[MUD-Dev] PvP and teamspeak?

[szii at sziisoft.com]

Ola Fosheim Grostad wrote:

> Is it common for PvP oriented teams to require teamspeak? I
> suppose it could be a real advantage when you coordinate PvP
> actions. Still, they say they aim for around 70 members. How do
> such guilds organize their fighting given the bandwidth issues?
> Any ideas? I imagine that you could set up teams with teamspeak
> and then have the teamleader using text chat to coordinate.

Teamspeak has a "cross channel" feature where each channel's admin
can hear other channel admins.  This allows the group leaders to
coordinate and relay to their teams.

Ventrilo, a competing product, will actually mesh the voice streams
and has a little bit better quality for the same bandwidth.  (We use
16kbps codecs.)

We use Ventrilo, and have a 100 user license.  It's not too bad and
during combat it's "Clear Channel!"  Then only the group leads are
talking.  Violate the rules and you're admin-kicked or force-muted.

The rest of the time it's usually just a few people talking (less
than 10 usually) and it's not as bad as you'd think.  You do get the
interrupts and voxovers and such, but it's definately workable.

These days you HAVE to use something like this to be competitive.
Whether it's Shadowbane, WoW, CounterStrike, or anything else.  Not
only does it allow you to issue commands muchmuch quicker
(especially when it's a long command-strike-that-new-orders) but
it's also not tied to the game.  If the gameserver dies, you're
still in the TS/Vent room.  Sometimes people drop in to say hi since
they don't have time to sit down, fire up/join a game and try to use
text.

There are downsides.  For example, in CounterStrike some servers
allow dead-people to roam around and watch the rest of the game
until the end of the round.  One "roamer" in TS/Vent relaying
positions and it's basically cheating.  In Shadowbane you have to
"Click here to respawn."  This allows a dead person to NOT click it
and still be able to see the local view.  Troop positions, makeup,
direction of travel etc can all be relayed via TS/Vent.  Also, in
games like Shadowbane people stop paying as much attention to
Nation/Guild chat-type features.  This leads to a functional
separation between the "haves" and the "have nots."  This is the
basis for why they say "you must have X voip program."  A lot of bad
feelings start flying when people feel like they're being ignored.

Unfortunately, it's here to stay.  Best hope is that the designers
take its use (and potential misuses) into account.

-Mike/Szii
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