Talking in Game?

I was looking at the deulxe addition of Guild Wars and it said something about a voice headphone and supscription anyone know about this?

there will not be voice support in-game. you will need to use a 3rd party program like vetrilo, teamspeak, etc.

TeamSpeak is a must for most serious PvP groups. It allows for a much better execution of on-the-fly strategies. Most who don't utilize such tools usually are at a disadvantage.

Unfortunately, Guild Wars does not feature built-in support.

Right, a voicechat - Ventrillo and TeamSpeak are the most popular and they're both freeware, the programs anyway, someone has to have a server you can actually talk on - is a basic necessity if you're serious about PvP.

The GW Delux package offers, I believe, a headset with headphones and a microphone and a subscription to Roger Wilco, another voicechat program and one I think is generally held as largely inferior to other voicechats. It's not that much more than the plain retail version of GW and I'm sure there's support and installation information about the included voicechat. So, if you don't have a headset (which generally cost upwards of US$20 although you could also get a $5 microphone and use your computer's speakers just as well) and don't have any experience with voicechat programs or technology, it might be worth it to you. Personally, I don't think it is. I'd rather get a headset and download some other program that more people are likely to use but to each their own.

Well they should add a voice chat that would be cool. It would be alot easier to commuacate. Cause i think that the Text cah is a little werid its hard to attack and talk and run and talk.lol. thats another thing they should work on. the text caht.

Here is the link for ventrilo. HERE Make sure that you download the server files if you plan on making a server. I also can be very nice and offer my clans public ventrilo ip and password for the next BWE event. Try it out and see how much traffic I get. I can make lots of channels and hold tons of peeps. If i decide to do it. Then I will post the server ip and pw for you all to chack it out. Ya dont necessarily need to speak to me. Just with the parties you are with!!

Yeah check back here close to the next BWE and I will post the info for you all.

I would like to see in game support for some sort of teamspeak so that it could run for certain groups, etc... I'm afraid that would up their network costs dramatically though so I highly doubt we'll ever see that.

Gaile Gray stated in an interview teamspeak was the prefered choice

considering that desgining a highly-optimized, low bandwith network and minimizing the demands on that network was their first priority and how it is essential to their pricing scheme, i think that they are very wary of anything that will add unnecessary load to their network.

as others have mentioned, there is at least a limited bandwith hit when you use voice chat. this is most apparent with dial-up users. making it a requirement would kill the dial-up friendliness of the game.

as for lack of communication, i really like the target calling via the CTRL key when used in an organized manner. the ability to set your own text macros would be very nice or at least have a set of text macros to help facilitate communication, like with koreans that don't type in english..

I'd reccomend teamspeak or ventrilo for any guild, regardless of whether they PvP or not. It really makes you feel like a more connected guild and lets you chat during the down times in games. Farming comes to mind in Guild Wars.

However, if you are serious about PvP then it is nearly a neccessity. I would not ever go into a GvG match without having eight players, and that's almost what your doing when one isn't on teamspeak with you. Any plans you have you have to type which takes much longer to write out, and longer still because they have to read it.

My last guild used ventrilo which cost them 15 bucks a month I believe. We had a member nice enough to foot the bill himself but if nobody wants to I'd just go with teamspeak. It's free and works well.

EDIT: bobert:
It is free to host your server. Yes you will have to host from your computer. (I can't host becasuse I'm behind a crappy dorm firewall, but my guild members can)

Is TeamSpeak free to host servers? Would I have to host it off my computer?

You can host a Teamspeak server for free, so long as you host it yourself. If you don't have the capability to host your own server, you can pay for a server as well, but if someone in your guild has a broadband connection, it's not too difficult to set up a server for your guild.

some friends and i were conferenced using skype. it worked really well, but there were only 3 of us. the maximum people on a skype conference call is currently 5 (host + 4). i'm looking into teamspeak now to handle larger groups, but they warn of bandwidth issues when you get from 5-10 users online at once. best option may be subscription service for keeping voice bandwidth from interfering with game bandwidth.

thoughts?

-Jerry

"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard,
sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em!" -Webb Wilder

Yeah here's a thought ... post if anyone has connections to any of the developers or poeple at arenanet ... make it clear to all future usres to utilize a free program such as teamspeak, I'm not a lawyer so have yours run over the actual wording as not to be promoting or liable, only suggestive. (apparently I'm not an english major either)

I personally pay 15$ a month for a good quality Ventrilo server with a 30 person cap and split the cost with the Guild Leaders. I'm not the biggest fan of Teamspeak because it just looks so bad and the sound is horrible. But, the newest server-ware of Ventrilo requires you to pay to host more than 8 people. I've used Roger Wilco on one occassion, wouldn't say it was crappy, probably just not as used as other programs, which can be a problem.

i don't think anet will go for it. i remember something saying they had reco'd teamspeak, but i don't remember if it was actually quoted from them or not.

everything i've seen about hosting from home warned about a big bandwidth hit over cable as you got above 5 people. we'll probably go that route before we consider paying for a service. right now we're checking who's got the best bandwidth up to host it. i'll do some more digging and if i come up with anything worth reporting i'll post a follow up.

-Jerry

"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard,
sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em!" -Webb Wilder