Hello everyone. My name is Luke, I have been with the community for awhile and if I have taken note of anything it is that you guys like to talk. TeamSpeak is a program that sprung out of the blue a couple years back, and is basically a more sophisticated and cleaner Ventrilo. Ventrilo has many issues with delays and is generally pretty crappy, so please don't act like it is cool and bring it up in this thread as an option. This is not 2008. --- Dear MapleRoyals community, staff, and other onlookers to this thread, I have recently skimmed through a thread on this forum that featured a player requesting an IRC server and was completely shut down by the staff, even though he offered to set it up for them. Regardless of this and I didn't read the whole thread I think that the staff were wrong in not taking up the offer, but here is a modern and more long term option to bring the community together once again. TeamSpeak is a program that is used often by multiple different gaming communities and people in general. It is clean, user-friendly, and ultimately worth having. The program enables users to chat via microphones in group calls, to have private rooms, and to essentially be available to talk whenever they wish rather than searching for some random Skype call that they are doomed to find. The program is not free, though through some basic research I have concluded it is not going to be something that greatly decreases the profits that the server has (which hopefully just goes back to the server anyway). I am recommending that the server invests in this program, even just as a test run for a few months. I think that if we can get an active TeamSpeak community going we would all enjoy ourselves a bit more than we currently do. I've talked to a few people about it, they all think it is a great idea. I think it is a great idea. It has worked on most servers I've been around on in the past, and usually produces a friendly group of people to chill with and talk to. Please consider this more thoroughly than the whole IRC suggestion, because the points against it were moot. Thank you for the consideration, I have heard from various rumors that the server does not do particularly well in terms of cash flow, but if it is an option I say give it a go for awhile. Your loyal player, Luke/Ekul P.S. I love the new banner you guys have. Not sure if it is new or not, I haven't really browsed the forum much lately.
Skype pls. -cough- Actually I think your idea has some.merit cos only a few prominent members are active on Skype. Would be a good idea to involve the rest of the community xD
Would be awesome. Although we aren't hitting donation targets as it is which means Matt would have to put even more money into this server. Even though Teamspeak is cheap as chips it's still more money coming from his pockets. As I said though, it'd be great.
Thank you for the detailed post. We will discuss this within the staff over the next day or two, can't promise anything though. And please people keep giving your feedback about this here.
It's a far more social alternative to Skype, I remember back in the day, just talking to people on the DestinyMS teamspeak server (or perhaps it was Ventrilo, either way, they're relatively similar), and just speaking to people was entertainment in itself. If we were to get it, I would strongly encourage players to join in.
What would be the probable monthly costs of a Teamspeak server? (You can count me out, as I don't do voice chats, but that's just me personally - no reason why everyone else shouldn't go for it.)
Mumble is just as good and user-friendly as TeamSpeak. Imo, it's superior to TS, but I may just be biased.
Mumble I like the idea. I do think that Mumble should be tested before or at least side by side TeamSpeak for a while. Just by the previous posts, a few google searches and a couple skims through software specs for both programs, open source may be the way to go here. Seems like the smart move, especially when you got a ton of people to test it out and report back. I never liked skype. Crashes constantly, hogs too much memory and bandwidth (even when I'm not chatting), IU is laggy as hell on my variety of 2009+ computer builds, etc... -I've given up It'd be great to test out some new software with everyone!!! It probably comes down to how much of a hassle that you'd get with Mumble TeamSpeak will let you avoid with a certain price. But idk, I haven't looked into it too much. I remember Vent though, haha. I'd have to get used to all of my friends' robot voices, even with a 2-4mb/s down/up, lol.
I own a teamspeak, I'd be willing to give the info for y'all. I need it used anyway. It's 40 slots now but I'd be VERY willing to upgrade it if need be, and I need an excuse to change everything on it. =p
I like the idea, too. I already proposed it to the Staff, never got a real response from Matt, though, sadly. :c I might be able to get a good server, too. 100 slots should work. That's not 100% certain as of yet, though.
Bump. Very possible that I missed some final decision on this, but has this been decided or talked about yet? Everything seemed to be positive feedback. Only potential issue is money, though the person above me offered to host it. As much as I would like to agree and say let the guy host it, it seems to always come into conflict when someone else runs your stuff that isn't on the staff team. Regardless, I'm still interested and apparently more people are as well!
Disclaimer: This is just my personal opinion and does not in any way represent the views of the staff. My personal vote would be to accept Zane's very kind offer of letting us, as a server, use his Teamspeak for now, as this is something that would mainly be used as a social gathering place and would probably be also pretty neat for co-ordinating future Horntail runs. I've been having a look at images of the Teamspeak UI and it doesn't look like it's well-designed for text chat, which is (in my opinion) the most practical medium for staff business and likely to also be the most useful medium for passing on information about server downtime and the progress being made. Text is more practical if you need to leave messages for people to read as and when they get online. It's also handy if you're in class, at work, or up at stupid o'clock in the morning and don't want to disturb the family/neighbours.
While all of your points are valid, my suggestion was not meant to be another medium in place of the server while it is down, nor as a way to get the message out that it is down. It is just a fun thing that would hopefully be running 24/7 for the people connected to MapleRoyals to chat on via microphone. As for the functionality of the text box, it works well enough to chat through if need be. The program is called TeamSpeak, not TeamType after all.
Ah, sorry, I think I probably misunderstood you, as the original IRC idea was mainly put forward as somewhere to talk when the server was down!
Mm, yeah. I suppose I did kind of word it in a way that would be replacing the IRC idea. I was more branching off the IRC idea, into a more fun version where people would probably actually participate in!
I completely agreed with the shutting down of the IRC idea because it was based off, as Kat said above, the staff giving updates and answering questions about server issues. This is something we really don't need as there are already mediums the staff uses to communicate server issues to us. And I'd rather they worked on the issues at hand than answer millions of questions about it. But as far as a cyber social gathering place for people in Royals sure, why not.
Okay, I am completely unfamiliar with TeamSpeak. After looking at their website I see that a 100 slot server would cost £20/mo or £200/year. Which in my opinion seems quite steep. However, I have noted the kind offer from xFMJxDeman. I presume we are talking about an official MapleRoyals TeamSpeak server, so how would the TeamSpeak server be moderated? I presume whoever owns the server has the rights to kick/ban whoever they choose. If so, this could lead to drama if owned by somebody else? And if owned by the staff, it seems like it would be an extra responsibility that we don't need. Correct me if I am wrong. Personally, I wouldn't use TeamSpeak, so it doesn't really interest me at all. But if this is something that players of the server would like to see then we should, of course, try and see if we can work something out.
