck don’t want to listen to 30 other people if I wanna try throwin in my 2 cents… which is also why I think the “design” groups on teams usually stay relatively small with details (4-6 people) because everyone can pitch in what they have to say and a good debate can go on, but with more than that… I don’t know, it just seems like people would easily get impatient and especially if its about something controversial… like I said, I guess I’d have to try it out with a bunch of people and discuss something like normal to see how it’d work.
This can really be seen with the Tigerbolt chat. I havn’t been there for a while because it was usually only 6-10 people connected at any given time, with 0-2 activly conversing. (Not sure if it has picked up any).
A lot of people don’t have the time to sit around and talk to people idly. People are usually pretty busy.
You must also consider the contrast from IRC (Tigerbolt) where anyone with a keyboard can join and Teamspeak, where a microphone is required to talk. A lot of people I know don’t have microphones, and well… can’t be a nuisence.
The largest problem that I see to control is probably language usage. It’s hard to “convict” someone of cursing (which I assume will be disallowed) when actual .wav files aren’t logged in each channel. However, users can record people… but it doesn’t say who. The recording could be submitted to moderators for the situation to be looked into.
This is a good idea and I am willing to participate. However, it needs to be simple to use and it needs to be able to handle dial-up connections (at least in my case - heh).
The points you guys are debating are nothing new here. People in the workplace use this type of meeting often… it’s called a conference call. While a conference call is more of a pain compared to a regular meeting, it is productive. People simply need to show some respect to each other while participating.
The difference here is that on these conference calls I am familiar with, there is usually an agenda and plan to the meeting. Sometimes, people stay on after the call to “catch up” on personal things, but not much of that takes place.
*Originally posted by M. Krass *
**I don’t know what Paul Copioli sounds like, so how am I supposed to know when he’s talking and stay quiet? **
M: Yes that is understood. But then again, you’d know by hearing him. People can register with the server, and I can only assume impersonations would not be tolerated.
There is possibility of a parse script from CD’s username/pass system being copied over to teamspeak’s… but I’m not positive.
This is from my gaming clans server, which at this time is empty (because it’s 8:45am EST, 5:45am PST… most members are PST).
In this you can see the layout of the channels.
The titles are after the games we compete in (AA:O, Savage, etc.)
Then there are a few others…
Private: not password locked, just another place to go if you don’t want to be bothered by other people. It is understood that you should not join it unless asked to. (I wouldn’t expect this to work on a public server)
“Welcome”: aka the “default” channel. When someone connects to the server, this is where they sit until they join a specific. Talking is allowed here, but usually people move over somewhere else.
“Administration: PRIVATE”: Password Locked, uncrackable password (via any 3rd party tools).
“The Void”: Only there as an inside joke… but function is the same as any other channel.
Now, notice the “Connection Info” box. This is found by rightclicking on someone, and selecting … “Get Connection Info”.
Here you can see a little bit of information about the person. You can not see their IP (Note “Client IP: Hidden”). But you can see their Handle and Login Name (which can be different.).
To M’s original question about not knowing what Paul sounds like… I would assume he would connect to the server with his name (Just as I have in the screenshot with Gadget470). You could learn his voice, and then later respect it when it’s heard.
You can’t tell me that you’ve never talked to someone over the phone that you’ve never met in person… and when they call again you are clueless to who they are. You have more senses than your eyes in identifying people.
After the obligatory ranting though we’re fairly intelligible again.