Opinions on teamspeak and DayZ SA?

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

So here's a question - by design DayZ Stand Alone doesn't have a global chat system, all communications both chat and voice are local to the player. My understanding is that is a design decision for realism and immersion. However, a lot of servers advertise/provide teamspeak and I know that a lot of players and clans use it as well to communicate/coordinate. Does anyone feel like the use of teamspeak in this manner undermines the goal and direction of the game?

 

Or maybe said another way, is use of teamspeak something that enters the realm of tabooish things such as stream sniping, server hopping, etc?

[creature 1189]

Most everyone will say it's ok. 

 

IMO yes it undermines the game. People can communicate without anyone else hearing, where if you use direct comms anyone close by can hear you.

 

If clans couldn't use 3rd party comm software they likely wouldn't play the game anymore. (I'd be overjoyed though)

[MountGreen 20]

I mean, is it stupid and unrealistic in the setting of the game? Yes. People no way near each other should not be able to communicate.

 

But is it more stupid and unrealistic to expect me to not talk to my friends while playing the game with them because we spawned in different areas? Yes, it's a game. Games are for fun. Speaking to my friends through Skype while I play the game with them = more fun.

 

Also, to be honest offences like server hopping and loot farming actually ruin the game for other people and while easily sharing info in a group puts their lone victims at a disadvantage, it's not game breaking and it's to be expected really :P

 

Plus IG chat is a mare sometimes.  

[wooly-back-jack 294]

pointless debate really, TS aint going anywhere.

[CJFlint 357]

So here's a question - by design DayZ Stand Alone doesn't have a global chat system, all communications both chat and voice are local to the player. My understanding is that is a design decision for realism and immersion. However, a lot of servers advertise/provide teamspeak and I know that a lot of players and clans use it as well to communicate/coordinate. Does anyone feel like the use of teamspeak in this manner undermines the goal and direction of the game?

 

Or maybe said another way, is use of teamspeak something that enters the realm of tabooish things such as stream sniping, server hopping, etc?

Understand what your saying and why you would think that way. The game is more immersive with out, it is one reason I played solo at times. You really dont have to have it running solo. Infact it can distract you. I would have it running sometimes just for company. Thats playing solo or lone wolf though.

 

But realisticly I have never played a multi player or massive multi player that did not not have teamspeak or vent for team game play. If I play grouped, I want it with out a doupt. There is no other way other then shouting in direct chat or using hand signals in game. Meeting up with team mates would be a task in a half. There already is enough confusion that could happen during group game play, I could not even imagine what would happen with out. Prob would be allot of freindly fire shootings. So team speak is not going anywhere.

 

My vote was situational. It to me is more of a player pref then anything. Do they want to play in group, do they want company when they play or do they just prefer to play solo at one with the elements and immerse them selves in the game as much as posible.

Edited January 10, 2015 by CJFlint

[BrainlessZombie 190]

I say it's ok, i just bought the game to my brother and without 3rd party programs it would be hell to meet up or play at all together, so... That's that.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I'll be on steam chat with a buddy and once we meet up we'll usually turn it off and use in game chat.  We're the real hardcore players and not the prissy kind who think that it's tactical to use TS  :D

[nexventor 429]

Personally I think it definitely kills immersion BUT this is a game and sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand.

 

TBH, I think 3PP is more destructive to the game than people using TS. I have never thought to myself, "damn if only they weren't using TS, I would have survived". I can't say the same for 3PP.

 

But TS is like 3PP, it ain't going anywhere.

[Awruk 216]

What if I sit with my buddy in one room and we play together? Same shit. And as above poster said: 3pp ruins the game more than TS ever will.

[chokko 45]

What if I sit with my buddy in one room and we play together? Same shit. And as above poster said: 3pp ruins the game more than TS ever will.

 

exactly. as a server admin, I am very surprised just how many people are playing from the same household (same IP). hardly expect them to be silent.

 

we advertise teamspeak to help ppl meet up. The game lacks so many other RL ways to communicate, such as noticeboards etc..and the in game comms are poor at the moment. There's a significant delay between person transmitting and receiver getting it (even with the text messages) and voice is rather quiet even when next to one another. Not at all conducive for quick decision making when stumbling across an unknown player.

[solodude23 649]

I don't like it, but it's here to stay.

 

I have yet to use any 3rd person voice communication software so I'm usually at a disadvantage. At most I've typed to friends over Steam in order to meet up and whatnot. Everything else is in-game.

Edited January 9, 2015 by solodude23

[blackberrygoo 1416]

I really wish there were some hardcore servers with the use of third party software disabled , maybe if the microphone was always activated on these servers (instead of having to press a button to talk) that way it wouldn't be "invasive"' to peoples computers.

It would be irritating finding the guy playing music as loud as possible while playing, but I feel that won't happen often and for the people trying to go for ultimate immersion like myself and others it would be awesome to be able to configure servers in such a way . Maybe these servers would be further seperated by the others by, for one , having changes like helmets and headwear blocking vision when worn and other changes small but immersive like that.. The second way to seperate it would be to be named "hardcore"'servers again (or immersion servers but I think hardcores better because it was the original).

We could have hardcore 1st person , hardcore 1st/3rd person (again these servers would just have all immersion changes turned on by default) and regular 1st person , regular 1st/3rd person ..

That would be worth it in my opinon , and I would definitely rent my own server if it had a lot of things like above added :) !

[chokko 45]

I really wish there were some hardcore servers with the use of third party software disabled ,

 

how's that going to work ?  make battleye ban anyone with teamspeak etc installed on their pc ?

 

teamspeak etc servers usually aren't on same server as the dayz server

[R0B3RTF1SH3R 66]

just make dayz take over sole rights to your sound card and microphone. problem gone. 

[soulfirez 901]

I voted no but as a realist i know there is NOTHING you can do about it . For every suggestion in this thread for how to stop its use there is a dozen ways it will still be used so its a pointless topic if a resolution is sought if its just to get opinions on its use well..

 

WHy is it against the spirit of the game well because suddenly your fighting telepathic soliders, surely you can see the advantage of being able to communicate long range silently so you position is not given away . Its bad because it artificially advantages clans/groups over lone wolfs , they already have the advantage of number but now they have the advantage of silent communication where in reality that would be the lone wolfs advantage silence vs a group having to call out to each other so he would know where they are but now they have ALL the advantages.

 

But again you cant stop it so not much point raging against it , but yes its against the spirit and intent of the game.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

how's that going to work ? make battleye ban anyone with teamspeak etc installed on their pc ?

teamspeak etc servers usually aren't on same server as the dayz server

I just told you how it would work :) read the rest of my post and you'll realize I suggested something that doesn't even block third party software . The idea is only special servers would make it so no matter what you are always talking over direct , so no matter if you wanna use teamspeak or not , you're talking into direct whevever you make noise into the mic...

Of course it would be annoying if casual players used these servers as most of them wouldn't like the open mic , and would most likely abuse it .. but for those of us that can control our Insane mouth breathing and that are into ultra realism, these servers would be awesome because no matter what it's like you're in the apocalypse : every conversation can be heard , if you have a Traitor in your midst , on these servers, he can no longer "magically call" his clan up when he knows you've all got your guard down ...

No more squeakers coming up to you, but silent to each other , planning like squeakers do.. On this server you talk out loud at all times unless you're physically next to your parter IRL, so no more silent planning ... In my opinion the best parts of apocalypse movies or books , is that suspense the characters feel when they need to be absolutely silent for one reason or another.. Maybe because they just infiltrated an enemy base and the group has to sneak silently through , or maybe it's the other way around and you have just heard foot Steps downstairs in your new survivor home ... Sure if you all had teamspeak you could just coordinate an attack and win just like that , but to really FEEL the suspense you need to make it as realistic as possible and make it challenging as well , so instead of being a wizard telepathically communicating , you are forced to stay absolutely silent and hope to hell your parter is as ready as you Are , or whisper out a plan fast and as quiet as you can when you hear someone breaking in ...

Regardless me and a friend that always play together play this way , whenever we talk we just leave our mics open , we like it this way and I'm sure a lot of you teamspeak users would like it too if you gave it a chance (but you have to truly be interested in a challenge , if you're simply thinking this is just more frustration then these servers definitely wouldn't be for you) and these servers wouldn't even interfere with all the other servers , they would be there simply for a more realistic server (and other realistic features could be added like head gear obstructing view when worn) and it wouldn't affect all you die hard teamspeak Users at all considering these would be seperate servers !

Edit : I have no trouble at all talking with strangers over the in game direct chat , and I never have unless the other person is blasting music or has a shitty mic and I've had hundreds of encounters with randoms . If special servers were to be made for hardcore realism and included an open mic feature , everyone would be happy , the ultra realists and lone wolves could hop on these realistic servers to play a little bit more fairly , and the rest of the community that like teamspeak stay on the regular 1st and regular 1st/3rd person servers(so this way there would be realism 1st , realism 1st/3rd servers , and regular 1st person , regular 1st /3rd person like there are now ).

Edited January 9, 2015 by Grapefruit kush

[AlphaDogMeat . 493]

just make dayz take over sole rights to your sound card and microphone. problem gone. 

 

USB headset.  No problem.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

^^ No no no, the only real answer is having new and seperate servers , because like alpha dog meat says there is ALWAYS ways around shit like that ... WE JUST NEED NEW SERVERS WITH AN OPEN MIC , certain players would come to those servers like me and many others, and the ones that don't like that idea ,WONT PLAY ON THOSE SERVERS ! Problem legitamitely solved lol , we just need to all Agree on this and get the devs working on it :) !

[pillock 850]

In an ideal world, everyone would use in-game comms (especially now the walkie-talkies are working).

 

But unfortunately there is just no way of preventing people from using 3rd party software. This topic came up a while ago, and I suggested the idea of perhaps locking direct proximity chat in-game to 'open', so that anything you said over teamspeak would also be broadcast in-game - but apparently this would cause too much strain on servers (plus there would still be ways to get around it).

 

It does go against the spirit of the game to an extent, but it's just one of those things, I guess.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

In an ideal world, everyone would use in-game comms (especially now the walkie-talkies are working).

But unfortunately there is just no way of preventing people from using 3rd party software. This topic came up a while ago, and I suggested the idea of perhaps locking direct proximity chat in-game to 'open', so that anything you said over teamspeak would also be broadcast in-game - but apparently this would cause too much strain on servers (plus there would still be ways to get around it).

It does go against the spirit of the game to an extent, but it's just one of those things, I guess.

I'm just gonna throw my opinion in there once more lol , ALL WE NEED are new servers with this "open Mic at all times" functionality that way people who visit these Special servers are there for that purpose so they WONT be trying to get around it ... It's that simple , just make a new server configuration for admins to allow their servers to always be open microphoned.. unless they(someone who wants to use 3rd party software in these servers) somehow have another computer next to them just to teamspeak up , then there's no way around this ... Unless you make a script or some hack to bypass it but again with my idea of making special servers for open mic , why would anyone try that when they come to this server solely for more realism ? The only people comin on these servers to just bypass the one thing that makes the server different would be idiot trolls so that doesn't matter ..

This way everyone wins , people who want to turn this feature on can do so but it would say so in the description of the server , and people who don't like this idea just avoid these servers ! We don't need to make some crazy restriction on 3rd party software , we don't need people saying "nope it can be done because all servers don't need that" , all we need is the Option for server owners to make their server "open microphone" and we need people mature enough and into the concept enough to play on these servers , that's it ... No huge changes to the game and this doesn't disrupt all the big clans that don't care to use the in game communications !!!!

It doesn't hurt the people that want it and it creates a whole new challenging, more realistic world . I really don't see why this wouldn't be a good idea , we all wanted first person only servers and they made it happen, I think we should (everyone that likes the more realistic feeling) start to push for an option for open micced servers , it would be such a different change and many would like it , and like said before , won't hurt anyone's play style who doesn't like it becAuse it will be on seperate servers (hosted by players who choose to enable this option).

Edit : to pillock , that actually would be the best idea (everyone using radios Ingame ) I'm always on a radio but nobody ever responds :( !

Edited January 9, 2015 by Grapefruit kush

[pillock 850]

I'm just gonna throw my opinion in there once more lol , ALL WE NEED are new servers with this "open Mic at all times" functionality that way people who visit these Special servers are there for that purpose so they WONT be trying to get around it ... It's that simple , just make a new server configuration for admins to allow their servers to always be open microphoned.. unless they(someone who wants to use 3rd party software in these servers) somehow have another computer next to them just to teamspeak up , then there's no way around this ... Unless you make a script or some hack to bypass it but again with my idea of making special servers for open mic , why would anyone try that when they come to this server solely for more realism ? The only people comin on these servers to just bypass the one thing that makes the server different would be idiot trolls so that doesn't matter ..

This way everyone wins , people who want to turn this feature on can do so but it would say so in the description of the server , and people who don't like this idea just avoid these servers ! We don't need to make some crazy restriction on 3rd party software , we don't need people saying "nope it can be done because all servers don't need that" , all we need is the Option for server owners to make their server "open microphone" and we need people mature enough and into the concept enough to play on these servers , that's it ... No huge changes to the game and this doesn't disrupt all the big clans that don't care to use the in game communications !!!!

It doesn't hurt the people that want it and it creates a whole new challenging, more realistic world . I really don't see why this wouldn't be a good idea , we all wanted first person only servers and they made it happen, I think we should (everyone that likes the more realistic feeling) start to push for an option for open micced servers , it would be such a different change and many would like it , and like said before , won't hurt anyone's play style who doesn't like it becAuse it will be on seperate servers (hosted by players who choose to enable this option).

Edit : to pillock , that actually would be the best idea (everyone using radios Ingame ) I'm always on a radio but nobody ever responds :( !

 

 

In principle I agree. But there's a couple of issues you'd need to get round.

 

One is server performance. When I suggested locked open mics a few weeks/months ago in another similar topic, I was told that it would put a lot of extra strain on the server due to the increase of data. So there might be technical reasons for it not being feasible. Also, there would probably need to be some way of muting your mic without exiting the game, or else it would cause problems for people who don't want to broadcast background noise such as private or personal conversations with their family, etc.

[B4GEL 175]

Once long range radios are in and persistence is fully working it will be feasible to run a group without teamspeak but even then i doubt many people will do it. It's not great but it's one of those things we're going to have to live with.

 

Perhaps you could get enough like minded people together to run a server with a no out of game communication rule but i can't see it becoming universal.

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

Almost none uses the radios ingame,which is a shame.

We can't ban people from using TS but....maybe we can motivate them to use the ingame communication system.

You want to hear my opinion...?

What if we replace the flashlight with a walkie talkie as starting gear for fresh spawns (and made their range global)?

Then anyone could talk to everyone globally without the fear of realism or immersion breaking. :)

[mikedude01 0]

I know Im off the subject but wanted to comment say that they keeps adding little stuff so that theres not soo much pvp all they need to do is add more zombies and make it easier to get killed by them.   

[chokko 45]

I just told you how it would work :) read the rest of my post and you'll realize I suggested something that doesn't even block third party software . The idea is only special servers would make it so no matter what you are always talking over direct , so no matter if you wanna use teamspeak or not , you're talking into direct whevever you make noise into the mic...

 

 

I did read it. it wasn't clear what you were on about, but is now that you've spammed the forum umpteen times about this "solution".

 

You keep harping on that the weaknesses YOU identified in your own solution won't be a problem, because the people coming to your hardcore/ultrarealism/elite/ishouldbe inSAS (snigger) servers, wouldn't attempt to exploit the weakness. Which means there is no need for any change/solution - because nobody coming to your hardcore/ultrarealism/elite/ishouldbeinSAS servers would ever think about using teamspeak (disclaimer: other 3rd party chat programs are available)

 

Is it realistic and immersive for me, to hear your mum calling you for your potty time in the background? Being forced to listen to you vacuuming the floor ? No thanks, I want to listen to the in-game sounds. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the ingame comms (voice and chat) have a delay and sometimes the chat messages do not even go through. Even if there were a reliable and realtime communications mechanism implemented, I would be expecting concepts such as shouting and whispering to be available. i.e. a way to control how far your voice travels.

 

People who train for real combat, learn to communicate silently - and I would much rather the devs implement those measures, than demanding all players have a microphone and it is on all the time. What happens if someone doesn't have a microphone btw ? No (hardcore/ultrarealism/elite/ishouldbeinSAS) dayz for you!

 

ANother for the 'ways to get around this even if it were implemented' list...Plenty of people have real soundcards with a mike port, whilst the mobo does too. So whichever one the game is 'listening on'..i simply don't have anything plugged into it.

 

Would be interesting to see how much bandwidth it used, and impact on game..the Zs are sluggish enough as it is being server side.

 

If you want realism, I would have thought something slightly more important would be demanding servers run 24/7 (without restart), loot never respawning, and if you ever logout/disconnect..your character is dead.