VOIP Thoughts?

The beginning of Early Access for SWTOR is only 5 days away so I have been considering the options of ordering a 6 month Voice Over IP Server & choosing a client.

There are at least a dozen different clients available.Based on performance, function, popularity and most importantly COST we’ve come to the conclusion that our guild has two options: Ventrilo or Mumble

Ventrilo Pro’s:
• Anyone who has ever used VOIP for gaming has used and probably still has Ventrilo.
• One of the easiest to setup clients.
• Costs about 25 cents per user per month. 15 User Slots for 6 months is $45.90

Mumble Pro’s:
• Increasingly popular replacement VOIP for Ventrilo due to several reports of higher sound clarity and lower latency.
• Reported to have 2x the Voice to Ear time than Ventrilo & Teamspeak
• Automatic Normalization (Client will automatically turn down or up the volume of people who are too soft or too loud.)
• Costs about 15 cents per user per month. 15 User Slots for 6 months is $28.61 (40% cheaper than Ventrilo)
• Optional Overlay (Allows you to see whose talking in vent with a small screen “toast window” you can customize or disable.)

In my opinion the real choice is simply do we want the client we know EVERYONE has and costs a little more or go with less expensive & “reported” better performance.

Let me know what you think!(especially if you have experience with Mumble).

P.S. PLEASE don't make this a "I'M A FANBOY YOU BETTA PICK THIS!1!", provide reasoning, statistics ect.. ect.. with your answer.

As always thanks for your opinions and help!

Mumble is obviously a better piece of software, but Ventrilo has more penetration.

If your main userbase is going to be PUGs, then go with Ventrilo. If you are going to have guild regulars using it for raiding, go with Mumble.

Also, I believe with Mumble you can host it yourself. I don't think that's an option for Ventrilo. That may not matter much for your specific needs, but I'm sure some folks can take advantage of that. That type of flexibility can play well in the market.

Vent does or did have an overlay though. It may have been a third party thing, but I ran it for awhile. (unless I'm confusing it with teamspeak...)

Pretty sure you can still grab the old version of the Ventrilo server software somewhere - I think 2.13 or something? Try http://www.oldversion.com

Personally, I think sound quality is *mostly* a bunch of shit. Audiophiles notwithstanding, of course, but to the normal ear, I haven't heard any difference at all between mumble and vent. Never really had any problems with vent, for that matter.

So go with whatever you want to. +1 to Belloc - vent has better penetration, so you're more likely to come across people that already have it.

Why not TeamSpeak 3 ?
I hardly know any guild in EU that uses Mumble or Vent anymore...

RedAces wrote:Why not TeamSpeak 3 ?
I hardly know any guild in EU that uses Mumble or Vent anymore...

I think the #1 reason would be that the TS3 hostings I found where priced almost the exact same as Ventrilo.

#2 would be I've never experience or noticed any performance differences between Vent & TS3 to me they might as well be "Name Brand box Vs. Off Brand box".

#3 I don't know anyone in my SWTOR Guild or even WoW guild that likes using TS3 over Ventrilo.

*shrug*

A lot of EU guilds seem to use TeamSpeak

Brekkie wrote:A lot of EU guilds seem to use TeamSpeak

7 of our members live in central Texas

I'm SO SORRY. They have my sympathies.

Mumble had some teething issues (mostly seemed to be idiots not knowing how to set things up). The big advantage, though, was that latency was amazingly better. I'm an Australian, and used to lagging a lot on ventrilo (which is annoying when trying to raid lead, I basically had to be trying to announce things a second or so in advance). As soon as we got the mumble server set up, people started commenting that they could hear me in real time.

Mumble also does some nice things, as you mentioned - automatic normalization is amazing, the overlay is really useful, and setting up specific push-to-talk keys (I had a button for talking to the tanks, a button to talk to the officers, and one to talk to everyone) is more straightforward than in vent. We ended up going back to vent (because of the whiners that couldn't get it set up), but I found it a LOT more pleasant to use. I no longer play wow, but still use (a self-hosted) mumble for league of legends and minecraft with friends.