Video Chat question

[xerowing]

I am considering buying Fantasy Grounds. The problem is I see in these gameplay videos people playing with video chat. Although I have downloaded the demo and I couldn't find video chat any where. Is there video chat built into Fantasy Grounds or are they using a 3rd party software for that? Also how do you enable video chat if it is included in the software?

[Trenloe]

Video, or voice, is not included in the software. It is a design decision made by the developers that they'd rather concentrate on VTT functionality than implement and support a single voice/video client. There are many free solutions out there, and people have their own favourites, so I personally believe this is a good decision - use your preferred video solution (a lot of people use Google Hangouts, for example; others will use Skype, etc.) and leave Fantasy Grounds to do the VTT part.

[Griogre]

It should also be mentioned that if you buy on Steam you can use their voice chat program if everyone has Steam, or you can use the free FG Community TeamSpeak server.

[Bidmaron]

See this thread for a fairly full discussion of audio and video with FG2.

[xerowing]

Thanks for all the info. It wasn't emailing me when I got a reply so I just eventually decided to check and there were reply's.

[damned]

Oh it is emailing you but something is wrong and they are all being delayed... they will probably turn up sometime in the next week!

[ballan4]

I was wondering what was up with that.

[damned]

I reckon forum participation is done too as people more quickly respond when they see activity on threads they are following...

[Zeus]

Forum email notifications should be working again. Doug updated the vBulletin configuration so the emails should be getting forwarded immediately.

As for Voice Chat functionality, as Trenloe has stated, to date Smiteworks have opted to focus on delivering core VTT functionality leaving Voice comms (if required) to the many freely available VoIP platforms like TeamSpeak, Skype, etc. etc. Having said that, this may not always necessarily be the case. As you know we are currently looking at moving FG over to the Unity3D platform so I'd be interested to understand, if Voice Comms were to be considered for a future version of FG, exactly what kind of functionality you guys would value?

[Trenloe]

As for Voice Chat functionality, as Trenloe has stated, to date Smiteworks have opted to focus on delivering core VTT functionality leaving Voice comms (if required) to the many freely available VoIP platforms like TeamSpeak, Skype, etc. etc. Having said that, this may not always necessarily be the case. As you know we are currently looking at moving FG over to the Unity3D platform so I'd be interested to understand, if Voice Comms were to be considered for a future version of FG, exactly what kind of functionality you guys would value?

One thing I'd say would be the ability to connect to voice before connecting to the GM - so players can hangout while waiting for the GM, troubleshoot issues connecting to the campaign, etc. without actually being connected to the GM's campaign. This would also allow for conventions like FG Con where participants frequently hang-out in the voice channel between games.

Essentially I'm thinking of a server based solution - so the bandwidth upload from the GM especially is kept to a minimum, people can connect, talk/socialise, troubleshoot, etc. without the GM having a running instance of FG and the players needing to be connected to that instance of the GM campaign. Of course, the players would have to be at least running a copy of FG - even if not connected to a game at that point.

Other functionality could be: common/lobby area, ability to restrict access to the voice channel of a game, "kick" problem people, control voice quality (if someone is having an issue with a poor connection the bandwidth can be reduced, but good quality can be used if connections are stable), ability to create sub-channels (rooms) within the game voice channel so that the GM can have private discussions with one or more players without the others hearing, ability to have another instance of voice run on the GM PC so they can easily play background music/sound effects (or have a music/SFX plugin), voice comms keeps going if GM disconnects and also while players are connecting to the GM instance of FG.

Basically, what we have now with the community TeamSpeak3 server please.