Voice chat coming soon to the PTRs
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 23rd 2007 at 4:15PM
We missed it on Friday afternoon, but apparently voice chat is coming in 2.2. Previously, we'd heard that Zul'Aman and guild banks weren't showing up until 2.3, but there wasn't official word on when voice chat was arriving. PTR players have reported seeing a voicechat interface, but of course it hasn't been hooked up to any code yet.But Hortus now says we'll be seeing voice chat ingame sooner than we thought-- it will be coming soon to a PTR near you, and pending testing, should go live with 2.2. Wow. Blizzard must have done a lot of work on that behind the scenes, assuming that it is what they promise: a fully featured builtin voice chat client. Think it's coincidence that there have been a few sound bugs on the test realms lately?
Which means that at some point we'll have to ask this question: What will happen to Teamspeak and Ventrilo? There's a nice bit of industry there-- players pay for servers all over the place, and while each server is pretty cheap, altogether they add up to a nice chunk of change, I'm sure. My guess is that TS and Vent aren't going anywhere (because players are so used to them, and not just in WoW), but until we see what kind of interface Blizzard has created, we won't know if they're worth leaving or not. Seeing as it's the PTRs, we should get a chance to play with it soon.
[ via WorldofWar.net ]
Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, News items, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Karl Jul 23rd 2007 4:24PM
A few other games have built in VOIP as well (Battlefield 2 comes to mind), but TS, Vent and Skype are still more desirable than the in-game one. I am guessing PUGs will likely use the in-game, and guilds will still rely on their own servers.
Angael Jul 23rd 2007 6:07PM
Looking forward to gold spams over VOIP, and PuGs...
Seriously though, this sounds like a good idea. I just hope people don't abuse it and it doesn't become more of a problem than a benefit.
YPEELS40 Jul 23rd 2007 4:42PM
Haha.. So my question is... Can people report me for being a jerk or cursing on WoW voice chat? Theres no proof!
What about gold spammers?
Or the guy who just wont shut up
Corrodias Jul 23rd 2007 4:42PM
I agree. It's pretty handy to have a way to communicate with my guildmates that is not dependent on being in the game on a character. Sometimes we get disconnected from WoW, sometimes we're trying to organize raids or talk privately, and sometimes maybe people don't want to have to log in to talk to guildmates.
Johan Jul 23rd 2007 4:54PM
Honestly, the WoW chat system will be great for people who have no clue about vent/TS, but the robustness of your own server along with the customization of these servers will make them still dominate.
Kugala Jul 23rd 2007 4:58PM
Unless the WoW client is really robust, I don't see TS/Vent going away. One big reason, if you disconnect from WoW you lose voicechat. Yeah, one really handy thing with voicechat is for someone to say "I think I'm DCing" before a boss pull.
Plus, Vent has configurable rooms, a multitude of sound settings, and as mentioned before, doesn't require being logged in on a specific character or being grouped etc (Whatever restrictions are in place).
Genius Jones Jul 23rd 2007 5:28PM
This is an easy one. The people who care about being overheard and recorded by eavesdropping Blizzard CSMs, or who want to talk with friends who may or may not be playing WoW will stick with Vent/TS, and the rest will use the built-in client.
RogueJedi86 Jul 23rd 2007 5:27PM
But it seems logical that Blizz will have customizable VoiceChat channels too, so you can talk in guild, or in party.
Burgdorn Jul 23rd 2007 5:38PM
I think it is going to be a service that will be useful for organizing and accomplishing PUGs. Though for the most part Vent/TS will remain the guild tool of choice since they really have yet to even let you manage channels well in game. How would you expect them to suddenly add services vastly superior to ones they haven't even added yet.
piisexactly3 Jul 23rd 2007 6:37PM
I can't really justify having a TS/VENT monthly fee on top of WoW for the added benefit of 1) staying on vent when wow dc's, 2) being tinfoiled from the "evil Blizz eavesdroppers".
Vent/TS have always been issues for me when joining or looking for a guild b/c im on a mac and it's a pain to get the person in control of the vent/ts to switch it to the mac friendly settings.
For PvP and for PvE, being able to communicate verbally gives the people with vent/ts an upper hand over people without. I think although there is opportunity for abuse (gold spam), the overall benefit of Voip in wow is going to help the player base more than harm it.
BigRedPimp Jul 23rd 2007 6:59PM
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3565/wowscrnshot071507032755tl5.jpg
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/1470/wowscrnshot072007022212jr6.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9045/wowscrnshot072307155501rd8.jpg
All of the above are pics of the in-game voice windows that I had taken while playing around w/ some macros. It's nice to see the extent to which they're taking this.
Evil Sheep Jul 23rd 2007 7:05PM
I have a feeling our guild will treat this the same way we treated Voip in Half-Life games. We'll still have a TS server for being able to communicate whenever we want, but will use the Voip for instances and raids, especially PuGS.
Lori Jul 23rd 2007 7:52PM
@11 I didn't see a way to adjust others volume like Vent allows, or to mute them. Are these options available? Maybe the ingame VOIP automatically adjusts everyones volume but with Vent I need to adjust volumes for individuals.
BigRedPimp Jul 23rd 2007 8:02PM
@13 There's a Mute/Unmute option on the Chat frame per user in created channels. I haven't grouped on the PTR yet so I haven't been able to check the options available for party/raid/bg yet.
Shadowisp Jul 23rd 2007 9:34PM
I really all depends on how Blizz implements and codes voice chat... it may simply be poor mans chat system.
Also depends on how this lags, disconnects etc... If you DC from WoW, do you DC from Chat, can you log into chat without WoW. Vent and TS is superior, its independent of the WoW Client, hell you dont even need to be in the game to still be able to talk and chat to guildies.
I am paranoid about logging onto WoW from a public terminal in an internet cafe, if a hacker got his hand on my account he would shit a gold nugget... but I still can log into vent and say hi to my peeps :P
It may infact be a great interface and voice codec, but its still comes down to the implementation, and the drain on net resources.
God, implementation is going to be a nightmare... remember some patch days when you get 5 digit lag spikes. Think of that with every person saying "Hello can you hear me now" :(
Shadowisp Jul 23rd 2007 9:42PM
@11 Hell, if those screens are correct then its...
a) log into one only channel only.
b) No guild channels, you will need to custome setup them up yourself.
PuG People you run with will insist you join them in party, and think your arrogant if you stay in your guilds channel. Which means you have to ignore your guild for a pug party run... I wont like that one bit.
And how are blizz going to police Voice Chat, I dont want to be hearing heavy asian accents yelling "You buy my gold now, american dollars make you rich here."
Are there Parental Controls for Voice ? I dont think any parent wants to know thier kids are protected. When patch comes out, will clueless parents even know voice is in game ?
RogueJedi86 Jul 23rd 2007 10:07PM
@#16/Shadowisp
Of course it'd be one channel at once. Can you imagine trying to talk and listen to 2 chat channels at once? You couldn't do it, so of course it'd be one chat channel at once.
HolyLiaison Jul 24th 2007 4:46AM
@16
If you look at the channels listed in the screenshots there all that channels he's in.
The reason you see no guild channel in that screenshot is because he's not in a guild. :)
Theserene Jul 24th 2007 12:56PM
Our guild will be sticking with our teamspeak server.
Simply because we want a server that is totally separate from Blizzard's infrastructure. Not wise to put all your eggs in one basket.
And yeah, I also don't want some moron deciding to report us for swear words used on a Blizzard voice server.
bill gates Jul 24th 2007 2:05PM
WOOT