Does multiplayer need microphone technology?

[kingofnoobia]

Now really who is the mature one here? You may not cry on the mic but you sure cry on the forums. 

And how the is that relevant?

Not that I have anything to do with the discussion, I don't care either way. But I can be terribly disturbed by statements like these.

 

[guilemaster]

If they ever did this, I'd PRAY that it would be an option to mute, since I really don't want all the complaining people ruining my experience =P

 

[Sovereignty]

You may not cry on the mic but you sure cry on the forums. 

Who's crying? And how can you even cry on forums? Do people, like, lean into the screen and try to get their tears to land in the techy bits or what? And how would you know if they did? If they succeeded, their screens would likely stop working, which would prevent them from posting about it. Unless they have a mic (or webcam), you can't possibly know if someone's crying. And you're claiming the ones who lack microphones are the ones crying - which leads me to believe you're either lying or just straight out guessing, in which case you should include a disclaimer about that in your post.

Shouldn't let the middle school kids ruin a chance of making games a little more teamwork oriented and enjoyable.

I have a hard time seeing the correlation between teamwork and microphones. Text messages and hotkeys could easily serve the same purpose - and that'd be without utterly spoiling the immersion. I honestly don't like the use of mics at all, screaming kids or not. Because the vast majority of people either sound like hoarse horses or shrill shrimps, while simultaneously doing their best to utterly butcher the English language. And hearing someone go "EY MAN U GOTTA SHIV THAT SCHMUCK WIT' A SHANK" in a hoarse-horse- or shrill-shrimp-voice in the middle of my heated battle shatters the immersion like a falling mirror to me.

 

[Seawied86]

MICSPAM

My favourite is really loud spongebob.

Why do I get the feeling I've played with you on TF2?

 

[Bite Me]

I think VOIP would be great, and could REALLY add to gameplay

 

[Marin Peace Bringer]

3D voice would improve a lot! If anyone of you've tried it, you know what I'm talking about.

And yes, people would follow orders much better with voice compared to chat. The chat window is crap for commanding, on big servers, your messages drown in the mass, and it's hard to see who's saying what, as you have to be close the the character to see their names in the game. With 3D voice you hear who's talking and you'd be able to communicate, apply tactics and be awesome.

Um... have you ever tried to organize a group of people using voice chat? mic spam is WAY worse then chat spam.

And how easy do you think it is to tell apart what people sound like what?

As to applying tactics, communication is not the problem, i have seen it done through typing, and we never had problems.

 

[Torgrim]

VOIP is really a must in this game IMO, it works perfectly in other games.

I read that some people find it annoying that people might spam the VOIP but there is always a mute, pretty much the same mute that is present in the chat.

I really don't see any problems here at all.

I dont find it that much fun to have ****load of IP's for different TS and Vent just to be able to talk to people, and dont tell me to use the chat if that's so much a  hazzle, there have been plenty of of times when you don't have the time to write or you start writing something and then BAAM your dead.

 

[Galdus]

Now really who is the mature one here? You may not cry on the mic but you sure cry on the forums. 

And how the is that relevant?

Not that I have anything to do with the discussion, I don't care either way. But I can be terribly disturbed by statements like these.

Maybe my statement was a little over the top. Sorry for saying you guys are crying,but I also get disturbed on some of the posts I read on how people do not like unspecific things that are also irrelevant (in this post) I vented a little and I apologize for that. MIC's FTW!

 

[MrRipYourHeadOff]

While I do value teamwork in mp games, I value immersion more. Honestly I'd rather not listen to a bunch of annoying people that are either underage, really nerdy, have terrible mics, or don't speak english. Actually the lack of voice comm is one of the things that's nice about Warband. Also, it makes text communication more influential, as people generally only take the time to type when they have something important to say.

 

[robbyg]

a command menu for simple stuff would be good, and it wouldnt break immersion but even if there were integrated voice coms u could just mute the people u dont like so thats no big issue really

the best thing i did to warn a friend about an enemy was kick him in the ass, it took 2 kicks and the sound of the enemies steel being drawn to alert him tho

 

[aguds]

Vent and/or TeamSpeak works fine. Join a clan, and if not - there are servers that have public vents for example. I find that M&B have a mature user-base at most times. Sure, people say 'fag' to anyone who kills them, and the way they were killed was 'gay'. But this is a universal problem when it comes to multiplayer games. Excessive use will have players banned anyway, so you'll hardly find people who are true dickwads bothering you for a lenghty time.

 

[Nemesis43]

Personally, I dislike VOIP. It really does ruin immersion. People usually are too loud or too soft, or have otherwise poor signal. Half the time, you can't understand a word people are saying. The immersion factor is the worst part, though - nothing quite like a stately knight talking at you in a snivelly broken teenager voice. I don't need to know anything about the other people in games. Not what they look like nor how they sound. I don't play games to be constantly confronted with the real world 

Yes. I am a bit of a misanthrope 

 

[dhowlett]

Ah yes, the days of css. Servers full of 13 year old boys shouting boom headshot and swearing at everyone who kills them saying its luck. I know this because I was once a 13 year old boy playing css with a huge css ego haha. Then I realised that no matter how good I was in css I still failed at life so i quit.

Personaly I feel this would be a terrible idea. No matter how organised you try and be it will never work and every game someone will get into the top 5 on the score board and feel they have achived enough to tell everyone else what to do. Then every round they act like they are the boss and will shout at people who are being "noobs".

BF2 Has a great system. There are 6 squads of 6 on both teams. You can start a squad and make it private if you wish so you can invite your friends. But the most important thing is that the squad leader can VOIP the comander of the team and everyone in the squad can talk over VOIP. This is a amazingly effective system having the comander (who has numourus abilities such as, UAV, artilery etc etc) with his big battle map spotting enermys and telling the squads where to go with way markers and over VOIP.

If we could have something similar, even remotely close I would be happy. As far as im conserned the only VOIP worth having is between clans and that is always on vent or TS.

 

[mrdang]

my vote goes to ventrilo and TS3 are enough. those who really want it will naturally find the means themselves and those who would rather live without can avoid even the sheer option. good discussion going on here though.

if anything, i think m&b could use more instant commands like the F1-flag only visible to allies. it's efficient, clear, and unobtrusive. if you could save custom text commands of your own (kinda like a playbook), that'd be awesome--just needs a cooldown so you dont spam.

 

[Sovereignty]

if anything, i think m&b could use more instant commands like the F1-flag only visible to allies. it's efficient, clear, and unobtrusive. if you could save custom text commands of your own (kinda like a playbook), that'd be awesome--just needs a cooldown so you dont spam.

Agreed. They should make the f-commands visible to allied humans as well, rather than just bots. And the lack of hotkey support really does amaze me.

 

[Parity]

To be honest, games that work on co-op.. off the top of my head Killing Floor, Counter Strike, etc. have in-game voice chat and if some 13 year old was micspamming you could always just mute them. I think it would be excellent to have in-game voice chat.

Question is, can it be done or does it need some major overhaul?

 

[Bones40]

I only had time to read the first page and a half, so forgive me if my post is redundant.

I would love to have voice chat . Text chat just doesn't work good.  You can't constantly keep track of the death spam while in the middle of a heated battle with two enemies to follow orders, and you certainly can't send out a call for help in that situation or if the enemy is close to you at all. Make it optional so you could turn it off if you just don't like it.  Make it so you can mute individuals to take care of the mic spammers.  I don't see a problem at all with it if you did those things.  Text chat just isn't viable aside from giving a few orders before the battle begins and maybe an order or two after it starts that only a handful will have the opportunity to read.

 

[danshyu]

Anyone who said they rather not hear 13 year olds trash talking over the mics...

You do realize just about every game that has voice chat has this handy little feature called "mute player"?

 

[Nemesis43]

To be honest, games that work on co-op.. off the top of my head Killing Floor, Counter Strike, etc. have in-game voice chat and if some 13 year old was micspamming you could always just mute them. I think it would be excellent to have in-game voice chat.

Question is, can it be done or does it need some major overhaul?

With a licensed game VOIP engine like Vivox, it could probably be done in quite short order, 3D positional voices and all.
I'd rather they add to gameplay, though.

 

[Archonsod]

VOIP creates yet more overhead on the server for very little return. Given the amount of third party options around (from the dedicated like Teamspeak to the utility like X Fire or Steam) it's a little redundant to have it in game.