Voice Comms Queries

[Alethioandy]

Howdy folks.
Vizier here, recently promoted to Deputy GM of a very old guild, and in charge of a currently very successful resurrection process.
We've managed to get our member pool back up to a decent size and got some great people on board. Our website is back up and running and what not too.
We're starting our Raid schedule next week for the first time and we're really looking forward to it.
However, at the minute, we're looking at options for Voice Comms.
We're not too keen on using the in game channels, for obvious reasons. And while we're all experienced being users of voice comm software before now, none of us have ever arranged hosts or anything.

So does anyone have any recommendations for hosting or services to use?
We'd be looking for around 30 slots I imagine, with the option to have multiple “rooms” or “channels” in the server, so we can join different rooms if there were two raids at the same time etc.

If anyone has any comments, they'll all be greatly received.

Thanks in advance,
Vizier

[Deleted]

I went through the same decision process 2 years ago. It would help to know if you are US or EU (sounds US based on language) but if you are EU, check out lightspeed. We used them to host our ventrilo and it works well.

I think it also depends what technology you want to use. We opted for vent since we run alt runs at times and tried to pick a common voice comm to get people on vent rather than having them set up mumble, for example.

[Alethioandy]

Hi Santa,

Thanks for the reply.
Sorry, no, we're EU based. The howdy is just an awful habit I've picked up somewhere. :S
How is Lightspeed cost wise, fair prices?

I think Vent or TS3 is going to be the winner to be honest. I've tried setting up a Mumble server the other day, and it just seems to be a lot of messing around for very little gain.
That, and those two seem to be significantly more widely known.

Does Lightspeed support multiple channels within the server, so there's multiple voice chats going on at the same time?

[khalltusk]

Mumble is great but is kinda tricky when you first play around with it.
Team speaks pretty good as well and not hard to setup
vents the easier to play around with but is very basic.

i've used all 3 and not really had any issues with either. I am using multiplay.co.uk as my host never really had any problems tbh.

[Alethioandy]

Hi Khall, thanks for replying.

I've heard the same about Mumble, really good things about the quality and stuff.
Maybe it's just my first impressions, as I was tired at the time while trying to set it up, and it looks very......open source, if that makes sense.
I've literally just found out I was going about the admin side of it the wrong way too, so may give it another go later this evening.
How are Multiplay cost wise?

Just really looking forward to getting back into raiding to be honest, been on a break since later WotLK, so it's really exciting to think about some decent group activity once again.

[Dariela]

Mumble is simply the best, from a quality standpoint. It does have a learning curve, but once you learn it isn't bad at all.

The only con with Mumble is getting PuGs into it. "What is the password?" "There is no password, its Mumble, you can't log in with your Vent client" "What is the password? It won't let me in!" "Your trying to use the Vent client, that won't work!" "What is the password, the Vent won't let me in!"...

[ashin]

Mumble is the best voice software you can use, and very few people will argue that. Vent is very outdated at this point with its 1 to 2 second latency and poor voice quality.

That said, Mumble does have a learning curve and can create a burden if you pug frequently.

[Alethioandy]

Sounds good, I'll just have to put a couple of hours into tinkering with it tonight, and see what I can come up with.
Does Mumble support multiple channels on the same server?

It won't be used for PuG's anyway, will only be a group utility, so that's isn't a huge worry, as once I've got it down I can create a step by step guide for the guild folk on our website.

[Dariela]

Sounds good, I'll just have to put a couple of hours into tinkering with it tonight, and see what I can come up with.
Does Mumble support multiple channels on the same server?

It won't be used for PuG's anyway, will only be a group utility, so that's isn't a huge worry, as once I've got it down I can create a step by step guide for the guild folk on our website.

Yes, you can set up many channels on the same server. Mumble's access control lists and certificates allow for some rather complex channels, as well, if you want to make a room for officers only or healers only or what have you. Of course, the more complex you make it, the more work the admins need to do to keep it organized.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Teamspeak is free up to 250 slots if you host it yourself, has hardly any delay, you can setup temporary passwords in case you ever want to bring randoms on the TS (password is only valid for a certain amount of time that you choose). Server/channel permissions are totally customisable too. And if you ever need to ban somebody, you can ban the unique ID associated with their teamspeak installation, so even if they change their IP address, the ban is still upheld.

[Alethioandy]

Hi Butler,
Thanks for the insight into TS3.
As much as I'd absolutely love the chance to host the server myself, and avoid the cost, there's no way my bandwidth could cope with hosting that while at the same time raiding.

And thanks for the tips Dariela, I'll look into the certificates stuff later, as I would like officer only rooms and stuff too, so that's really good to hear.

[Deleted]

Hey - i found prices generally to be pretty comparable. We settled on lightspeed because of server location for our guildies.

IN terms of quality, we have not have any unplanned downtime and there was only a 12 hour stint of downtime when they were doing some shit or the other. Yes the rooms / layout are fully customizable, so we have a general channel, a raiding channel, 3 PVP/arena channels and then a password protected channel for officers to discuss which trials we want to kick!!!

[ashin]

TS3 is also solid. However, I found it was overly complicated from the admin standpoint (my god that permission system is insane).

I also feel there is more movement toward Mumble, and I'm all for setting any new standard apart from Vent. So I went with Mumble.