Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Sure, the use cases are slightly different, but it is in direct competition with discord at all times. Most people are going to being using discord 100% of the time because it is not only what they are used to, but it is what their guild will require. Part of the direct competition is not just on a software/product level, but also proximity voice chat has to compete for players attention.
Imagine the average player logs into the game and discord to do some stuff with their guild. "Ohh, hold on friends on discord... I have to mute the in game voice chat because I can't hear y'all over this ass hat in the game... okay where are we meeting now?" Then in game voice chat never gets turned back on. Hence the wasted feature.
If you welcome it that is fine, but I am actively against it for Ashes. If this was some kind of VR MMO that prioritizes immersion that would be a different story, but this is going to be a highly competitive world with a focus on risk vs reward. Not enough people are going to risk using chaotic proximity chat over controlled discord for me to feel its worth it.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
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TL;DR: I'm in favor of no in-game chat.
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A big issue that I can see is Intrepid Studio's legal obligations to not allow discriminatory, grooming or other unacceptable conversations on their platform. Voice chat is very difficult to police.
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If someone types an unacceptable message then it will be recorded (using very little storage) against their account name for a period of time and will be relatively easy to assess and act on.
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If someone speaks unacceptably in in-game voice chat then sound recording would eat up storage (10K concurrent users, 24 hours a day) and it would be much a more time consuming process to find out if an actionable offense has occurred.
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It seems to be that it would be much better for a tavern owner to set up their own Discord channel just for the tavern and have somewhere to post the link in the AoC tavern. Part of Intrepid's legal disclaimer then references that they are not responsible for the content of external applications.
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I do not want Intrepid to delay releasing the game to implement an in-game chat function that meets their legal obligations, especially as there would be unnecessary additional overheads in terms of storage, server processing and moderator processing voice content.
I would however like to say that, on the other hand, I do really like how easy it is to join a voice channel through the game when you join a group, or want to talk with your guild. I think that the way ESO did this actually is a huge contribution to the game feeling like a social community.
IF you want to make it only for taverns that's different.
Maybe they should also have the text chat in an external application if that's the case.
Nothing turns me off from the RP more than hearing a male voice coming out of a female mouth. Keep it to text chat.
90% of the guilds in the game are going to have a discord or ventrilo set up (just look at the number of recruiting "guilds" that already have one set up ffs), and a portion of that are going to have private guild forums set up. So, I honestly think that having any dev time devoted to a voice chat is a waste of time. Just look at WoW's VOIP, it's deader than CoE.
agreed. I've used it in Star Citizen and had really good interactions and fun with people I would have just run past otherwise.
Seriously, MMOs aren't just games, MMOs are social experiences, having the option to talk with strangers with ease is not a bad thing, is good, you can make new friends, forge bonds with unexpected people, learn to deal with different kind of people, for non English speakers It can help us to improve our pronunciation, people with social anxiety will have a place were they feel more comfortable speaking with strangers, sure, you will find assholes and trolls, but there can be measures to minimize the effect of this kind of behavior, you got muted by 5 people (from different parties/guilds) in the last 30 mins? you get automatically banned from voice chat for 6 hours happens again? you get banned for 12 hours...again? permabanned.
Sure you can join Guilds, but then again, you will probably only talk with your pre-assigned static and ignore the rest of the world....and in that case how is that different from playing a MOBA? (socially speaking of course)
Reasons why prox chat is obvious:
A) Emergent and Immersive gameplay, convenience - I don't want to be having a brief interaction (whether it's quickly negotiating a trade, helping somebody who pulled to many mobs but i don't want to party with, telling somebody not to release before i can rez them, answering questions somebody might have about a quest, etc) with somebody and get sucked out of my immersion because I have to get their discord info, send them a friend request (explain to them where to find a friend req), join their server, talk to them for 30 seconds, then leave. NO THANKS. Prox chat fixes it, easily.
B ) Identity Protection - Don't want to share my discord ID with every person I want to chat with for 30 seconds.
C) Caveats - Should of course be easy to mute individuals, or mute all (select target, right click portrait, choose "mute player voip" // "mute all" as an available keybind in options, default ctrl+M so I can toggle when I run into a node if I want)
The only argument that seems legitimate against it is server load; that's a decision best left up to the devs.
It just depends on what you expect the experience to be. If you want to role play and interact with folks and make fun situations (think DayZ, Star Citizen, etc) then having a proximity range for chat is important and more agile than typing.
I think the issue is people like being incredibly insular in their gameplay, existing only within their own guilds and not really interacting with other folks. That gets boring in my opinion, and limits game interactions with other people to trade chat and combat.
I personally would like the feature but people should be able to mute it. I also believe there should be a little visual icon you can see above their character if they are trying to voice chat you.
Read the comic here!
I have seen this "point" made a million times as if PVC does not change some dynamics of the game.
If you don't like raid finder, then don't use it.
If you don't like cosmetics, don't wear them.
If you don't like cash shop items, don't buy them.
If you don't like boosts, don't use them.
If you don't like fast travel, just walk everywhere.
If you don't like dailies, don't do them.
If you don't like world quests, don't do them.
I could go on for hours.
Many of us see PVC as a feature that would change the game for the worst.
"Don't like PVC just mute it" is not a good argument.
All the features listed above change games to peoples dismay.
PVC comes with a whole list of issues others and me have given in this thread.
Just because you like something does not make it a good fit for every game. I strongly feel PVC is not a good fit for Ashes. See any of my other posts on this topic for reasons why.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Sure, it is a little less 'agile', as you put it, but it is also a lot less intrusive on other players. If you meet someone in game and decide an adventure of sorts is happening, group up and all of a sudden you have voice chat.
It is literally only that introductory period where voice chat should not be enabled.
Comparing what happens in games like DayZ and Star Citizen to what will happen in Ashes is not really relevant, as the games are all vastly different from each other.
The only situation I think it might be useful is in party, since is easier than invite someone to join your Discord, but it's something I won't probably use.
When I need to talk with someone I'll be using text chat and if it's necesary I'll invite that person to talk in Discord.
So group up with them.
In game voice chat for groups is confirmed.
This thread is about voice chat with random people walking around.
We should be fighting this as well TBH.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Yeah, I am not a fan of it, and all it will do for me is mean I won't run groups with people I don't know.
Far more of a community segregator than a combat tracker would be, and far less of a boon for the game.
How immersion breaking would it be when someone is running around with the Runescape sea shanty playing at max volume whilst yelling profanity at you?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I appreciate that but it’s not like that hasn’t been experienced in rust, atlas, planet side, tarkov, mortal, etc. it’s much faster to quickly mute somebody being a troll then it is to constantly share discord info IMO, and then disinvite people from discord you don’t want there. I have great memories from all the games I listed of in game voip being a boon. My favorite is probably a simple occurrence of my friend and I on a raft on atlas sailing by a trio and all of us telling “arrrgh” at each other. Totally emergent and impossible without prod voip. Muting trolls makes that worth it.
Fair enough, I have played those games except for Tarkov.
While there is some novelty in first person survival games, to me, that always wore off quickly.
Ashes is a third-person MMORPG with a focus on Risk Vs Reward. Not Immersion. People are not going to take any chances with any in-game VoIP. PVC or in party only. All it takes is one person getting DCed from the game for people to realize that Discord is better.
You keep fighting for PVC. I will keep fighting for no VoIP at all.
To me, it's not about muting trolls. It is the fact that Discord is and always will be more feature rich, reliable, and generally accepted among PC gamers. Intrepid can never compete with a program that has a singular job of being the best free communication platform it can be. I dislike that Intrepid is considering wasting time, energy, and finances on VoIP when there is already something people are using today that is better.
While I can't make the call for Intrepid on VoIP. I most certainly will encourage them to not waste their time.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I mean, that isn't exactly something that sounds enjoyable. It just sounds both stupid and a bit lame.
You sound like you’re just a hater.
The example I used is one of thousands that, when put together, comprise a rich overall experience. The example I provided is one that could have never occurred without in game VoiP. Take the more recent War of Rights. That’s a brilliant example of in game VoiP being a great producer of both RP silliness and immediate convenience for in game tactical use that discord simply cannot match.
In my view the only good argument against it are, a) server stability, and b) development costs/man power. And I can speculate kn both but only intrepid can make those decisions.