[MUD-Dev] PvP and teamspeak?

[Corey Crawford]

Ola Fosheim Grøstad 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.

It is very common. I normally play PvP in the MMOs I play: With my
corp in EVE Online, Teamspeak it is a requirement to go into
unsecured (pvp) space. In SWG we generally had 30-40 people on
Ventrilo (another voice chat program) when doing PvP raids or base
defense.

Bandwidth issues aren't a problem - only one person speaks at a time
(generally). Usually it's the leader giving directions with the
occasional 'hey there's a rebel over here!' calls.

There are companies out there that lease out Teamspeak servers (like
the one my EVE corp uses), so they don't have to worry about
bandwidth running out on some players machine. Even then, low
bitrate (64k?) voice transmission doesn't take a lot of bandwidth
and we're all on broadband these days, aren't we? ;)

If you are talking server-side for an MMO, you don't need the server
to handle the communications. The way these programs handle it is
Peer-to-Peer, they simply dictate who's in what room (access
control) and who can hear who.

Counter-Strike has almost always had built-in Voice Communication
and it's a PvP only game (though not stateful). Games of 16 vs 16
are fairly normal.

> This kind of situation makes PvP game designs rather impossible to
> balance for non-hardcore without either making defense much eaiser
> than attack or introducing some kind of artificial handicaps based
> on ratings etc. The most bothersome thing seems to be that the
> advantages of teamspeak and a professional organization structure
> isn't really represented in the server database.

I don't see why this is a "bothersome thing". If you are playing a
PvP game you will more than likely have voice chat. Why would you
handicap a team simply because they coordinate their efforts? With
that thinking you should also handicap people who practice, who have
played longer than the other person, and have changed their keymaps
to make it easier to change weapons.

If you really see it as a problem (I still don't) then introduce
built-in voice chat ala Counter-Strike. But then, are you going to
handicap one team if they use it and the other team doesn't?

Casual PvP players would not be handicapped by people using voice
chat, especially if it was built into the game (they could still
hear the chat if not participate in it). Guild Wars is a good
example of casual PvP, while it would work well to have built-in
voice chat with your (random) teammates when entering an arena, but
it's not required to have a good time.

Isn't the point of PvP to have competition? IMHO, reducing everyone
to the lowest common denominator is not the way to go. You'll just
lose everyone who plays the game well (and thus the heaviest
supporters).

--
  Corey Crawford
  ccrawford at seventh.net
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