Ingame VOIP - a small missed opportunity?

[dmarkwick 261]

Ingame VOIP is in principle a good idea, but in practice people prefer TeamSpeak or Ventrilo. I think an excellent opportunity was missed here to use ingame VOIP with a unique functionality.

I think ingame ArmA VOIP could have, as well as it's current channels, the possibility to place the voice with the player's ingame character. So that if you're close by you can hear him fine, but the further away you are the fainter he is, and even be able to locate him via direction of sound etc.

That way small separate groups could communicate between themselves without everyone hearing their plans, people could inspect suspicious sounds of conversation, stuff like that.

I think that would be a game first if I'm not mistaken, and a biiiiiig plus for immersion.

[dslyecxi 23]

I'm guessing you don't know how the "Direct Communication" channel is supposed to work.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm guessing you don't know how the "Direct Communication" channel is supposed to work.

Does it work as above, with the voice sample emanating from the player model?

[Lt_Damage 0]

There is only one reason InGame voice can not be fully embraced by Server Admins, control.

As a previous admin for over 5 years I would not be in a position to enable the ingame voice despite it being incredibly effective.

The problem is there needs to be a GUI Interface / Console for the admin so that he can see who is speaking and moderate that person if needed. In teamspeak you can see who is speaking and mute them or you can remove them from the channel.

Without this control the server is prone to people connecting and spamming it with inane chatter.

[Lt_Damage 0]

@DMarkwick - Yes it works exactly that way. OFP was capable of this back in the first few versions with DirectPlay netcode also.

Not only was the voice directional, the player model moved his lips! You also had distance factored in and everything.

Still, as great as that is.. we need control over the VOIP administration ingame so admins can rest easy enabling it.

[dmarkwick 261]

@DMarkwick - Yes it works exactly that way. OFP was capable of this back in the first few versions with DirectPlay netcode also.

Not only was the voice directional, the player model moved his lips! You also had distance factored in and everything.

Still, as great as that is.. we need control over the VOIP administration ingame so admins can rest easy enabling it.

Well shut mah mouth directional and with lip-sync? Sounds unbelievably cool, I just thought (assumed) that it was a plain old channel with a distance cut-off.

I take the point about admin control, but as I play exclusively with a select group of friends that's no great problem.

[Lt_Damage 0]

Ah ok well not 100% sure if the lipsync still works.. see this is the evolution of VOIP in OFP/Arma:

OFP released with DirectPlay - VoIP enabled with Lipsync

OFP switched to Sockets Netcode because Directplay Couldn't handle OFP Gameplay - VoIP disabled

ArmA released with VoIP active again - VoIP enabled but not sure if Lipsync is back.

[dmarkwick 261]

Ah ok well not 100% sure if the lipsync still works.. see this is the evolution of VOIP in OFP/Arma:

OFP released with DirectPlay - VoIP enabled with Lipsync

OFP switched to Sockets Netcode because Directplay Couldn't handle OFP Gameplay - VoIP disabled

ArmA released with VoIP active again - VoIP enabled but not sure if Lipsync is back.

I'll be more than happy if it's directional & distance. If I'm really lucky it might even be totally ingame audio, meaning all the relevant effects (occlusion, Doppler etc) applied by default.

OK so not much use for Doppler but you know what I mean, the sound treated as any other sound in ArmA.

In any case, good news for me

[=jps=sgtrock 4]

Several games have come out over the past few years that allowed for muting text and voice spammers by the individual players. I regard this as a critical feature for voice for any server that I run. If it's not there, then I'll just have to run my ArmA server with VON disabled. Too bad, because it's such a useful feature!

[paragraphic l 2]

I did hope they implemented VoIP as in OFP:E with Xbox Live, it was a great addition to the game. I have not yet tested it with 1.05 as 6thSense server did not seem to have it on friday night.

Will check this out soon

[Dallas 9]

VOIP works and it doesn't.

I'm able to use VOIP in ArmA, but it's with some difficulties and some randomness. Another player and I where able to use all the voice channels for some 20 minutes and then it became problematic.

Even Direct Communication worked, both with lip sync and proximity and direction based. Lip sync works with all channels, but with Direct sound will decrease over distance. Dammit it's like playing Vietcong again. It works great... when it works. It's immensiveness is perfect for diehard coop players and I prefere it over TS2 and Ventrilo.

But we were the only two players who could communicate with VOIP and it was quite difficult to get the volumesettings settings just right.

I hope we can have it working with a few tweaks.