Teamspeak/Skype for Raiding Guilds

Moogs, you and I already had this conversation but I'm with you. I won't ever join any of those voice programs. The way my brain works, I can process an incredibly large amount of written information at a time but I can't have audio and voice input (other than the random audio trigger) at the same time. I physically can only handle one or the other.

And not for lack of trying either. It's just the way my brain is hardwired. Thankfully, I'm in a guild that doesn't require use of any voice, even though many people do use them in their raid cliques and the leadership uses it for faster during raid communication.

We use RaidCall - people love it and has a superior UI than vent or TS; plus - its free, no ads, spyware or malware attached. http://www.raidcall.com - - - Enjoy.

I love it till you get the old drunk farts talking about how great their commodore was in the 80s or the stoner kids who think anyone cares they are smoking their 5th bowl of the day or the guy/girl that just won't shut up about their opinion on how the raid should alter their strategy on every single fight.

Sometimes the sanity of guild requires that certain people be muted during raids.

I don't mind it, though it does eat away at in game chat and can make people like the odd random invited to an exp group feel isolated with everyone not communicating in game.

I do personally find it more relaxing and due to frequent headaches I get, audio is easier to pay attention to and get a heads up from than silent text popping up I sometimes don't see for some time.

Haven't encountered that. In chat most people I've seen (or heard) are polite to women in voice chat. OTOH, in game chat can be be condescending at best with the usual view that women can't PvP.

Hey, we just killed that, and this is crazy, but here's my numbers, I'm top parse, baby!

We use vent, it's mostly "required" we have about 5 people or so that don't normally get in but when we're doing new content or doing achievs or something and I tell them to get in Vent we pretty much have a 100% turnout.

We for sure end up with a lot of BS chatter but when it needs to get quiet most people are pretty good at shutting up when we need to focus. Honestly, some bs chatter really helps get through the farm mode drag I think.

I know in my case once I got used to leading in Vent I HATE typing out mechanics, I will on some harder/more complex mechanics but honestly you learn more from seeing how the event goes then hearing/reading about it so most of my instructions are pretty simple, 5 mins doing the raid > 30 mins explaining how to do it imo.

More often the problem is who not to mute.

I should qualify that the vast vast majority of guys are nice and not problems, and it can happen in typed chat just as easily as in voice too. Do not mean to blame voice chat for this behaviour.

I've run into it maybe half a dozen times over the 15 years of playing here.... and I'll admit yes I can't pvp at all

RoV uses Ventrilo.

I credit its mandatory use for us gaining ranking over the past few years. My advice is, If your raiding competitively, use some form of voice for raid communications so your raid leaders don't have to type raid instructions. Its also useful for color commentary mid raid by those same people to deal with raid mechanics.

So yeah for us its required, and everyone has to be in it and business mode while the raids going on. Grouping and goofing off, its optional.

IMHO voice chat is quite helpful when LEARNING new events. The ability to say X mob is about to do Y, move now or we die will always be faster then typing it out, and then having people comprehend what you typed in the 5 seconds they have to move.

Now, once events are on farm voice chat is really just there to kill time b/t loot and events. 90% of the time everyone knows what they are doing and it is not really necessary for your raid leadership to speak up. I personally raided 8-9 years w/o it and wouldn't go back. Not because of the utility it provides with strategy, but because most of the conversations have me laugh for quite some time during events. Mainly used for humor.

We use ventrillo. Just my 2cp.

Ive used both vent and TS. Either one is fine. As far as needing discipline - you need some discipline just to raid so how could discipline in vent be an issue?

It might work well in US guilds but ours has ppl from all over europe where english isn't there first language for some and then theres ppl with hard to understand accents like scottish, can be very hard to understand them at times.

As a french canadian, reading/ typing is alot easier that talking (especially when you factor in the accent). I can understand why some people who arn't fluent in english don't like voice-communication.

Since everquest is a slow-paced, I can see voice-chat not being required (altho really usefull). That's assuming everyone in the raid is paying attention.

In a faster-paced game like wildstar/ SC2( or specific raids, like the puzzle of sanctu Somnium) I can't imagine raiding or grouping without teamspeak .

Vent / TeamSpeak are about the same. If you do use it I would recommend sticking with either of those. I would avoid Skype for gaming. Primary reason is it opens your system to way to many security vulnerabilities, as well as the large number of advertisements.

Regarding using vent/teamspeak like software, it does require some discipline not to get into side discussion on subjects such as your dogs flatulence. That is actually my biggest gripe in using such software. Most just need to listen in, but a few depending on how your raid is set up do need to talk. One thing I would like to see is the ability on such software to listen in on multiple channels at the same time using the same instance of the software, with the ability to talk in any or all of the channels that you are monitoring.

With Vent just have your admin enable Phantoms.

Long time ago I love when there were no TS etc, now lot of raiding guild requires to have TS and we, deaf players, trying catch up with them and yet we are no good just because there were no raid / event instructions in typing only in TS. We are using Gina Trigger and are doing our best. That is not fair.

The decision to use a voice chat or not usually ties in with the question of whether to be a family guild or to step up and be a more serious raiding guild.
The only way youre going to have success with the voice chat for anything at all strategy related is if everyone is in it. If the raid leader if giving instructions and there is only 1/3rd of the raid in voice chat, I hope you have emeralds ready for the wipe.

Like Arwyn said, I give a ton of credit to voice chat for much of my guilds success.

If youre ready to step up and be a serious raiding guild, make a voicechat mandatory.
There will be drama and whining and complaining, but you simply do not invite anyone to the raid who will not participate in the voicechat. Its not so that everyone can speak, its so that everyone can listen.
I have plenty of people that listen but have no mic and that is perfectly acceptable.
It is usually common practice for members to mute the members that get on their nerves, just so long as they do not mute raid leaders or emote callers or various other things that must be heard.
People who wish to not participate will have to decide to stay and stop being a baby and turn on speakers or a headset.
I understand there are people that are hearing impaired or may have other issues, but at the end of the day a person that cannot hear your instructions mid raid cannot alter their play to fit the new strat. It is up to the leadership to decide if thats ok or not. A deaf rogue can still use the raid assist and thats fine. A deaf tank probably is a bigger concern.
If they choose to leave, thats fine, not everyone can step into the serious raid game.

You need someone with a firm hand that knows when to let the silly sidebar conversations go and when to clamp it down and focus up. You want people to have fun and chit chat between events but not during an attempt.
Believe it or not, in time you will wonder how you were ever successful before without it.

Imagine how a football game would go if players couldnt hear the quarterback when they did a change of play with an audible.
Imagine how soldiers at war would perform if they had no radio.
Chaos.

Good, fast communication is success.

The problem I see more often is that if you dont have everyone using it then you have to both say the instructions and type them also and that causes more confusion. People listening often wont read.

We use Vent. It's really simple some like to talk some don't. We have groups for each group in raid and the raid leader's can talk to all groups. We then have a group that is called NO TALKING where when you join that group your muted and can only listen. If you don't join vent, then you don't raid with us and get to sit. But honestly we don't really have issues with it. It works very well.

I still want to hear you sing....