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.