Teamspeak communications

[Anonymous]

Hey guys.

I just want to get your opinions on something that's been bothering me for a while.

I've spent some time on TeamSpeak and I've noticed how communicating with it can be chaos sometimes.

Since, as Tbone mentioned in another post, we'll be using it all the time while playing MxO, we might want to correct a few things to improve the quality of our communications.  Being able to send and receive information clearly and quickly is pretty important when you're in a tight spot and 3 agents want to have your head as a trophy ;-)

I think TeamSpeak is a great piece of code but here are the problems I see now with it.

Problems

1. Overlapping Conversations (two or more people talking at the same time)
2. Poor Sound Quality (due to a poor microphone or background noise)
3. Network lag
4. Regional Accents (I'm the first one to admit that mine might sometimes be hard to understand)

I think we can probably find solutions to some of these problems.


Solutions

1. The military had the same problem with CB communications.  That's why they use "Roger" or "Over" at the end of each communication.  This way, everybody else knows they're done talking.  I guess we just need a way of knowing when someone's done talking.

2. Well the solution here is pretty simple.  Whatever causes this poor sound quality can be fixed by getting a better microphone or by stopping the tractor trailer engine that runs 5 feet from the microphone ;-)  Anyways, everybody should test their voice input by doing a "local test".  There's an option for that in TeamSpeak.

3. Well the only thing I can think of is to reduce your bandwith usage to a minimum.  That can be done by closing applications that use bandwidth but are not needed at that point.  Another trick is to turn off the "QoS Packet Scheduler" item from your Network card settings.  This item reserves 10% of the bandwidth for its own use.  This thing is used for remote network management.  Most applications will never ever use it.

4. Well not much we can do here aside being aware of it and trying to speak clearly.



I'm not trying to force anybody to do anything.  I'm also not trying to take away the fun of playing.  I'm just throwing a few ideas out there.

My take on it is that efficiency will make us a more powerful faction.

I'd like to know what you guys think about all of this.

Just my two cents :-)

[Anonymous]

Nice topic Core.

I'm also worried about TS but for different reasons.  It can get chaotic with just 10 people; I can't imagine what it will be like when we have 100.

Are we breaking into separate faction TS rooms?

[Anonymous]

By Ship maybe ?

[Anonymous]

I agree. But I refuse to say roger and over. Never, ever any roger and over. But to say something when starting and ending a transmission would be good.

About the accents...I think I'm pretty clear, though it's sometimes VERY obvious I'm norwegian, the norwegian accent doesn't distort the words, it only makes the tone slightly different. What can I say..I'll keep practicing . If I concentrate on what to say, there really isn't much of an accent.


While in MxO, the crew should be in their ships rooms, except when for some reason we are gathering, and the captains somehow both in the crew room and in the captains room. That way we could have communication between ships without having all 100's in the same room. The only problem that gives is captain absence. They can't be online all the time. In that case a crew member could be selected as temporary leader, and temporarily allowed into Teamspeak captains room.

Just my $0.02.

[Anonymous]

I have written an in-depth TS playbook a few months back.  A careful read for anyone who wishes to clean up the chaos on Voice com programs..
http://thefuriousangels.com/index.php?topic=668

[Anonymous]

Good rule of thumb: If you're doing a whisper or server wide broadcast, say "<NAME> to <PLAYER/SERVER>". Also, if you're doing a server broadcast, it's a good idea to say "<NAME> to <SERVER>, please quiet down, you have 10 seconds to comply." 10 seconds after, you start your message.

[Anonymous]

can someone give me the link to where I can download teamspeak?

[Anonymous]

GoTeamSpeak.com

[Anonymous]

can anybody recommend a good mic/headset?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sevker.

I'm glad that such a guide exists.

Seems like you guys thought of everything :-)


Hey Subtek.

I just bought a Plantronics USB mic/heaset combo for about $100.

Seems like good quality.

[Anonymous]

:O dude! $100?!


$100 != cheap!

That's a lot of cash. Don't buy six of those and buy an X800XT instead.

[Anonymous]

I forgot to mention that it's $100 bucks in canadian money so that's about $ 22 bucks in american money right ? ;-)

They're kind of expensive but that the only USB mic/headphone I found.

[Anonymous]

OOOoooh...I was like thinking american bucks.

It did seem a lot for mic and headphone.

$22 is more reasonable .

[Anonymous]

I'm just kidding, $ 100 canadian bucks is about $ 75 american bucks.

I was trying to point out the weakness of our currency :-)

[Anonymous]

lol! Canadians can't even dig on themselves well! /wink