Suggestion: Expanding on in-game voice communication

[Bogeyman 23]

Hello everyone, this is my 2nd suggestion for DayZ. The previous one was the one with subduing and restraining, mostly in order to give a more humane way of dealing with potentially hostile players instead of always going for the kill.

Preface

So there have been plenty of ideas of expanding the in-game voice communication, the ones I have seen being portable radios and a way to force constant voice communication so that you can't plot murder right in front of another player without them being able to hear you. Portable radios is obviously an awesome idea, and constant voice communication is a decent idea. Let me comment on that before I go ahead with my own ideas.

In-game voice communication being enabled constantly can be circumvented fairly easily, like for me example it doesn't work to begin with even though my mic works with skype, teamspeak, ventrilo etc. Beyond that there are more elaborate ways to circumvent it. However I'd say this doesn't necessarily need to be a problem, even if it isn't optimal. I suspect what would happen is players would be very suspicious of others who do not talk at all, and probably shoot them if they get the chance. It would sort of be like real life, if a guy won't talk to you, but just hangs around, you're not exactly gonna trust him. So anyone circumventing the in-game voice communication still won't be able to plot murder right in someone's face, beyond inexperienced players of course.

As for whether or not having voice communication enabled constantly is a good idea or not, I'll say that I'm sure a lot of players won't like it. It's not just good or bad, it would simply have an effect and players would have to deal with it. Now on to my ideas.

Whisper, Talk, Shout

This is a common concept in chats of most MMOs, and I think it would work just as well for voice communication. In fact, I think it would be of great use.

How would it work? I suggest you can toggle them, only one can be toggled at a time of course and perhaps there is always one toggled (similar to what I talked about in the preface). Instead of the functions regulating the volume of the sounds, it's probably easier to just extend the range of the sound or regulate the fall-off over distances. This way Whisper won't be too quiet, and Shout won't be too loud up close. They would also have different zombie alerting ranges.

I saw another suggestion (when searching to see if my suggestion had already been made) that was sort of similar to this, but instead of having different functions for the in-game voice communication it would detect how loudly you talk and the sound would go farther if you screamed. I think that would be terribly hard to get right.

Megaphone

In addition to shouting, you could find a megaphone that sends your voice even farther. To make it clear that it's a megaphone maybe the sound should be somewhat distorted (if it can be done without it sounding garbage).

What's the point?

Well it's rather simple. Sometimes you want to talk, but not alert other players nearby, and sometimes you see someone in the distance and you want to be able to shout that you're friendly. And after that maybe kill him, if you're in cherno. And the megaphone... man, I would love to have a crew surrounding e.g. the fire station outside of Elektro and use the megaphone, saying "You're surrounded, come out with your hands up".

Let me know what you think and if you have any similar ideas.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Bogeyman

[umandez 139]

Someone playing music while gaming.

Sorry would not work.

[Aeoneth 163]

Someone playing music while gaming.

Sorry would not work.

Without side chat, only people within ~40-80m would hear them and at the higher end of that spectrum it would be a much lower volume. + they would simply be broadcasting their position.

Don't forget constant direct would not affect 90% of the players in the server.

@OP: I'm all for the constant direct, and Megaphone Idea. I think the direct comms already replicate the talk whisper shout idea to a degree but don't quote me on that.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Aeoneth

[zorisx 7]

Direct Comm is effective up to 100m.

Have a whisper option set to 20m,

Talk to 40m

Shout to 100m

And Megaphone to 250km would be incredible.

I like this idea.

[Bogeyman 23]

Someone playing music while gaming.

Sorry would not work.

I have no idea what you're referring to. I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're talking about constant in-game voice com. Also, you don't explain what you mean. Do you mean that players will play music to be annoying? Just mute them, or find and kill them I guess. Do you mean that people need to be able to play with music on? Maybe invest in a headset. Or is that too much? Either way, I'm not quite sure what your point is or what your arguments are. I recommend you be more clear in the future if you want to be able to get your point across.

@OP: I'm all for the constant direct, and Megaphone Idea. I think the direct comms already replicate the talk whisper shout idea to a degree but don't quote me on that.

Just to clarify:

Constant direct communication was not my idea, and I wouldn't mind it either. But I sure as hell hope you'd be able to whisper/talk/shout. I don't want to give away my position to anyone within 100m as it would be now.

And Megaphone to 250km would be incredible.

Indeed, it would be awesome! Though I assume you mean 250m.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Bogeyman

[enforcer1975 1111]

Can Z also hear you transmitting music over VOIP?

[umandez 139]

I have no idea what you're referring to. I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're talking about constant in-game voice com. Also, you don't explain what you mean. Do you mean that players will play music to be annoying? Just mute them, or find and kill them I guess. Do you mean that people need to be able to play with music on? Maybe invest in a headset. Or is that too much? Either way, I'm not quite sure what your point is or what your arguments are. I recommend you be more clear in the future if you want to be able to get your point across.

Just to clarify:

Constant direct communication was not my idea, and I wouldn't mind it either. But I sure as hell hope you'd be able to whisper/talk/shout. I don't want to give away my position to anyone within 100m as it would be now.

Indeed, it would be awesome! Though I assume you mean 250m.

My Point was clear and simple. It wont work.

We already have enough problems with Zombies lagging due to the p2p system they are set up on. Can you Imagen the server load with everyone talking as well? 90% of people just don't have the bandwidth, the servers will just be slow and laggy and the delay on the zombies will be even worse than it is now.

Also someone playing loud music up to 100meters would just be exploited people will just wack their volume up full just to annoy people. And if you are just going to mute them then that just defeats the whole point of you wanting this system in the first place.

Yeah you could add a system to whisper or what ever you want you can jam your mic on now if you want by double tapping the button. Anyway. Everyone will just use Teamspeak or Ventrillo.

And i have set phones.. and a full 7.1 surround sound system. And a massive gamging rig. So i'm fine on that front thank you.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Dez.

[vision1776 42]

I like the idea of giving the options to whisper, speak and shout. Just dont allow players to lock them on. Although I have not seen someone walking around with music playing I can see that being annoying if you experienced it. Zombies should be able to hear speech if this is supposed to be realistic anyways.

[Bogeyman 23]

Not that anyone cares, but sorry for taking so long. I was on vacation.

My Point was clear and simple. It wont work.

We already have enough problems with Zombies lagging due to the p2p system they are set up on. Can you Imagen the server load with everyone talking as well? 90% of people just don't have the bandwidth, the servers will just be slow and laggy and the delay on the zombies will be even worse than it is now.

Also someone playing loud music up to 100meters would just be exploited people will just wack their volume up full just to annoy people. And if you are just going to mute them then that just defeats the whole point of you wanting this system in the first place.

Yeah you could add a system to whisper or what ever you want you can jam your mic on now if you want by double tapping the button. Anyway. Everyone will just use Teamspeak or Ventrillo.

And i have set phones.. and a full 7.1 surround sound system. And a massive gamging rig. So i'm fine on that front thank you.

It's great to see you start off by talking out of your ass, because by no means were you clear with your initial post.

Anyway, at least now I can see your points.

Yeah constant in-game com might be an issue (as far as server load goes), but it's a technical issue that could solved by technical means. If rocket would give up anytime someone said "no that won't work", DayZ wouldn't exist, and I think the same would apply for this. Don't be so defeatist about it.

I guess you're right when it comes to people not having enough bandwidth. But then again, streaming audio doesn't take a lot of bandwidth... maybe I'm just too high up in my ivory com-tower, idk.

As for loud music, I really don't see the problem. Anyone doing that would killed. And like you say, there's already nothing to stop this happening already. People who want to be annoying can still be, but they generally aren't because it doesn't benefit them. Also, the world is huge, and there aren't that many players on a server.

Oh well, I still think my idea or something along those lines would work well. And to clarify again: forced constant in-game communication wasn't my idea, I just mentioned it. My idea is primarily about whisper/speak/shout, and it'd be great if more of you would comment on that rather than the prior.

Thanks!