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Djmaxx
September 26th, 2012, 01:18
I think there should be a built-in voice chat like (Squiggle, Dolby Axon, Teamspeak ext.)

Squiggle is like windows live messenger and it has a voice chat option and it is freewear and is for local network chat so that would probably be the best bet but Dolby or TS3 would work too if you could get the coding right

JohnD
September 26th, 2012, 03:14
Nothing stops us from using voice chat outside of the game; and we can do so for free. Integration like that would require licensing from the originating company and would up the price considerably.

Trenloe
September 26th, 2012, 03:35
Nothing stops us from using voice chat outside of the game; and we can do so for free.
And we do now - using all sorts of products (GMs preference), including the community provided TeamSpeak3 server.

Integration like that would require licensing from the originating company and would up the price considerably.
And would require Smiteworks to keep a voice server running for whichever voice chat product was used - again increasing cost.

Djmaxx
September 26th, 2012, 03:51
Thats why i mentioned Squiggle its free and i dosnt require a server it would run off the gms ip address

Djmaxx
September 26th, 2012, 03:54
i use Squiggle here at home to talk to each computer in the house and i have it setup so i can talk to my buddy down the road and if they merged it with FGII it would run off the gm's machine as long as the players had the update

damned
September 26th, 2012, 04:06
different players/gms have different access to bandwidth. the best thing about using a vent or ts server is that the gm doesnt have all that additional traffic to manage which can interfere with sharing of other in game elements.
it has been raised many times before and the developers preference is not to do voice - there are many perfectly good voice systems out there and it will take away valuable programming time...

phantomwhale
September 26th, 2012, 05:29
FGII is already bandwidth intensive in it's peer-to-peer traffic (there are always 1-2 people with slow upload speeds, no matter how fast your download speeds are; that's the old A of ADSL in action) - so another peer-to-peer bandwidth bolt on wouldn't be a great architectural add on from my perspective.

I play with people 8,500 miles away, and have found the community TS server superb, much better than Skype and a bit better than the free mumble server I was using before. Given the complexity of solutions here, and the lack of "one size fits all" solution, I suspect the effort required to develop VoIP inside the application would be a poor move, compared to focusing on some of the core product areas where FGII is lacking (e.g. image functionality, wider ruleset upgrade support and GUI enhancements).

Just my 2 cents...
(-PW-)

Griogre
September 26th, 2012, 18:36
As has been mentioned, this has been debated before. There are far more failures of adding voice to apps than successful ones. Its a specialized field plus a bandwidth hog if its not done right. I'd much rather FG development time be spent on FG rather than re-inventing the wheel on VoIP. It be different if there weren't so many good VoIP solutions already out there.

Djmaxx
September 26th, 2012, 19:57
Well i have been playing around with the Squiggle app and cause it is a open source program i am able to look at the core structure of the program and it dont look like it would affect the traffic as much as you say it would plus it would give FG2 its on IM service if done right. That would allow people to chat out side of the game and out side of the forums.

Its just a idea that i dont think should be tossed aside so quick

NeoFax
September 29th, 2012, 03:43
While I think VoIP software should remain seperate, Mumble is open source and you can run your own server or a free one on the internet.

Blackfoot
October 2nd, 2012, 20:54
I can't say that I dispute that an integrated voice program would be a 'cleaner' solution to the end user.. but the problems with making that happen probably make it a pretty low priority since, as mentioned, there are already plenty of non-resource consuming ways to handle it right now... including the program you have been playing around with.

As as side note: I've been very happy with the new TS3 community server. I find it works much better than Ventrillo, Mumble, or Skype in terms of total features available and quality of delivery. Go Dakadin!

drvolk
October 11th, 2012, 12:21
In my opinion it could be a good compromise to implement some kind of plugin interface, with which you could for example plugin an external Voice-Chat Software.

The advantage of that solution may be for example a (better) integration of the controls for the voice chat within the FG2 Desktop.

damned
October 11th, 2012, 13:12
once agin - it probably would be nice but there is still a lot of work to do and which voice client do you choose? and then they do an upgrade and it breaks something else? still its a nice idea but its probably still not a priority.... :)

JohnD
October 11th, 2012, 18:37
In my opinion it could be a good compromise to implement some kind of plugin interface, with which you could for example plugin an external Voice-Chat Software.

The advantage of that solution may be for example a (better) integration of the controls for the voice chat within the FG2 Desktop.
I don't understand why anyone would "need" this.

There are applications mentioned in this very thread that all work in tandem with FG and play nicely.

Each of these solutions are easily downloaded, installed and configured; your biggest concern is getting audio levels right and choosing push-to-talk vs open microphone - all of which can be done within the application itself.

In principle this is a decent idea. In practice it would be a lot of work to integrate (taking away from other refinements) and add to the cost of purchase (Smiteworks would have to license the application to use in a commercial product), potentially doing away with the free "demo" version.