Khetchi
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Posted - 2006.11.15 01:44:00 -
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I keep hearing people complain that vent/TS is better/cheaper than the proposed embedded voice channels...
You're missing the point.
Here's a point-by-point comparason between the three:
Cost - The proposed in-game system is on a per-user basis and costs about 80 cents per user per month. Vent and TS require a single person to rent a site at a cost of about 40 cents per person. Assuming you have a modest account of 100 people, that's $480 per year one person will have to pay to keep the vent/TS cahnnel open. Compare this to the $10 per year for Vivox. People seem to be under the false impression that vent/TS are free... as someone who has a 250-slot account on both vent and TS, I can assure $2000/year isn't the same as "free".
Ease of use - This is perhaps the biggest thing Vivox has going for it. You don't have to constantly swap between your game and the vent/TS window to see what's going on. Everything is on the game screen.
Game-specific features - The problems Vivox has can be easily addressed by CCP, and I expect it to get even better as the game ages. Things like having the icon and name of the person speaking appear at the top of the screen could be quickly and easily added at a later date. Ventrillo and Teamspeak, on the other hand, have to remain "generic". This means they have to be able to work with every game, which further means they will never implement features that are game-specific.
Longevity - Whether you like it or not, admit it or not, whine about it or not, Ventrillo and Teamspeak's days are numbered. Because more and more MMO games are being written to be "console friendly" to take advantage of the exploding console markets, you will see a growing trend of embedded voicecom in the source codes... and people are simply going to use the available in-game channels as opposed to the third-party services. This will result in more and more companies developing embedded voicecoms to stay competitive, which will result in less demand for the third-party services, ect... The end result will be the extinction of third-party voicecom services like Ventrillo and Teamspeak. CCP is simply being pro-active about this. They are working on it now instead of having to play "catch up" at a later date.
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