Vent or Team speak?

[Tziva]

How is Mumble a pain in the ass to setup? It's simple as shit. Go through a few dialogs in the config wizard. Honestly Ventrilo would be 1000x better if they had the config wizard pop up on first run or every run until you set it up -_-.

It's not difficult, but it's not as simple as installing the client and then just entering the server info. You have to use the little wizard to set up your sound and generate a certificate and register or whatever (been awhile since I set mine up), which is not intuitive and requires a little bit of explanation.

It's also irritating if you've did have it at one point but lost it and didn't back up the certificate for whatever reason, which I discovered after my drive bricked and I couldn't get back into my guild's server.

Again, I'm not saying it's hard to do -- it's not -- but even something as little as having to read a setup guide or run through a wizard is going to turn people off who are used to being able to jump right into using their voice chat clients after a five second software install. I can see why some guilds, especially those that run a lot of PuGs, may feel like it could be a roadblock for filling spots and would rather stick with what is most common on their server.

And people won't have Mumble if pugs don't make them get it.

I'm not on a crusade to convert people to Mumble. It's my personal preference, but I don't feel like I need to be on a mission to force people to use it.

[Arbs]

I vote for Raidcall

[TJ]

When I was using them, Vent was a million times better.

[Mackeyser]

As a former network/multimedia engineer and GM, I fully endorse Mumble.

Why?

Speex Codec by default. That allows all players on all platforms to by default communicate without additional configuration. Ventrillo servers can be configured using other codecs. If that happens, Mac users cannot connect which can result in loss of players. Considering that these communication tools are meant to connect people, the last thing it should do is get in the way of that. And yet, I as a Mac user have had to leave a raid as top dps because the raid's Vent was a codec other than Speex.

Low latency. Much moreso than Vent, Mumble has very low latency and that latency does NOT increase when multiple people start talking. That's key when things get dodgy on progression fights and the channel gets a little filled with voices. You may want to say "quiet", but you don't HAVE to say "quiet on Vent" like you had to because lots of voices on Vent caused such lag that call outs would just end up late or missed.

Variable Bandwidth. Mumble allows the user to allocate as much bandwidth as they choose to the application up to a certain limit. Thus, if someone is playing on crap internet, they can sound like a robot, but can still play lag free (not really an option with vent), but if they have FiOS they can crank up the bits and everything can be crystal clear. Point being that the user can fairly easily adjust that based on their internet.

Audio settings. Mumble allows users to adjust both the audio in and the audio out with a "walkthrough" process that's quick and easy and gives good, solid feedback. As well, you have the option of a "feedback loop". That means, if you play with headphones, you have the option to hear yourself speak in the headphones. Some folks need that so that they don't accidentally start shouting if they use closed headphones (the kind the block outside sounds. Think cans like Beats with solid backs. I use Beyerdynamics DT770 Pro 80 ohm versions and sometimes when I forget the feedback loop, I do shout and don't realize it).

That's my professional take.

Why wouldn't I endorse Skype? Well, depends on your guild. Skype is fine if everyone in your guild has the resources.

But as a GM, I not only have to think of who's in the guild today, but who I might recruit tomorrow. Do I want to limit who I recruit? Most servers already have hard enough times with recruitment. Do I want to add "must have sweet gaming rig that can handle Skype that won't lag WoW" to the list?

Yeah, I don't. Which is why I take Mumble over Skype. But that's the only reason.

Oh, and everyone...seriously, Push-to-Talk is your friend. Unless you have your mic set to nearly dead, live alone and never eat or drink at your computer, save everyone the heartache. It ends badly, trust me. You're going to drive us crazy with your heavy breathing, sniffing, snorting, clicking, wheezing, hacking, coughing, sneezing, or chewing. Whether that's before or after your significant other decides to completely melt down...loudly, so that everyone in guild can hear why you'll miss tonight's raid and why 8 people just typed "/popcorn" in guild chat, I dunno that it will matter.

Just take it from Uncle Mack: Pust-to-Talk is your friend. On Mumble.

[Deleted]

Always used vent and still do.

[Blivy]

Mumble

[Dukenukem]

TS above all, Vastly superior in configurating server. Mumble is mess and VT server just dont seem to have any client rights at all to customize.
From normal raider/user I can see there is little to no difference between Mumb and TS and try to run your own server/s and rent them you will go crazy with mumble.

btw. TS implemented a nice feature called temporary password, you can set it for any time length and let pug join your server without leting them to permanently use the server afterwards. (and still keep your password to server unchanged)

[GKLeatherCraft]

Vent, Don't care if it's better or not, It's what I'm used too so I'm sticking to it

[dokilar]

ive never particularly enjoyed ts quality so i guess vent. i also dont care for mumble, actually if its just going to be a few of us guildies i much rather prefer skype lol

[Deleted]

People still use vent?

Yeah, do they?
I thought vent hasnt been updated properly since like 2006 or some s*** like that. I mean yeah maybe patches to fix some small bugs and add W8-7 supports but it hasnt changed like TS has. And Mumble is better anyway.

I find it hilarious that some people use skype.
This is a video game, not a long distance relationship.

I..just. No words man. No words.

[Valium104]

Mumble, of course.

[Deleted]

mumble is cheaper than vent, has better sound quality and less latency. vent is worse in every way possible (in terms of how it works technically) <fact.

[Irielle]

I vote for Raidcall

Is raid call relatively new? I've never heard of it. We currently use Mumble and have found it to be far better than vent. No experience with TS.

[Aeriscats]

Mumble
^^^

[RoKPaNda]

Mumble > Vent = RaidCall > TS. Even with all the improvements to TS, I personally still prefer Ventrilo. It hasn't had as many updates as TS, but honestly don't fix what isn't broken.

[Deleted]

Teamspeak 3.0 has been preferred by pretty much all our raiders ever since they got used to the uses of it. It offers so much more and quality is great.

[Mormolyce]

Alright, I joined a lvl 25 guild on an alt of mine. Immediately someone goes out to say, Please download teamspeak and talk with us! So my natural response is. People still use teamspeak? So this person goes on to whisper me why Teamspeak is better than vent.

You join a guild that uses Teamspeak!
Guildy: "Download Teamspeak so you can talk to us!"
You: "People use Teamspeak?"
Guildy: "Teamspeak is way better than Vent!"


You join a guild that uses Mumble!
Guildy: "Download Mumble so you can talk to us!"
You: "People use Mumble?"
Guildy: "Mumble is way better than Vent!"


You join a guild that uses Skype!
Guildy: "Download Skype so you can talk to us!"
You: "People use Skype in games?"
Guildy: "Skype is way better than Vent!"


You join a guild that uses Vent!
Guildy: "Download Vent so you can talk to us!"
You: "I already have it. Duh."


Moral of the story: guilds use whatever they feel like and everyone is convinced theirs is superior. In the real world they each have their ups and downs but ultimately it doesn't matter. I will say this though: Vent's UI and layout is disgusting. The ONLY feature I ever use is adjusting individual volumes manually (which I have to do every time I join a new Vent server) and it's buried in ridiculously obscure menus. Who designed that damn thing?

[Nzonic]

I'll choose ventrillo because it is easier to use and configure compared to teamspeak.

[Dukenukem]

I'll choose ventrillo because it is easier to use and configure compared to teamspeak.

This is purely based on persons experience. I can setup TS3 client in 30 seconds on almost any machine/system that have some reasonable audio card drivers installed.

[majesta]

Mumble has one flaw. Robot voice when someone gets hit by lag.