Is your guild switching to discord?

[Deleted]

I won't touch discord ever again.

[Mendzia]

Been using TS for many years and i do not see point of changing it.

[Jadeddemon]

I was venomously against Discord for months. I was tired and irritated at all of the people who constantly asked me to use it. I kept having sound/voice issues, etc. One day I finally sat down and messed with it enough that I decided to try a test server run for my guild. Annnnd we've been using it ever since. I've always found it hard to get out guilds to use websites, but everyone is using Discord everyday. We have a channel for raid information, logs, sign ups, absences. We have several voice channels. We run 20-3m raids 2-3 times a week and we don't have voice issues, other than reverb. But that's because some people use speakers. We don't allow voice activity but in one channel, to cut down on the random chatter. Being able to group members by tags and ranks or giving one specific member access to to post in the news channel is so great. Being able to stay in easier contact with the guild though mobile connection is wonderful. Someone's always online talking, even if they aren't online playing. We all play different games as well, and can still hang out and chat. Dunno. I like it. I'll swear by it. It's pretty freakin great imo. (The issues they were having yesterday not withstanding) - Those were the first issues I'd had in the 6 months I've used it.

[Raiju]

"competitive voice com" ... Are you playing with musicians or what? btw the bitrate is changeable in the app.

It's not competing in terms of voice communication with the 2 high quality voice coms marketing to the same audience - Mumble & Teamspeak. It's missing key features for many like allowing people to just host their own server rather than relying on discords (frankly, quite poor & limited) server options. Other features? Great. The quality for a psuedo public server? Yeah pretty great. Compared to private hosting? No it noticeably falls short.

I'm aware the bitrate is changeable, at max it is very close to mumble, but then it still has server silencing issues prevalent across dozens of people I've played with (on dozens of separate discord instances)

[Jargathnan]

We transitioned over to Discord at the beginning of Legion and it has gone well thus far. As raid lead I rather enjoy it, as I can leverage the chat functionality for strat discussions/recaps, linking to pertinent information such as logs, etc. It also ties the guild closer, as many of our members will chat via Discord with each other throughout the day. I know I have it running a work myself.

Since we've transitioned I cannot think of a single problem we've had.

[Zafu]

Myself and my officers have been ardent Mumble (for Cataclysm) & Teamspeak (since) users for as long as we have raided together.

While Mumble was initially our voice communication of choice because of the overlay feature and superior audio quality, we ended up swapping to Teamspeak and sticking with it after some in-raid issues we experienced with our Mumble provider. It was an accidental switch, but the permissions system and Teamspeak's overall ease-of-use was one of the key motivators here.

All that said, I was against swapping to Discord for various reasons; one in particular simply being my preconception that a free service that provides limited hosting options could never be as good or reliable as a hosted service such as TS3. With Teamspeak, myself and my guild were comfortable with the permissions structure, the quality of service provided by our chosen host and the fact that we had relatively few issues with user setup or lag.

It was only in Legion that we started to encounter some of the shortfalls of Teamspeak in comparison to Discord. Discord provides an incredibly convenient way to create an organised community that our raiders can access on the go. We all know that checking guild forums is the correct way to keep up to date, but realistically how often is a raider going to be checking those in comparison to having a well-developed, free to download application that provides constant notifications throughout the day. This was the biggest draw; the idea that Discord can keep our raid team in (relatively) instantaneous contact with each other if there are ever any issues or questions. It eliminated our need for an absence board, a WhatsApp group, or a Guild Facebook page, because raiders can simply post in the appropriate text chat channel, or hop onto voice communications to catch and officer during their lunch break or if they are having connection issues on their PC.

It has eliminated our need to have raiders 'sign up' to multiple areas too - we post our logs directly to the respective chat channel, eliminating some of the need to sign up to join the guild on WCL, we had no need for a Facebook sign up, or a website sign up. Everyone is already registered, because we are using the service daily for raids and dungeons. Absolutely, you can enforce sign ups to these other services, but Discord removes all that hassle, which is ultimately the reason it became such an attractive option for us.

That said, there is one major drawback. As mentioned above, not being able to select a hosting partner outside of the ones provided by Discord causes some concern; as we experienced last night as Russian servers went live, there was unavoidable downtime because our hosting provider was everyone's hosting provider. Really though, this is the first time I have experienced any form of connection issue and hopefully one of the last. I probably wouldn't have even mentioned this concern if it weren't for the issues we had yesterday, though, so I suppose I should take it a little easy as this was a big launch for Discord as a service and all-in-all it was handled well.

The only other issue I have (and trust me, it is minor) is that there are some un-intuitive aspects to the user interface. These aren't things you can't get used to, by any means, but I think if Discord were to have a bit of a redesign it might help, with particular relation to the permissions system and the voice chat setup.

To sum up, it's convenient, it's connected and it's a great replacement for the more traditional (and dare I say, old fashioned) guild website. Quality is superb, stability is impressive and it's free.

Drawbacks are the lack of third party hosting options and minor issues with the user interface. Oh, and it loads on startup by default. That's annoying, let me choose that first.

All in all, we won't be going back!

[Orangetai420]

IMO any guild that hasn't switched over is just behind the times. With Discord guild websites are quickly becoming a thing of the past. It's so much nicer having a forum-like community right in your VOIP. Do the others have a mobile app? It's super convenient being able to log in on my phone and get in touch with the guild discord - not everyone is in gchat (for mobile armory app) a couple hours before raid, it is nice to have another option. Not to mention you can leave a message in discord and someone will see it eventually, the same can't be said for mobile gchat.

The only thing I don't like about Discord is that I couldn't find a place to test my voice / PTT.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and it loads on startup by default. That's annoying, let me choose that first.

All in all, we won't be going back!

This is easily changed TBH, shouldn't even be listed. (Right click on the icon in the bottom right tool bar)

[ItachiZaku]

i know you are trolling

Not at all, roommate tried it once and it worked great, added in a few others the next time we did something and again, perfectly fine. It's been our only app unless rolling with some Hydra PVP.

[Deleted]

It's not competing in terms of voice communication with the 2 high quality voice coms marketing to the same audience - Mumble & Teamspeak. It's missing key features for many like allowing people to just host their own server rather than relying on discords (frankly, quite poor & limited) server options. Other features? Great. The quality for a psuedo public server? Yeah pretty great. Compared to private hosting? No it noticeably falls short.

I'm aware the bitrate is changeable, at max it is very close to mumble, but then it still has server silencing issues prevalent across dozens of people I've played with (on dozens of separate discord instances)

Except when a server goes down in Discord, you just change server. When your Mumble and TS server goes down, you're fucked until THEY decide to get it back up.

[Raiju]

Except when a server goes down in Discord, you just change server. When your Mumble and TS server goes down, you're fucked until THEY decide to get it back up.

Who's they? You host it yourself or with reliable hosts (The host I used before we went inhouse had 1 down in 3 years of service for <30 mins), and discords problems happen frequently for some people - we had 6 people getting silenced across 3 servers within a 2 hour timeframe.

A guild I chat with has the issue once per night on average. I don't get how it's not a dealbreaker for people.

[saradonin]

Discord has a lot of potential to be a great app. We used it for a while and most of us were pleased with the sound quality and the features like nicely looking chat and in-game overlay. It looks like 10 yeard ahead of the competition - clean and simple.
Unfortunataly we noticed it sometimes caused lags for core members of our humble raid group and the server connection wasn't stable enough, so we went back to TS for the time being. I'd be happy to try it again when they fix it, but it's out of the question with its current issues.

[Emerald Archer]

Atm, in the guild I'm in, if you app to us, and don't get some of your class information from your classes discord, you're getting declined. (Bar a couple specs, very few and even then you should be in the discord) So because any half decent player would already be on discord, it just makes sense to use it too. Atleast have one set up and don't use the voice.

But honestly the voice chat is good, it's excellent quality and better than teamspeak from my perspective. I've heard a few isolated cases of people having issues with the quality, but that seems to be something on their end, or someone having fucked with the channel settings to reduce quality. It's easily better than the TS i've used, all 6 of them.

[Deleted]

Who's they? You host it yourself or with reliable hosts (The host I used before we went inhouse had 1 down in 3 years of service for <30 mins), and discords problems happen frequently for some people - we had 6 people getting silenced across 3 servers within a 2 hour timeframe.

A guild I chat with has the issue once per night on average. I don't get how it's not a dealbreaker for people.

Getting silenced across servers? What is this? Once per night? Sounds like personal issues that no one has whatsoever apart from them, because this has never happened on any disc server i've been on for over a year.

[Raiju]

Getting silenced across servers? What is this? Once per night? Sounds like personal issues that no one has whatsoever apart from them, because this has never happened on any disc server i've been on for over a year.

Oh yeah, personal issues happening across multiple guilds across multiple computers across multiple discord servers across multiple countries.

Definitely a personal issue, one that isn't replicated with any other voice com (and is fixed temporarily by switching discord server)

[Emerald Archer]

Oh yeah, personal issues happening across multiple guilds across multiple computers across multiple discord servers across multiple countries.

Definitely a personal issue, one that isn't replicated with any other voice com (and is fixed temporarily by switching discord server)

Yeah.. dude that's an extremely rare issue. I'm in a few discord communities, one with about 20 people, another with 100, and one with 10k, that I actively chat in. Never ever heard that issue from anyone at all. Sounds like poor luck.

The majority of guilds which test out discord, have a very smooth experience and quickly discover how superior it is to teamspeak in pretty much every way.

[Deleted]

Had increasing problems with Discord as of late. Things like others not being able to hear me until I restart Discord (works fine over TS so it's not the headset), random disconnects for everyone involved and audio quality dropping randomly for short periods.

TS feels a lot more reliable atm.

[zaino]

our guild leader wont swap to it from mumble for some reason

its pretty frustrating

[Fabinas]

our guild leader wont swap to it from mumble for some reason

its pretty frustrating

Your guild leader is a wise man. Leave your guild for ones they demand it. Both guilds will be happier.

[Aoyi]

My guild is using Discord and haven't run into many issues with it. I've used Vent, Teamspeak, and Mumble in the past, but personally, I don't care which we use as long as we can communicate.

[Tarinor]

Had increasing problems with Discord as of late. Things like others not being able to hear me until I restart Discord (works fine over TS so it's not the headset), random disconnects for everyone involved and audio quality dropping randomly for short periods.

TS feels a lot more reliable atm.

My new guild uses Discord for raiding,so i switched from TS a few weeks ago, got similar problems (especially with others not being able to hear me), never had this problems with TS :/