VOIP Suggestion

[Maximus_G 0]

As long as the in-game comms have nothing to offer even approaching teamspeak (whispering, channel commanders, multiple channels, bandwidth efficiency) then I can't really see the point in minor improvements to it.

The point is: TS being good for the organized teams, and in-game comms sys is good for the general gameplay. It has the information on player presence and that's a feature TS or some other third-party software simply can't have.

For example. I join a public server and play a mission with other players. Grab a tank, take the driver position, and someone other plays as a gunner, maybe there's a commander too.

What should we do in order to have voice comm?

1. Find a free room on a TS server or create one.

2. Have some text chat with the guy so he would switch to my channel.

3. OR get acquainted and manage to use a "whisper" command.

4. OR find out your crew simply doesn't have TS.

5. OR using voip i could simply switch to vehicle channel and push-to-talk, checking the crewguys are not deaf.

The same goes to direct voice communication, which is natural for the infantry guys ("see and say" style), but gets quite a complicated task if performed in a "radio" style involving channel synchronization between multiple players who simply do not prepare their common radio comms routines and procedures beforehand.

In-game VoIP suggests a convenient and natural way of talking. It doesn't replace the abilities of TS, but it has its own strong features which i'd like to see developed further and become better.

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Jinef, you're funny

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[zwobot 22]

This is a request for BIS for Armed Assault.

Simple Radio Simulation/More Channels.

[...]

I second that.

[frederf 0]

Quote[/b] ]The point is: TS being good for the organized teams, and in-game comms sys is good for the general gameplay. It has the information on player presence and that's a feature TS or some other third-party software simply can't have.

This assumes one can play an acceptable game of ArmA with random people from the street. This simply isn't true, I've tried it. It's German schoolboys crashing MH-6's into Russian TKers with no semblance of coordination. Giving these tards the means to talk to each other is like giving a horse a pocket calculator. He's just as likely to do your long division homework either way.

[Maximus_G 0]

This assumes one can play an acceptable game of ArmA with random people from the street. This simply isn't true, I've tried it. It's German schoolboys crashing MH-6's into Russian TKers with no semblance of coordination. Giving these tards the means to talk to each other is like giving a horse a pocket calculator. He's just as likely to do your long division homework either way.

I get your point, and that's not uncommon to be true, but i have to say - this statement is still a hasty generalization.

Moreover, those guys would ruin not the comms only, but actually the whole gameplay. So if we wouldn't use voip because of them, then maybe we wouldn't even play this game because of them?

I think this phenomenon is temporary, it would come to a naught in a couple of months, when the other brand new shiny online shooters come to the scene.

Though i see a practice of turning voip off on servers. It is likely because of unconscious grunting on the air. It often happens when a user hits a CapsLock accidentally.

So i'd like to make a VOIP suggestion: BIS please change the way VOIP stays activated - let it be only when the key is being pressed!

Also, i'd like the "common" voice channel to be disabled when i switch to the other one. That should partly prevent conscious voice jamming by some dishonorable players.

In the best case i'd like to be able to manually turn the "common", "side" and "group" radio channels ON and OFF. By the console commands for example.

[lwlooz 0]

Hello there,

Like others I think that a Observer/Death channel is a good idea , so the dead people have a place to chat to each other without annoying anyone else.

I also believe that you should only hear what other people say with VOIP if you have selected the same channel or they talk in Direct Mode or Vehicle. So that you always hear what is talked in Direct Mode or Vehicle, but you only hear whats said in Global/Side/Group if you selected those channels. Obviously you should see what is typed in all channels besides the Death/Observer one.

Besides those two what in my opinion is currently missing is a way to chat to your clan-buddies,your friends or just some guys you want to cooperate with regardless on what side they are,where they are or in what group they are.

This would be the equivalent of whispering in TS I guess.

My idea of implementing that might be perhaps similar to what Frederf suggest months ago , so please don't be angry with me if it is.

What you add to the list of Observer,Global,Side,Group,Vehicle,Direct is a channel I called "Radio".

To it the same rules apply I mentioned above.You cant hear other peoples voice unless you have that channel selected , but you can read the chat at all times.

Like it is done in several strategy games I played,I think perhaps not the most complex,or military realistic yet working solution to that problem is to select the players you want to adress your message to and equally block the players you don't want hear anything from.

This could be added into the GUI in the Players-View Screen/Dialog you usually get to in the Multiplayer by pressing "P".

You could select the players you want to talk and hear from in that screen.

This should suffice for normal communications.

But I think it would be important to allow a scripter to handle it script wise as well.

1.One would need a command to get the player id from and object reference like already suggested on the BIKI and the other way round.

"id = ObjToPlayerID object" or something.

"Obj = PlayerIDtoObj PlayerId" or something

2."AddRadioContact PlayerID"

"RemoveRadioContact PlayerID"

"RadioContacts"

You would only receive messages(chat/text) from people in your RadioContacts and equally your messages(chat/text) would only be send to those in the radio contacts. Obviously for them applies the rule that they only see your stuff if they have you in their radio contacts as well.

I think this prevents abuse from other people right away.

[frederf 0]

lwlooz, your ideas are quite distinct from my ancient ones. Plus, even if they were identical, who could be mad? I'm far to rediculous for that.

Changing the VOIP xmit key from toggle to momentary is kinda a no-brainer. I really can't think of any radio equipment seen in any war movie that wasn't momentary. It's that way for good reason.

A GUI (like the Gear screen) where you could configure channels and whispers and slightly more complex voice things would make the built in system more useful to be sure.

The real draw of the in-game VOIP service is basically three things:

1. More standardized for players (no need to install 3rd party software) and thus easier to use and used more often

2. Can use in-game data to enhance your VOIP experience

3. Doesn't require alt-tabbing for adjustments.

[lwlooz 0]

Plus the fact that A) it is a lot more immersive and B) this day and age you can't really get away with a MP game who doesn't have it.

3 Small Additions to my previous idea.

1. Have 2-4 of those RadioChannels. This would obviously change the code to "addRadioContact[ChannelNumber,[PlayerId,PlayerId,..]]"

"RadioContacts ChannelNumber"

or RadioContacts returns 4 arrays within an array.

2.You add and remove player-ids by arrays,faster and more convient than single ones each time(as seen above).

Having 2 of these channels should be good enough already,since for example if you were a pilot and you could have all other pilot people in one channel and you could coordinate with some ground folks in the other.

They could send you a chat message when they want to talk to you(you see the chat messages of both radio-channels at all times) and then you can switch your channel and only hear the guys you want to. No confusion of hundreds of different people wanting to talk to you about different topics at one time.

In the P-GUI this could be implemented by instead of having 1 button to include people into you radio-contact,just have 2-4

3. Currently if you want to type something to another channel you switch the channel as well.This should be seperated since then you can listen to your channel while typing to another one

Okay,Enough of this Dribble

[Catch22 0]

This is one of the features which are recently in the development for the next patch.

I didn't see anything about this listed in the 1.05 changelog.

How is this feature coming along?

[Maximus_G 0]

I was pleased to see that 1.05 now has a different voip activation - just as it has been proposed - works only while the key is pressed.

Now i just want to see more servers having voip=enabled... At the moment there are not many of them.