Skype: Do you have it? Would you use VoIP in game?

[tyler]

I'm wondering how many people on here use Skype. I'm also wondering if anybody would like to get a massive Skype VoIP conversation going during a game. I think it would be awesome and would help strengthen Wesnoth's social aspect.

Webcams maybe?

[norbert]

I'm also wondering if anybody would like to get a massive Skype VoIP conversation going during a game. I think it would be awesome and would help strengthen Wesnoth's social aspect.

Skype is proprietary freeware though, so maybe another application would be more suitable. Mumble, for example, is BSD/GPL software that runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Like Wesnoth, it is written in C++. It allows positional audio, which means people's voices could come from their keep locations. Its conference peers maximum is limited only by server bandwidth (and memory). Of course, several other applications could be used. I'm in for giving Mumble and possibly other applications a try, maybe we could meet on IRC (#wesnoth@freenode) first and discuss it further there?

[tyler]

Sorry, I was keeping software preferences in mind when I mentioned Skype. It was just the first cross-platform VoIP client that came to mind. It also offers video conferencing so that's cool.

I just use Skype because I know other people who use Skype.

I guess Mumble or some other open-source software could be used. I'm about to go somewhere so I will have to take a rain check for the IRC conversation. Thanks for asking though.

I think a voice conference would add more depth to the game. It sure would make team game interesting since planning moves wouldn't require a massive amount of typing.

[thespaceinvader]

Voice chat could be of use, as long as the additional strain on the server wouldn't cause issues. Moved to Ideas. It might also be of use to post a feature request.

[tyler]

Thanks for moving it.

I'm kind of new to forum etiquette since I don't frequent well... any.

I heard from Mythological that the idea was proposed and shot down a while ago.

Perhaps I am mistaken.

I was thinking of just using a second application, but integration into Wesnoth would be great.

Probably hard work though.

[thespaceinvader]

Just using a second application would be up to the users you're eminently welcome just to organise that yourself.

[Iris]

I'm also wondering if anybody would like to get a massive Skype VoIP conversation going during a game. I think it would be awesome and would help strengthen Wesnoth's social aspect.

Not me. I'm too shy to speak over a telephone/microphone/computer.

[Dixie]

Even if my say has really minimal impact on the final decision, I'm not a big fan of voice-chat (or telephone, for that matter) either. I much prefer standard chat. And this is not considering accents and difficulty with english, since the community is pretty much international and not everybody is fluent with english. (although as I understand it, even if voicechat became an option, it surely wouldn't kick standard chat out, and anybody could probably refuse to use it). I also tend to put the game on mute when I play, either to listen to my own music, or because my gf doesn't particularly enjoy hearing a game's music and sound effects when she's doing some other stuff close by, and I don,t always feel like having headphones. So voicechat would go against both those, and worse yet, when I want to actually hear the music, I can put headphones: I can't really do that much for speaking in a mic.

Anyway, feel free to actually play with an external voicechat application with others who enjoy it, if you like

[tyler]

Not me. I'm too shy to speak over a telephone/microphone/computer.

I'm not a big fan of voice-chat

Yeah, that's part of the reason why I didn't put in a feature request - I can't see it being that popular.

Although, It would be nice to try out as an experiment with Skype/Mumble/<insert VoIP application here>

[StandYourGround]

Think of all those observers chattering...

[tyler]

:mute -v <nick>

Also, it could be customizable. Like, just enable it so you could hear your team mate.

[pauxlo]

I think it would not be useful to integrate this in Wesnoth - Wesnoth is already big enough, and using an external program is all that is necessary.
What may be useful from the Wesnoth-side, would be to provide a way of giving position information (relative position of leaders, of keeps, etc.) to these external applications.