Do you use a voice chat program?

[JamesWOD]

Afternoon all!

I'm a gamer thinking of picking up a Master and a few Client licenses for this game as I'm currently away from my gaming group.

I believe FG2 does not yet support voice chat or playing music so I am left with asking for options in this area (voice/music support). This is a bit of an issue as I do not believe either myself or my friends would enjoy typing out everything.

Any suggestions here? The voice chat software would have to support 2-6 or so people (myself + players) and possibly be able to play .wave or .mp3 files. I've got a mic/webcam setup currently and running Vista 64.

Any gamers out there who use FG2 and voice/webcam chat software in tandem?

[mr_h]

My group uses Teamspeak, which is nice and free for our use. I have my own server that I host it off of and it handles a couple of users very easily. It does not, however, play MP3s, Wavs, etc.

Verntillo is another option that people use. It does play mp3s/wavs etc. Although I believe you might have to pay for that one, I'm not sure what the licensing is on it anymore.

I've seen more people using Skype lately too, but I can't state what the benefits of that is vs the rest.

I personally think Voice comms make the game muuuuch easier, espically with complex rules and combat.

[JamesWOD]

mr_h,

It's funny, I used Ventrillo for my WoW days, should have thought about that. I'll look into how it handles wavs and whatnot, as I do enjoy playing music occasionally, though that may not work well online.

It would also be nice in teamspeak to pull people into a 'gm' channel so you can 1 on 1 so not everybody hears what's going on.

Hmmm, interesting. I think I might try getting some friends to sign on to Skype, see what happens if I have 4 people in video conference, how well it works.

Thanks for the reply!

[Zoso]

I have a mumble/murmur server setup for my group to use and we've had no issues with that so far. To the best of my knowledge, there is no option for streaming music through it so I would aso be interested to know if anyone is successfully streaming music through a chat software.

We tend to use the keyboard for RP chat and use the voice for everything else (combat, rules, discussions amongst players about whatever) and that seems to be a good balance for us.

As for ventrilo, I believe it is still free to setup a server (may have to pay above a certain number of slots).

[JamesWOD]

Zoso,

Thanks for the heads up on mumble/murmer! Is one the server the other the client? I'll d/l it today and give it a go.

JamesWOD

[Zoso]

Yup, murmur is the server end, and mumble is the client. Both can be found over at sourceforge and are free/open source projects which is even better.

[EugeneZ]

I use Skype. I haven't tried video conferencing with more than one person, but I've found it to be less of a bandwidth-hog for voice than Vent/TS. Skype is nice because you don't have to worry about a server, it's extremely easy to use, and as far as I can tell, it just performs better. YMMV.

[CampbellR66]

We use Skype conference calls for 5 way conversations audio only and it works fine. We have used web cams it works but with more drop outs and adds little value over audio.
Also tried Office Live meeting with video...that failed to perform to a useable level

[Phystus]

We use Vent for our sessions. One of my players hosts it, and once we changed to a less-than-CD quality codec haven't noticed any bandwidth issues.

~P

[Spyke]

I use Skype for voice for role-playing and it works very well indeed. I've never used it with FG2 because I tend to use voice with my face-to-face group one of whom is a Mac user. Playing with net friends I've preferred text chat in the past, and FG2 excels at that.

I've tried having a video window open while role-playing, but to be honest it's better with just voice: more immersive. I tend to have my screen filled with notes and character sheets, etc, anyway.

Spyke

[DNH]

We use Skype conference calls for our sessions and it works just fine. Quality is good too. We get the occasional dropped caller but nothing too intrusive; they are usually back in the call within a couple of minutes at most.

FWIW, we use voice for everything and chat for pretty much nothing, except occasionally messing about. That's not to say we don't use the chat window as all the dice rolls and story content are reported on it, but we generally never use it for IC chat.

[Tenian]

I hate the "everyone talks at once" thing skype does. I like push to talk voice clients. I've used a variety of them, but currently one of my sessions uses GSC and the other uses Ventrillo.

Voice is usually OOC with chat being for IC chatter.

[Leonal]

I use Skype for mostly everything and FG whispers for 'secret' IC talks. But we're only four people in total so it's not too hard even if people sometimes talk at once.

[Spyke]

I hate the "everyone talks at once" thing skype does. I like push to talk voice clients.My sessions are only three or four people and this is very rarely a problem. Also, people are generally sensible about background noise.

Spyke

[Sorontar]

Currently using GSC which seems to be working well

www.getgsc.com

[Griogre]

I use a dedicated Teamspeak server.