Love the game, but its 2014. Why no VOIP?

[aeroripper]

I registered just to post this, I love the game but one thing that keeps me from playing it more is the lack of VOIP built into the game. I'm not sure if this was a conscious design decision to not include it in the game, but it is desperately needed. I can't count the number of times I want to push a button to talk with my team to formulate strategy, but instead have to laboriously type in text and use cumbersome pre-defined voice overs.

Please, add VOIP to the game so we can talk with our team! Teamspeak isn't a realistic solution, as it adds a barrier of entry to voice communication that the vast majority of players will not use.

[SFJake]

Why? Big pubs don't get any more communication from voice chat. I've almost never seen games except the small scale ones really benefit from VOIP, it just becomes something where annoying people go to talk.

Personally I don't want to hear anyone, and I wish this would stick to a good chat system. The fact that a lot of people refuse to communicate or listen with chat can be a problem, but the big majority of players would be no more useful if we had voice chat.

I'm for a world without voice chat.

[Asahammer]

If you're against VoIP, you've clearly never played Planetside 2. PS2 is an excellent illustration of how VoIP can make or break a game. PS2 would be unplayable without the possibility to instantly communicate tactical instructions by voice. I agree with the OP - VoIP is exactly what Renegade X needs.

-Asahammer

[aeroripper]

Why? Big pubs don't get any more communication from voice chat. I've almost never seen games except the small scale ones really benefit from VOIP, it just becomes something where annoying people go to talk.

Personally I don't want to hear anyone, and I wish this would stick to a good chat system. The fact that a lot of people refuse to communicate or listen with chat can be a problem, but the big majority of players would be no more useful if we had voice chat.

I'm for a world without voice chat.

Nothing much would change for you then if it was added. Turn down the voice volume to 0, or utilize the mute button on the occasional annoying person. The vast majority of players would appreciate such a feature in an inherently teamwork based game, even if at worst, they found themselves communicating with only a few people on the team.

How it is currently:

EVERYBODY FLAME RUSH! You might get 1 or 2 people to help you out most of the time, if that. Most people on your team won't notice the text over the action.

Now imagine hearing the same thing over voicecomm, and suddenly much of your team is responding, and working together much quicker simply because of the ease of communication. How many scenarios can you think of that would be instantly improved just by quickly chatting with your teammates with voice?

[iovandrake]

Who needs voice chat when you can take the point!?

[Canucck]

Usually voip solutions are licensed for UE3 games. Something like http://www.vivox.com/

Unlikely here

[A-Rodge]

I agree. Voice chat would be pretty awesome. Until then, I recommend using the survey voting option and sending it team wide: CTRL > "N"

Eg. "Flame rush meet behind hon"

Its pretty effective in games ive played so far.

[Garbonzo]

its 2014 and I'm SO HAPPY I don't have to hear your voice screeching over the microphone about how I need to (insert random command here) or else you will keep yelling at me.

Just take the point!

Have had plenty of marathon games won via typing in the text and coordinating an attack. If you want to talk that bad add some people and invite them to a TS or VENT.

[omega79]

i would love build in voip aswell ...

voip ingame normaly has a mute function for annoying people

[XD_ERROR_XD]

Meh, i wouldn't really like VOIP in a game like renegade. The radio commands and the Q button already are a useful replacement which actually works. You only have to remember some button combinations.

What i think would happen at best is hear some annoying kids talking about their amazing daily life and you missing every EVA announcement because all the voices are too loud.

Then you put down the volume too soft in order to keep hearing EVA properly, but then VOIP gets useless and everyone forgets to actually put anything in the chat not knowing they're being muted by 50% of the players.

[omega79]

in every game i know you are able to mute certain people an you are able to turn the voip volume to 0

so build in voip would not bother those who do not like it and be good for those who do like it

win/win

[XD_ERROR_XD]

in every game i know you are able to mute certain people an you are able to turn the voip volume to 0

so build in voip would not bother those who do not like it and be good for those who do like it

win/win

but what if the one that you muted for talking too loud decided to plan a rush and ONLY tell people about it through VOIP? that makes for a broken feature. teamplay is too important in this game for VOIP to work. or you mute nobody and get annoyed by screaming kids, or you don't get annoyed but you're not able to TP because you're missing out.

[omega79]

normaly annoying and screaming people never have a plan for anything ...

[XD_ERROR_XD]

having a player scream doesn't automatically make them a bad player... sort of

[omega79]

ofcourse, but it turned out that a lot annoying people never bring in any good strategy ...

at least in other games ... but that might be the case in any game

I would love to at least have a test run on voip ...

but if that is not possible (for what ever reason) it wont hurt the fun

[Tovias]

Don't get in my way!

Don't get in my way!

Don't get in my way!

[ARC_trooper]

VOIP is good but you should be able to mute people, so the annoying 'kid' who keeps screaming can be muted.. Problem solved!

[Tactix]

I guess we should give it a try.

Counter-Strike, a very old game has it.

Annoying people and trolls can be muted/kicked/banned.

So all in all this should bring more cooperation, organization and teamwork to public servers,

and clanwars won't need a third party software like TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Skype/whatever.

Sometimes you just don't have the time to write "apc inc", because you're constantly dodging bullets and being in the heat of things. Standing still just to type is a real handicap. Furthermore, terminologies and shortcuts will only alienate the beginning players who don't understand what they mean.

At best just make VOIP a server setting that can be toggled on or off.

[RoundShades]

voip is difficult to do, results in a buggy voip most the time, and is easily furnishable with teamspeak, which most good servers have and their address is displayed in their frontpage linked in the server list and is displayed in chat ingame.

That being said, they are also an indie non-monetized dev team. Does Minecraft still even have voip? It is 2014, minecraft must be a bad game

[Terekhov]

in every game i know you are able to mute certain people an you are able to turn the voip volume to 0

so build in voip would not bother those who do not like it and be good for those who do like it

win/win

but what if the one that you muted for talking too loud decided to plan a rush and ONLY tell people about it through VOIP? that makes for a broken feature. teamplay is too important in this game for VOIP to work. or you mute nobody and get annoyed by screaming kids, or you don't get annoyed but you're not able to TP because you're missing out.

People just post in chat for big rushes, while the tightly coordinated stuff could be done over VoIP with ease.

[Molested Bunny]

voip is difficult to do, results in a buggy voip most the time, and is easily furnishable with teamspeak, which most good servers have and their address is displayed in their frontpage linked in the server list and is displayed in chat ingame.

An pubbies dont use it. EVER. Im glad you can use Teamspeak with great affectiveness in organised matches once a week, but that doesnt help the game in general which is mostly pub play.

That being said, they are also an indie non-monetized dev team. Does Minecraft still even have voip? It is 2014, minecraft must be a bad game

And Fable III coop also lacks VOIP capability. And what the heck that has in common with a team and teamwork based shooter?

The thing you must understand is currently theres barely any cooperation in pub matches. The side that has at least 2 people communicating through voice comms outside of the game generally mops the floor with the other one. I had a game with 4 clan members in one game on the other side using Teamspeak, and we got beat so hard it wasnt even funny.

The communication tools at our disposal just isnt enough to get people organised.

I can spot a horde of hotwires storming the powerplant, nobody will give a shit, since people generally ignore the randomly spammed 1 Enemy Spotted at xx messages. Its just not effective enough.

I can spam

Defend the powerplant!

Defend the powerplant!

Defend the powerplant!

and vets will know something is wrong, but i cant tell others i saw 2 beacons planted around it before i got horribly murdered by an incoming Orca thats defending the beacons.

I can write what i saw and maybe repeat it for good measure, but when i type im stationary and defenseless, not doing anything to stop them myself, and typing takes valuable time away from the team to understand and act according to my findings. And even then there will be people who will miss my message because its not indistingvishable from random banter, and/or they are focusing on other things.

Or i could just shout Omagawd! Omagawd! 3 hotties are planting beacons on da plant! Ya niggaz get ya ass down here and shoot dat sonuvabiatch Orca while ya at it! under 5 seconds. Everyone will get the right message. ^^

[Christopher]

besides announcing its time for a flame tank rush and a building needs repairs nothing else needs to be said. i mute everyone always in every game. and before you say hurr durr people perform better with voice chat all i have to say is no. it usually amounts to a bunch of idiots doing shotgun rushes early game and dying horrifically because some idiot told them to shotgun derrrrr tunneeeelsssss

[SFJake]

voip is difficult to do, results in a buggy voip most the time, and is easily furnishable with teamspeak, which most good servers have and their address is displayed in their frontpage linked in the server list and is displayed in chat ingame.

An pubbies dont use it. EVER. Im glad you can use Teamspeak with great affectiveness in organised matches once a week, but that doesnt help the game in general which is mostly pub play.

That being said, they are also an indie non-monetized dev team. Does Minecraft still even have voip? It is 2014, minecraft must be a bad game

And Fable III coop also lacks VOIP capability. And what the heck that has in common with a team and teamwork based shooter?

The thing you must understand is currently theres barely any cooperation in pub matches. The side that has at least 2 people communicating through voice comms outside of the game generally mops the floor with the other one. I had a game with 4 clan members in one game on the other side using Teamspeak, and we got beat so hard it wasnt even funny.

The communication tools at our disposal just isnt enough to get people organised.

I can spot a horde of hotwires storming the powerplant, nobody will give a shit, since people generally ignore the randomly spammed 1 Enemy Spotted at xx messages. Its just not effective enough.

I can spam

Defend the powerplant!

Defend the powerplant!

Defend the powerplant!

and vets will know something is wrong, but i cant tell others i saw 2 beacons planted around it before i got horribly murdered by an incoming Orca thats defending the beacons.

I can write what i saw and maybe repeat it for good measure, but when i type im stationary and defenseless, not doing anything to stop them myself, and typing takes valuable time away from the team to understand and act according to my findings. And even then there will be people who will miss my message because its not indistingvishable from random banter, and/or they are focusing on other things.

Or i could just shout Omagawd! Omagawd! 3 hotties are planting beacons on da plant! Ya niggaz get ya ass down here and shoot dat sonuvabiatch Orca while ya at it! under 5 seconds. Everyone will get the right message. ^^

Thats what I call a game flaw. Beacons could be spottable and show up then on the radar in a VERY obvious fashion. In fact, spotted enemies should show just the same. Didn't spotting tell if there's more than 1 enemy? If it doesn't, it should. If you spot an enemy and he's surrounding by 10 guys, the game should determine that and put this as part of the message.

The chat also really could use better coloring. Yes yes, Nod is Red. Nod is hard as hell to read. GDI is a bit hard, too. Needs to be more obvious.

These are game flaws. Having random kids spouting random stuff all day just to have people have a chance to use "team work" is not my idea of fixing any problem the game has with cooperation.

Instead, a game makes cooperation easier by design.

[Terekhov]

Beacons on the mini-map? THAT would be a game flaw.

Have you ever played Renegade with others in voice chat? It makes a huge difference in how efficiently you can work with others...I'd say 30% of times you'd die/fail working as a team with text-based comms, you live with voice-based.

[SFJake]

Beacons on the mini-map? THAT would be a game flaw.

Have you ever played Renegade with others in voice chat? It makes a huge difference in how efficiently you can work with others...I'd say 30% of times you'd die/fail working as a team with text-based comms, you live with voice-based.

Beacons when SPOTTED on the mini-map. Its called game systems replacing communication, nobody has to say HEY GUYS THERE'S A BEACON THERE, no, everybody knows once someone spotted it. Friendly beacons of course should show always, they actually did in the old Renegade, but now I have no idea where my team places their beacons.

Voice chat is terrible with anything but people you know. And I don't "know" or befriend people online, thus I don't talk with them, thus I hate voice chat, and I've never really seen it effective in public games of anything larger than 20 players, unless like I said you're only talking to friends. In which case I don't want to hear you, because you're going to also be chatting other irrelevant crap in my hear.

[iovandrake]

I agree with the chat being hard to read. The chat needs an opaque background when it pops up. On Whiteout it's hard as hell to read Nod's messages.

I also think there needs to be new speech added to the radio for spotting. When you spot someone near a building it should say "Enemey spotted at WF" instead of just saying "Enemy spotted!" and the rest being covered in text.

[Terekhov]

Beacons on the mini-map? THAT would be a game flaw.

Have you ever played Renegade with others in voice chat? It makes a huge difference in how efficiently you can work with others...I'd say 30% of times you'd die/fail working as a team with text-based comms, you live with voice-based.

Beacons when SPOTTED on the mini-map. Its called game systems replacing communication, nobody has to say HEY GUYS THERE'S A BEACON THERE, no, everybody knows once someone spotted it. Friendly beacons of course should show always, they actually did in the old Renegade, but now I have no idea where my team places their beacons.

Oh okay, I can get behind beacons when spotted, that's a good idea. My bad, misread your post.

Voice chat is terrible with anything but people you know. And I don't "know" or befriend people online, thus I don't talk with them, thus I hate voice chat, and I've never really seen it effective in public games of anything larger than 20 players, unless like I said you're only talking to friends. In which case I don't want to hear you, because you're going to also be chatting other irrelevant crap in my hear.

Add the concept of groups to VoIP, and all problems are solved. I know a lot of people in the servers at the moment that I might not talk to outside of RenX, but would love to form a group channel with them for a game to coordinate. Many of them feel the same.

People like you who don't want to use it can -- you guessed it -- not use it; for the rest of us it would be a helpful addition.

[darksider282]

We got along just fine with VOIP for how many years? About the only point I agree with is on defending against the beacons, as when there's a beacon down you really can't take the time to type it out sometimes. But there are alternatives, as proposed above.

In the old days if you got a warning of an enemy beacon, followed by someone hitting "Defend the Powerplant" a few times, you knew what it meant. Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding people spamming the "Defend the X" button when the building has taken 2% damage from a guy on the hill with a rifle, and find myself disregarding the messages more often than not (cry wolf anyone?) That said, this is something that will hopefully improve as people get more experienced. Also, in old Ren there was a button you could press to instantly see the status of all buildings on both teams. Does that still exist?

[Anemia]

As a pretty slow writer I would love the ability to just call out info. Currently, unless it's something obvious like an sbh nuke it's easy to just spam Q a couple of times. When I need to relay more delicate (wrong choice of word I think but I'm not quite sure what to call it) information like for example gunner rush inc through x passage or something, it gets a lot trickier. To me it kind of feels like unless I'm in my base where I can run inside, I have to choose between 50% chance of dying and not typing the message.

So in essence I would love to see some way to communicate without having to throw my life away all the time. At least allow us to keep running while typing (in Killing Floor for example, you can keep W pressed after pressing T and you'll keep on running until you let go of the W key).

In the end I think that voip should be a server option.

[LegendaryPunk]

I would love to see VoIP. When you're in the middle of an assault or scrambling to put together a base defense, standing still for 10 seconds to type is a death sentence.

However, I've played on a few pug servers in which people were communicating well enough with chat to form actual strategies. So it does happen. What would be nice is if the quick bind messages were in a separate chat window, or a different color. It's easy for messages to get bumped off screen and disappear instantly when multiple players spam "Defend the power plant!", or for the message to simply be hard to read amongst a handful of spam because of the same color text.