[MUD-Dev] PvP and teamspeak?

[Corey Cauble]

Mike Rozak Said:=20

> If teamspeak were integrated into a virtual world, what percentage
> of the players would use it? (Any guesses?) Would players use it
> strictly for PvP, or would they also use it for everyday chat? How
> important would voice-disguising algorithms be?

> Does anyone know how badly this would affect the server's
> bandwidth?  Example: In a VW a player sends one chat message (on
> average) every 30 seconds, and it's heard by 2 other players =3D>
> total chat messages bandwidth per second =3D # players * # heard /
> 30 seconds * audio size. I can guestimate the # of players and the
> message size, but I don't have a good feeling for the # of players
> that hear a message and how often each player sends a chat
> message. Does anyone have guestimated stats on this?

The actual bandwidth is pretty low overall. You can use different
codecs to lower the requirements. The average bandwidth is about
16kbps for acceptable sound quality. I would guess you would see
around 50%-75% of the people using it over time, as seen with games
like Counterstrike.  Most conversation is pretty short when using it
for guild type events, less than 5 seconds of speech and transmit
infrequently. General usage would probably increase the time to
somewhere around 10-15 seconds per participant. These users could
conceivably use a constant communication stream with as many as 5-10
people at once.=20

I have always intended to use voice in my game since the immersion
level would be much nicer. In my application I intend to use
distance and 3D positioning to "place" the sound within the game,
controlled by the server. This would require people to be in close
proximity to hear the voice and minimize the bandwidth requirements
even further (increasing immersion as well). Muting would be a
requirement to limit abusing the voice channel.

You could also add channels for guild/group conversation if you
wish, though I would do this only for logging/monitoring purposes,
unless your game has radio communication as well. Otherwise I say
let them pay for the additional bandwidth and control.

Since most games do not include voice, integration has some design
issues that would need to be resolved. Things like localization (ie
language/time barriers) and possibly voice modifications. This may
be a prime candidate for a 3rd party integrated app for those
interested ;)

Corey Cauble
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