News: Community Interview with Jon Weathers

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Kurtz

Hey Higby thanks for replying and clearing that up for me. I've never coded a VOIP in one of my games and always assumed you would need more data in a packet to the server if you wanted to do voip.

That said, I spent the first year of my MMOFPS playing WW2online without voip and when I got on a TS it was a completely different world.

By the time I got to Planetside, I had my outfit set up channels for AIR, INFY and ARMOR with a command channel just for leaders. We had set up whispers to the leader of each division so only he could hear and would repeat the orders to the folks in his channel.

So, you could see why I would find VOIP in the game somewhat redundant as most large outfits will be better suited using their own VOIP systems.

But hey if it doesn't effect my ping, or how many players you can fit on a server then knock yourselves out. APB's ability to hear nearby enemies is a nice feature.

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

[Kurtz]

Originally Posted by Higby

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

That (and replying to threads like these) are why you're the best

[GunslingerX]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

everybody see's the problem with people getting the resources for only the continent they're on right?

Everyone trying to get on the most profitable continent?

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by GunslingerX

Everyone trying to get on the most profitable continent?

I would like to see Higbee tackle this question. If resources are earned based on land your empire owns on your current continent, will people be scrambling to abandon the continent on which your empire holds the least land?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

I would like to see Higbee tackle this question. If resources are earned based on land your empire owns on your current continent, will people be scrambling to abandon the continent on which your empire holds the least land?

yup prettymuch, there is something to be said that if you have less people on another cont tose resources would be divied by less people and thus you should in theory get more, but nothing divided be shit all people is still nothing. I would also like to know how resources are divided, surly not just "evenly" by the amount of people on content, bots and AFKers would have a feild day, it should be based of your contribution. earn 3% of the XP generated for your empire generated in the last tick? grats, you get 3% of the empires resource income.

[KTNApollo]

Originally Posted by GunslingerX

Everyone trying to get on the most profitable continent?

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

everybody see's the problem with people getting the resources for only the continent they're on right?

This...People will forsake the other continents in favor of the one that they own the most of.

[Dreamcast]

Originally Posted by KTNApollo

This...People will forsake the other continents in favor of the one that they own the most of.

I don't quite understand but....I get resources when Im on a certain Continent logged in to a game right?...so when I log off I get no resources?


Also the team gets an equal number of resources?....So I can just be in a continent doing nothing in the background meanwhile my buddies r getting me resources?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

I don't quite understand but....I get resources when Im on a certain content log in to a game right?...so when I log off I get no resources?


Also the team gets an equal number of resources?....So I can just be in a continent doing nothing in the background meanwhile my buddies r getting me resources?

thats what we dont know, and iv been dying to know, iv made several threads bringing this up but nobody else seems to care :/

Yea we dont know much about gaining offline resources, you will gain cert points offline if you're subbed i think though...or was that you always gain cert points but resources if you're offline? i doubt it since players ingame are only getting resourced based off the content they're on.

[xXGumpXX]

Originally Posted by Higby

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

the feature would be good but not that good as most gamers us Teamspeak or ventrilo to communicate , i would rather use TS than an in-game voip myself !

[GunslingerX]

Originally Posted by xXGumpXX

the feature would be good but not that good as most gamers us Teamspeak or ventrilo to communicate , i would rather use TS than an in-game voip myself !

I'd say that's the case only because games have failed at creating a proper in game VOIP. The pros Higby has argued far outweigh any of the cons(cant think of any actually).

[SurgeonX]

Originally Posted by xXGumpXX

the feature would be good but not that good as most gamers us Teamspeak or ventrilo to communicate , i would rather use TS than an in-game voip myself !

Originally Posted by GunslingerX

I'd say that's the case only because games have failed at creating a proper in game VOIP. The pros Higby has argued far outweigh any of the cons(cant think of any actually).

Yep, totally agree.
If the in-game VOIP is embedded into the game correctly, and you can interact with players vocally and control that via the UI, then I can't see why you would still use Vent or TS.

I think a lot of the resitance to in-game VOIP is that it has never been done really well before, so people can't envisage how great it could be, and how it can be better than third party voice.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Higby

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

Matt, I do believe there is a happy medium where in-game voice can be utilized by larger outfits.

Voice for a large outfit is usually multi-tiered to be effective. You have squad-level communications, because squads need to talk but the entire outfit doesn't need to hear details of what another squad is doing. Then you have the squad-leader tier where they coordinate with each other on where to ship the troops. Then you have the outfit-wide communication and announcements by the management who give broad instructions, like "recall to sanc to form up" or briefings. You also have just general chat that isn't organized where people shoot the shit when ops aren't going on.

The problems with squad communication are usually that you have to move people around into the right squads out-of-game in order to make the in-game squads function, and you have to set up multiple binds to allow squad-level communication using tools like Channel Commander from TS. If the in-game system is good enough to automatically handle the squad-level chat so outifts don't have to manage that part of the system then I think you will see outfits adopting it.

It's also beneficial for them to adopt it because it makes recruitment easier when a new recruit or pickup can just join in and automatically be plugged into the communication system. So that lowers barriers and can facilitate recruitment. That's all gravy.

If you nail that part of the system and make the intra-squad and intra-platoon communication system simple and natural and make it easy for squad leaders to talk and communicate then it becomes a beneficial tool. outside comms are still needed for things like general shoot-the-shit channels or for outfit-wide announcements, thought he latter could also be partially incorporated.

Ideally I see the perfect situation is where the game comms handle squad and platoon communication while the out-of-game comms handle outfit-wide communication. That makes it trivial for outfit leaders to utilize and manage people as they come and go and easily incorporate new players and recruits while still retaining all the power of a private communication server.

[Grognard]

Originally Posted by Higby

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

Personally, for me, I think its very important to level the playing field. Outfits have always had the "voice-advantage" over squads/platoons that didnt. Now, that advantage is less, or gone, and I for one am gleaming with joy