Free VOIP service for your guild

[Scream112]

Let me begin by saying, this is a totally free service, we are hosting just because we pretty much got the opportunity to use this awesome dedicated server with some of the best connection Europe has to offer!

The server is hosted by Endgamers.org and managed by MO Radio.

So if your guild or group of friends, need a VOIP-server to use when gaming, communicating or for any other reason, all you have to do is contact me via PM here or on IRC.

You will get your own private Parent channel, under which you got FULL admin rights (kick, ban, move, create channels and so on)

No one else other than the people you give the rights to, can join the channel. Which makes it totally private for you and your guild or group of friends.

There is public rooms which is open for the public, which also work as "cross guilds channels" so if you wish to talk and play with any other guilds members you can use these for that purpose. This also opens up the possibility to connect with other guilds, find new friends and allies, or enemies!

If you got any questions feel free to ask them here or in a PM.

For this we use Mumble. http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

If you dont know what Mumble is, google it! It pretty much beat the crap out of Ventrilo and Teamspeak atm, by having ultra low latency as well as great sound quality. Also the interface is the best out of both Ventrilo and Teamspeak, as well as being open source. If you havent used it before, give it a try, you might like it!

A tip to make the mumble client more smooth when used on a server with several channels, is to go into Configure -> Settings. Then under User Interface, change the Expand option to None. This makes the channels/trees you expand or close show up. Otherwise every channel with a user in it will be expanded, and this make for a very chaotic experience during times when there is a lot of users one jumping between different channels.

List of guilds who currently use the service:

Mahtisoturit
Sol Colligo
Legendary (No official recruitment thread)
Wolfshead Vikings

[Maerlyn]

Very nice innitiative. Thanks for taking the effort.

Stickied.

[NizeGuy]

Nice move on the use of Mumble. Maybe I will accept the offer and spare some money ^^

[Mocker]

props to you for doing this, but I have to say...mumble interface better than Vent? I may take you up on this offer just for a tutorial. The Black Company tried to use mumble and found the interface to be completely borked, though we did suspect it had something to do with the host not setting our admin privileges properly.

All in all, good on you for this kind of service.

[Murata]

+rep for being awesome.

[Tresilian]

Originally Posted by Mocker

props to you for doing this, but I have to say...mumble interface better than Vent? I may take you up on this offer just for a tutorial. The Black Company tried to use mumble and found the interface to be completely borked, though we did suspect it had something to do with the host not setting our admin privileges properly.

All in all, good on you for this kind of service.

I've used actively ventrilo/ts2/mumble and tested ts3 a bit. In my opinion mumble is the most flexible of those three by far. In game overlay for channel users/speakers and volume control for other programs running while someone is speaking on the mumble make it my favourite even over ts3.

If you have issues with admin controls in my mumble server, you can contact me on the IRC (Jazz is my nick in stratics). I'll help gladly.

Since people seem to often have weird presumptions about Mumble, I will list the main features here that make Mumble better than for example Ventrilo.

Pros:
- Better sound quality
- Better echo cancellation
- Possibility to mute/decrease volume on other programs while someone is speaking
- Possibility to add highly customizable in game overlay that can show users/currently speaking users on the channel
- Almost non existent input lag(voice travel time is only limited by actual latency to the server, ventrilo adds around one second input lag, thus it takes longer time to hear what someone said on the other end)
- Ability to use "whisper"(you can talk with alt speak to someone on different channels without others hearing it)
- Channel linking(users on different channels can be set to interact with each other by click of a hotkey)
- Wider possibilities to customize your channels/users with admin tools(ACL)
- Possibility to get rid of all passwords and still have a private channel/server by using certificates
- License free product(much cheaper to host a server)
- Highly customizable user UI and server config
- Easy Setup Wizard for first time user

Cons:
- You cannot set volume for each user separately(there shouldn't be any need for this if a user has done is Setup Wizard correctly. However in rare cases it may not help even if the wizard has been done correctly, mostly with people that have bad quality mics that alter the gain constantly. Personally I've seen only 2 cases so far.)
- Having to learn a new program(takes around 5 minutes for a regular user to do this, admins have to learn a bit more if they want to use all possibilities to control their channels/server)


I could go on with both lists, but those are the main pros/cons I can think of.

[Scream112]

Originally Posted by Mocker

props to you for doing this, but I have to say...mumble interface better than Vent? I may take you up on this offer just for a tutorial. The Black Company tried to use mumble and found the interface to be completely borked, though we did suspect it had something to do with the host not setting our admin privileges properly.

All in all, good on you for this kind of service.

If you want to do a test-run with me Ill be glad to help. Just contact me and Ill show you how it works and you and your guild can start using it as soon as we have showed you how it works

If there is any questions or problems you can always come and ask me for help.

[BlindMonkey]

Nice one scream, a few members of Hybrid try to get us on mumble every time we consider a new voice server. Sounds like open source kicking arse again

[Scream112]

Originally Posted by BlindMonkey

Nice one scream, a few members of Hybrid try to get us on mumble every time we consider a new voice server. Sounds like open source kicking arse again

Then stop paying for Ventrilo, and jump on to this Or at least give it a try. Just the less latency is well worth it. IMO.

[BlindMonkey]

We were on GSC before which tbh I found great, but other people complained about. Then a member came up with the vent. The added advantage of it though is that people often know about it/have it installed.

Though we are close to maxing out our vent channel spots atm, if it comes to that we may give it a bash.

[NizeGuy]

Originally Posted by Tresilian

I've used actively ventrilo/ts2/mumble and tested ts3 a bit. In my opinion mumble is the most flexible of those three by far. In game overlay for channel users/speakers and volume control for other programs running while someone is speaking on the mumble make it my favourite even over ts3.

If you have issues with admin controls in my mumble server, you can contact me on the IRC (Jazz is my nick in stratics). I'll help gladly.

Since people seem to often have weird presumptions about Mumble, I will list the main features here that make Mumble better than for example Ventrilo.

Pros:
- Better sound quality
- Better echo cancellation
- Possibility to mute/decrease volume on other programs while someone is speaking
- Possibility to add highly customizable in game overlay that can show users/currently speaking users on the channel
- Almost non existent input lag(voice travel time is only limited by actual latency to the server, ventrilo adds around one second input lag, thus it takes longer time to hear what someone said on the other end)
- Ability to use "whisper"(you can talk with alt speak to someone on different channels without others hearing it)
- Channel linking(users on different channels can be set to interact with each other by click of a hotkey)
- Wider possibilities to customize your channels/users with admin tools(ACL)
- Possibility to get rid of all passwords and still have a private channel/server by using certificates
- License free product(much cheaper to host a server)
- Highly customizable user UI and server config
- Easy Setup Wizard for first time user

Cons:
- You cannot set volume for each user separately(there shouldn't be any need for this if a user has done is Setup Wizard correctly. However in rare cases it may not help even if the wizard has been done correctly, mostly with people that have bad quality mics that alter the gain constantly. Personally I've seen only 2 cases so far.)
- Having to learn a new program(takes around 5 minutes for a regular user to do this, admins have to learn a bit more if they want to use all possibilities to control their channels/server)


I could go on with both lists, but those are the main pros/cons I can think of.

You forgot one main feature!

- Positional audio ^^ (Doesn't support MO atm, but maybe in the future?)

[maniacle]

Originally Posted by NizeGuy

You forgot one main feature!

- Positional audio ^^ (Doesn't support MO atm, but maybe in the future?)

It is funny...all the pros listed are the same features TS3 has plus more. Granted...i'm not here to talk bad about mumble....

TS3 also has positional audio....just saying.


With that said, no matter which voice software is used....the effort is comendable. ALways good to see people trying to do something for the community.

[Tresilian]

maniacle as far as I know ts3 doesn't have IG overlay or "Possibility to mute/decrease volume on other programs while someone is speaking"? I think ts3 is really good one too, almost as good as mumble is. Just those two features missing make mumble slightly better. I haven't done extensive testing on ts3 so I could be wrong, please correct me if I'm wrong! Another thing that's a little bad from my PoV is that ts3 isn't entirely license free.

Oh and as far as I know ts3 doesn't have "real" positional audio that is based on in game position, like mumble has. You can predetermine position of the speaker on ts3, but it is static.

[maniacle]

Originally Posted by Tresilian

maniacle as far as I know ts3 doesn't have IG overlay or "Possibility to mute/decrease volume on other programs while someone is speaking"? I think ts3 is really good one too, almost as good as mumble is. Just those two features missing make mumble slightly better. I haven't done extensive testing on ts3 so I could be wrong, please correct me if I'm wrong! Another thing that's a little bad from my PoV is that ts3 isn't entirely license free.

Oh and as far as I know ts3 doesn't have "real" positional audio that is based on in game position, like mumble has. You can predetermine position of the speaker on ts3, but it is static.

Actually TS3 does have an Overlay (not built in, it is a plugin) as well as the ability to mute/decrease colume on other programs (also a plugin) while someone is speaking. And yes, TS3 is only license free up to 512 people on at the same time. Most people i think don't use that many slots .

The plugin system is great on TS3 and the community is coming out with new plugins all the time. You have to keep updated on the forums to see the new skins, audio packs, and plugins to see what the modders and community are coming out with. And don't forget, even more features are coming out as it is still in open beta. Imagine Firefox without plugins? TS3 was smart to open this ability up to the community.

[EvilLemons]

Plugins do not count. You lose.

[Tresilian]

maniacle thanks for replying, I wasn't aware of such plugins. I stand corrected

I will try and follow ts3 development a bit more from now on. If ts3 proves to be better than mumble and people request for it, I can launch a server for ts3 as well.

It is true that you can host a ts3 with a "fee free license" up to 512 people as long as you don't ask for any payment from users. Unfortunately dedicated servers and connections cost money and eventually I may have to start asking for some form of minimal fee for these services to cover the actual server costs. Can't do that with ts3 or at least it will be more expensive than mumble. However there has been no plans about any payments on this server, so for now(several months) it will be completely free of charge for users.

[maniacle]

Originally Posted by Tresilian

maniacle thanks for replying, I wasn't aware of such plugins. I stand corrected

I will try and follow ts3 development a bit more from now on. If ts3 proves to be better than mumble and people request for it, I can launch a server for ts3 as well.

It is true that you can host a ts3 with a "fee free license" up to 512 people as long as you don't ask for any payment from users. Unfortunately dedicated servers and connections cost money and eventually I may have to start asking for some form of minimal fee for these services to cover the actual server costs. Can't do that with ts3 or at least it will be more expensive than mumble. However there has been no plans about any payments on this server, so for now(several months) it will be completely free of charge for users.

The only main issue with TS3 right now is the latency. It is better then TS2 latency, but mumble has better latency. For the open beta TS3 only released high bandwith codecs for the most part. The devs promised to release more codecs though as it gets more into open beta. It is a wait and see thing. The sound quality is excellent though.