What's your voice comm system of choice?
by Brian Cutaia 
Mar 9th 2011 at 7:00PM
It was before my time, but I still hear nostalgic stories about how TeamSpeak was once the voice communication service of choice for MMO gamers. Barring a few potential holdouts -- who I must assume are raiding from nondescript shacks in the mountains of Montana -- there's been a very clear sea change that has placed Ventrilo quite comfortably at the top of the heap. If you raid, chances are you have Vent.
Like its predecessors, though, Vent has competitors of its own vying to overthrow the current king of speech. Perhaps the one getting the most attention right now is Mumble, which boasts low latency, clear sound, and the pseudo-celebrity endorsements of more than a few WoW Insider staffers.
Personally, my guild started using Mumble a few months ago and hasn't looked back. Now, this is partly because one of my officers pimps it out like she's getting paid, but mostly because so many of the guildies just plain think it's better. We've run into some problems -- mainly with installation or getting the not-always-intuitive client to work properly -- but for better or worse, it looks like we've been transformed into a Mumble guild. We've even started requesting that puggies download it before raids, promising them that they'll never again want to return to Ventrilo.
So, have you tried Mumble yet, either of your own volition or due to peer (to peer) pressure? Did you feel like there were benefits, or did you find yourself missing Vent? Do you think it will ever become as ubiquitous as Vent or will it eventually fade into obscurity? Most importantly, what will you Vent loyalists do the next time you enter a raid and the leader sends you their Mumble info?
| Mumble | |
|---|---|
| TeamSpeak | |
| Ventrilo | |
| In-game voice system |
Filed under: Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Saltypoison Mar 9th 2011 7:02PM
Two big thumbs up for Mumble.
Attenuation FTW!
Fragments Mar 9th 2011 9:24PM
I can't imagine permanently going back to non-attenuated voice programs. I use Mumble whenever I can (due to being able to use free servers, for one example, a local ISP here in Australia offers a free 500 or 1000-slot server (something massive) solely for games - check out games.on.net) and swapping back to Ventrilo makes me super sad because I have to turn game sounds down to like 10% and Winamp down to like 5%. With Mumble up I just leave everything super loud and it just gets near-muted when someone needs to talk.
I also can't live without the way Mumble automatically compensates people's volume via the Speex codec (which Ventrilo uses but doesn't utilize the full power of), nor their ability to trigger a microphone off a signal-to-noise ratio. I can never, ever quite get an amplitude voice activation to work just right 100% of the time for me, with signal-to-noise, it just magically works (after a small amount of tweaking - less than figuring out the ideal amplitude) whenever I'm actually talking, regardless of how loud I talk.
I go back to Ventrilo and I hear my mic go off every time I sigh just a little bit too loudly. And then there are times when I'm mid-sentence and I hear the mic close because I wasn't talking *quite* loudly enough.
I just really hate Ventrilo after getting used to Mumble.
kebosangar Mar 9th 2011 10:23PM
What the person just said above.
Voice normalization is just too good to pass up. No more "that guy who speaks too loud/too low" anymore!
Also the low latency is just crazy. When our guild got Mumble, we tried it by watching the same TV show and see if the sound sync and OMG wow very surprised with our little experiment on mumble's performance.
Also new in their ver 1.2.3 you can have voice priority so raid leaders don't need to shout the loudest anymore.
And we haven't had any problem with pugs when we requested for them to use it. All of them had no problem installing and setting it up (with a few that needs extra attention).
Zhev Mar 9th 2011 10:52PM
I was gonna try out mumble... but I couldn't figure out how to set it up/where to get a server. =S
Sleutel Mar 9th 2011 11:35PM
My current guild uses Mumble and I never, ever want to go back to Vent. Better sound quality + no/low latency + attenuation + overlay + auto-leveling of volume = YES PLEASE.
potatoboy Mar 10th 2011 12:46AM
Love mumble. Hate switching to Vent for pugging. You can run mumble on your own server if you have access to install it. Mumble hosts are ridiculously cheap compared to vent servers if you don't have your own. There are plenty of free servers that are good to jump into with a guild mate or two just to test. Once you run the setup wizard and tune the auto speak or set up your PTT key, then you're done. No messing with volume levels. The newest version even does multi or single track recording which could be used for kill videos. I'm on the DX11 WoW client, so i miss my overlays, but I really think the only reason Mumble isn't killing vent is apathy.
Elmouth Mar 10th 2011 1:42PM
Let's see, what sounds better? Get on my vent? Or Get on my Mum?
I'm gonna stick with Ventrilo.
Mauddib Mar 11th 2011 3:22AM
We recently switched to mumble from vent and so far, we are pretty happy. The only issues I have that I have are:
1) In vent, I could have a password protected channel and if I pulled someone in, they could speak. In mumble, from what I can tell, they have to be given permission to enter on their own to be able to hear/speak.
2) Overall, the interface isn't as 'nice' and 'refined' as Vent's, but it isn't terribad.
3) The skwaking...ow, the skwaking.
4) There isn't as much documentation that is as easy to find for Mumble.
If anyone has any heads up on any of the above, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Corath Mar 9th 2011 7:06PM
Our guild switched to Mumble a little while back, and I'm so very glad we did. The quality and features available are so very much better than Ventrilo.
Invader Zog Mar 9th 2011 7:36PM
Ditto. We signed up a Mumble server and never looked back. We keep our Ventrilo server around for hosted GDKPs/etc, but Ventrilo feels like the stone ages once you are setup on Mumble...
Saeadame Mar 9th 2011 7:06PM
I have downloaded mumble, but no one I know uses it, so I haven't even opened it yet. I'd like to try it out, but I'd need to have a situation where I need to.
Saeadame Mar 9th 2011 7:07PM
That last sentence are kind of redundant. I should read over comments before I add them...
Deathknighty Mar 9th 2011 7:12PM
While we're at it, that first sentence are kinda redundant too!
(To those who don't entirely undrstand what I'm saying, I'm being a grammar nazi, not a troll.
You know, actually, that's not much better. Hmph.)
Saeadame Mar 9th 2011 7:24PM
@Deathknighty - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vf8N6GpdM
Deathknighty Mar 9th 2011 8:12PM
Hehe, that was awesome, thanks for linking. :D
Celldweller Mar 9th 2011 9:11PM
The irony in Deathknighty's comment...it's just too great. This is how a true grammar nazi would respond.
"While we're at it, the first sentence was kind of redundant as well." - Even though it's not.
Deathknighty Mar 10th 2011 6:56AM
Well, actually, I was ironically highlighting the use of the word "are" to describe one sentence, but...yeah...as jokes go that was pretty horrendous. :/
Necromann Mar 9th 2011 7:07PM
The ingame voice system is the worst choice. The rest let you still communicate when you dc.
Marcosius Mar 9th 2011 8:12PM
Then again, when was the last time you DC'd in WoW? (Australians need not answer) Thing is, usually if I DC it means whole interwebz on my part has gone down, meaning nothing works. While the in-game systems do have their weak point such as losing contact if the game server croaks, they have the benefit of not having to download external programs for in-game conversation, in the case of Vent/TS usually from dubious sources - remember the infected Ventrilo scare year or so back?
Barthaes Mar 9th 2011 8:57PM
I was about to say twice last night before "Australians need not answer".
Awesome.