[SUGGESTION] Optional Voice Chat (No Third Party Software)

Before I begin, I would like to say that I am shocked at the amount of rude and hateful comments I got when mentioning this suggestion in-game. It is totally ridiculous that so many people would be angry about having an OPTIONAL voice chat function to aid in team matches. I would like to ask that everyone be polite and respectful in response to this post.


Now then, I've noticed that team play seems to suffer greatly from a lack of communication, which is most likely due to the speed of the gameplay. Obviously we can't stop to type every 5-15 seconds to tell our team something. Games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead have all proven voice chat to be a worthwhile addition.

So with that, I would like to suggest a simple, optional, voice chat feature be added to a future Xonotic release. Such a feature should be server side, with the option(s) to enable all chat, or team chat. Of course it would also call for a mute function in the client and server, to deal with the obvious problem of trolling.

As for the bandwidth problem, It shouldn't require too much if the quality is kept to an acceptable middle ground. Source engine's quality is a good example.

I would love to see this added at some point, because I find team cooperation to be the difference between victory and defeat.

Please give your thoughts or further suggestions!

I would wholeheartedly agree with this. I don't under stand why people were hostile, but it is extra development which might not be an option right now. For bandwidth, just use Speex, it's open source and one of the best codecs.

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

mumble has been used on australian server for quite some time now. Also discussions of voice chat intergration has taken place. I do hope intergration happens in the future, but for now you willhave to organise team members to use this excellent software in the mean time

Australian mumble server can be found on the http://xa.org.au/ forum

We have no developers who can code this. This is why a third party app would be preferred. Otherwise nice.

Mumble needs re-evaluating, they may now have a better interface to channel ACLs.

Mumble needs re-evaluating, they may now have a better interface to channel ACLs.

A better interface? I don't see how ACL interface can become better without dumping ACLs. Mumble is too complicated to configure properly and it's not interface problem.

Before I begin, I would like to say that I am shocked at the amount of rude and hateful comments I got when mentioning this suggestion in-game.

If this was on a public server, pay no attention to it. Don't be afraid that the people on this forum will react the same. An incredible amount of people on public servers does not even know about Xonotic yet, let alone this forum.

I would never use this, but would still be delighted if it was added in some way or other if that would enhance other players' experience. For public servers, maybe a whitelist would be easier to have than a blacklist I should think one could do without "NADZ NADZ NADZ WAS MP WAS LOL AHAH))" but maybe my opinion of public servers is now a bit too negative

I don't like this idea. If it would be public I can only remember times when i watch a friend playing Counter Strike. The things you get via voice chat are like : Bad words or "zkzkzketkkkkktttttuwetw" (bad microphone etc.).
Team games: I guess thats what binds are for (?). Damn you don't even have to talk you can press 1 key!
Also its not hard to get and use software like Mumble,Ventrilo,TeamSpeak, whatever. I used TeamSpeak already and it works perfect.
From my point of view it only takes time to develop this unless there is such third party software and in this time the devs could work on something more important.

Side note about pubs: The DCC publics are not like this Pink, except the CTF server! Its a mess. Though Nadz is not around , there are only people swearing and stuff like this. So its not that bad acutally.
But if someone wants to get useful critique/information he should really join the forum or IRC.

The addition of voice chat does come with the problem of trolls or people who have no idea of how to setup a microphone, but with a game that is not mainstream, I would imagine that it would be to a much lesser extent. Most people who would play or even find Xonotic will probably be more experienced with tech. I'm very much in love with voice chat, having had a great experience with it personally ^^. Players just need to be well informed of the mute function if it were to be implemented.


Some of my reasoning for this suggestion is the hassle involved in third party software. It's just too much work to organize a good team of players who have microphones and are willing to log on to TS/VENT. Then there is the fact that you cannot talk at all to other players who you don't know(With voice, back to the typing issue).

Methinks that adding voice integration would be a significant hurdle for development. Also, there are myriad 3rd party chat apps that fit this need well.

Would slow down the PING much!!!
If I called someone with Skype and played Nexuiz i sometimes had a 500 ping :S

Mumble needs re-evaluating, they may now have a better interface to channel ACLs.

A better interface? I don't see how ACL interface can become better without dumping ACLs. Mumble is too complicated to configure properly and it's not interface problem.

Nope.

I was referring to the C-unfriendly interface they used before (I again forgot whether it was DCOP or DBUS, but both are equally evil from C's perspective). And what they added recently, was the C++-only ICE which we cannot use at all from C.

The ideal interface for this, easiest to use from C without depending on extra libraries, would be a simple text-based socket interface where the ACLs can be managed with commands. Or, if it has to be, XMLRPC.

And all I need the ACLs for, is to ensure a red team player only can be in red's channel and not in blue's.