One interesting thing about our 10-man group — well, now that I think about it it’s really an interesting thing about our guild, and our old guild – is that we don’t use Vent, or any kind of voice chat. Back in the old days when we were doing ZG (before MC) we had a vent server set up, but we always had 25%-50% of the raiders didn’t get their vent set up and couldn’t hear what anyone was saying.
Actually, in those days I was the assigned guild secretary. The raid leader would explain the fight over vent, and I’d type whatever he was saying into raid for the benefit of those without vent.
At any rate, something about being a casual guild has kept us from ever setting up voice chat. I think maybe it’s because we don’t want to make people do anything. Maybe it’s because all the Aussies have horrible internet and voice would only slow things down more (though, to be frank, I think we can agree that’s karma punishing them for being all bronzed gods with accents connected directly to the genitalia of the opposite sex).
At any rate, whenever the subject comes up, several people in the guild speak out loudly against the idea of having efficient, instant communication amongst the raid during fights. And the thought is that having somne people with voice chat and some without would be like crossing the streams (it would be bad).
So Hrist and I, in our continuing mission to defeat the Lich King, both independantly decided that we should be using voice chat. Of course the first step is that we’ll have to get microphones/head sets of some sort (can anyone recommend one?) but then Hrist hatred will be transmitted directly into our ears!
So when I shared this with some MNK peeps during a daily heroic run, they were excited and happy at the prospect.
So now some predictions.
Most common Hrist hate over voice chat?
- Heal me now!
- Get out of the fire/void zone/aoe hell
- Shut up!
- Weee! We all suck.
- I need a hug
Have you got anything else to add to the list of soon-to-be Hristisms?
(7 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)
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Member
I move around alot, so i use Logitechs Premium Notebook headset. Its faily compact and portable, the only drawback being after 4 or 5 hours ot starts to weight on the tops of your ears. Its also USB, which is hands down the way to go. USB headsets show up as a second sound device, which means you can easily route vent sounds and voice through the headset, and leave wow coming out of your desktop speakers. I hear that Sound Blaster is coming out with a crazy fancy WoW headset though, so you might keep an eye towards that.
BTW, your getting in on Vent just in time for the return of Ony!
MORE DOTS!
Member
our vent convos usually involve everything except what we are doing to the point of forgetting to tell someone about a fight. oops
Member
i really need to learn to think before hitting submit. wife and i use some POS headphone mic thing we got on sale for 17 bucks, works good
I’d spend a bit and get something comfortable. After 4-5 hours of raiding, your ears hurting or a head ache from the headset really sucks.
USB is definitely the way to go! I also like having the volume and a mute button close at hand; either on the headset itself or the cord.
I have a Logitech Clear Chat USB and it’s pretty good. Not a ton of money. Pretty comfortable.
My first set I got on the cheap. I might as well have given the $20 to my 3 year old.
I have known Hrist for… more than 15 years (yikes). I don’t think in that time (which includes living with him for a year driving to work together every day) I have ever _EVER_ heard him say, “I need a hug.”
But the other stuff, esspecially the “Weee! We all suck.” Are all very hrist-hatisms.
“OK, pull the lever.”
“Where’s Neven, we need to sacrifice a gnome?”
“Crap, [name] lived through that?”
“Who let [name] in?”
[screaming] “Hey, [name]! Can you f*****g hear me NOW?”
I find it easier to filter out inanity when it’s typed and not screamed. Besides, Hrist is a hot elf chick. Do *not* disabuse me of that notion.
@Yume …OK STOP DOTS.
The game has a fairly functional voice chat function I’d suggest you try. It’s cheaper than vent, at any rate. And there’s no substitute for the coordination that efficient voice channel coordination can give you. Not using it reduces your raid’s effectiveness for no good reason.
Member
vent is free as long as you know how to edit a text file and forward a port
Member
I’ll very stongly recommend a reasonable quality mic. There is nothing more annoying than hearing someone in vent sound like a kid at a drive-thru trying to repeat your order.
I use a Creative HS-1200 headset. This is a UBS wireless headset. The mic works very well, the earphones are comfortable for a 4-5 hour raid night, but the best part is being able to jump up from the desk after some failboat causes a wipe without ripping your ears off.
The ingame voice is “ok”, but if you want any kind of control (mute the whinners, adjust Hrist to be mild on the ears even at his most energetic) then vent is the solution.
we used the ingame voice chat for a while ….but it is of poor quality compared to Ventrillo or Teamspeak. I personally prefer Teamspeak but everybody else prefers Vent
I heartily recommend it
Heh… I was expecting more vent-ing (get it? VENT-ing? hah! I kill me) about Hrist’s and my… relationship. Seriously, I kid you not… he tries to get me killed every chance he gets!
I know, I know… you’re thinking that maybe I might be drawing a tad too much aggro and he’s trying to teach me a lesson. But thats not it!
Though it just isnt the same when I have to say over voice “God damn I hate you Hrist.” vs typing it out… it tends to lose something.
Member
I have used the In Gane Voice chat and I think I can say without a doubt, It licks “wee salty balls”!!. It seems to not only need a steady connection but seems to work better depending on where in the world you are in the world and when you switch channels it will sometimes not work at all for no good reason.
Also even if you do manage to work it over enough to get it working then it also seems to vary volume from person to person with no two being the same.
The only good thing I have found about it is the fader which kills the WoW sounds when its being used but if someone has it on Auto Talk then say goodbye to your game sounds or anything and hello to heavy breathing!
All in all I think Vent is much better quality its not hard to use and most people likely have it already on their comps and if they don’t its not much harder to get then an Add On really
Just wanted to throw in my Exp and 2c
*Takes kickback from Ventrilo*……AFK
Member
I personally agree that voice chat should be used, especially if you want to be a decent raiding guild. I think voice chat is one of the many things that bring a guild together.
Sure, you can have a great guild without voice chat but, voice chat just helps out 10x on raid positioning and strategy of a detailed fight.
I use to use some Plantronics GameCom 377 headphones worked great and very comfortable then, something happen to the microphone.
Then I got a pair of Sennheiser PC350 headphones and they are pretty darn awesome.
“DPS THE ADD!! WHY IS NO ONE ATTACKING THE ADD YET!!”
Gotta be a common one.
Hey Cobbers. any headset from logitech will be adequate for vent. but for comfort and nice noise cancellation (try to filter out the music or superbowl) that your non wow playing roomie is churning out at 300 Db the logitech gamer pro works well.
as to us Aussies being bronzed gods, there is one slight drawback. umm err.. no i take that back.. there isnt..
later guys
stoutnbitter
its an attitude not a lifestyle
Admin
Well, I’m not worried about separate channels or muting people. Our 10-man group operates on a principle of being responsible raiders. We don’t goof off when we’re supposed to be working. Well, for the most part. And then there’s Hrist ruling with an iron fist.
But I’m really thinking voice chat will help with faction champions.
Member
“Clear comms.”
“Shut the up!”
“I swear to , if you don’t shut up and listen I will come to your house and !”
Member
Aw, it took out my comments. That was supposed to be:
“Clear comms.”
“Shut the (expetive) up!”
“I swear to (diety), if you don’t shut up and listen I will come to your house and (startlingly unpleasant act)!”
Member
I love voice chat, there are many other games where you can’t live without it. After the fiasco of trying to get people to use it before, someone else can take up the torch.
In my guild they use vent alot. I don’t use it exactely for that reason. Soo much noise (both actual and people talking that could be considerred so) on the channel and people actually playing (crap) music all the time. I like the quiet …
Contributor
My guild leader/main tank is similarly full of hatred most of the time. One of his more iconic phrases is “One more time and you’re out of the guild.”
In definitely-not-related news, I’ve been kicked from my guild 3 times. Fortunately, someone else is always brave enough to invite me back. I also take a lot of (unwarranted) crap for my tanking. Any time I hear the phrase “Arth’s pet could tank it” over vent chat, I know beyond doubt that I’m about to be yelled at, even though I’m not the one initiating the suggestion. Apparently hunters doing something other than dps enrages people.
Haha! Reading that, I thought you were going to say “…maybe its because the Aussies have horribles voices…”
To which I was thinking “yes, yes we do…” But yeah, our internet is quite shite also.
:0)
Wow sounds like your raid technology is in the stone age Frost lol so your doing exceptional well , to run our elite raids you must have vent, omen threat meter and deadly boss mods they are the 3 must haves and if dont thats fine but dont expect to run in our progreession raids. You can run heroics and basic nax’s with out but i find its a hoot we can talk and laugh , at one time there was a guessing game to guess how many ice cubes were in my pint of bourbon coz they could hear it every time i took a mouthful. I love voice and our guild are a great bunch of girls and guys and its always nice hear what people have to say. I also find in emergencys when fighting bosses you can explain things as your going along which if i had to type i would lose dps and not be concentrating at the job at hand. As for Aussie internet yeah i hear you there !!, but i run 1.5mb per sec which seems to be ok sometimes voice takes a little longer to get through by a few seconds delay however my exchange does not support ADSL 2 yet
. Even if they dont have a mic to speak back thats fine as long as they can hear you and the raid leader that way all fights are explained over vent we even use vent to post videos before each new fight in progression so everyone watchs the video we discuss our plan of attack and then go for it . As for the accent i did’n't think us aussies had much of one but yes i have heard a few woman comment about our voice and the way it sounds.
Suprised you didn’t use Vent already tbh? Thought it was fairly mandatory for raiding in anything byond a pug. Hell we use vent for 5 mans just to insult each other more easily =)
hey frost on the subject of fail chat you should check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT2ZSnqsTyk&feature=sub and also i use the Razer Carcharias you can pick them up at any best buy or store of that matter but yea check out the video its soo damn funny
Contributor
I never understood why DBM is “mandatory” for raids. If one person has it, I get all the raid warnings for bosses. A couple regular raiders in my guild have it, and I’ve never needed to run it. Tracking personal bests for kill times seems like the only self-indulgent use I would have for it.
THAT’S A FUCKING 50 DKP MINUS!
“who pulled that”
“stop distracting shoting the boss its now taunt immune”
“mid summer gear does not give you fire resistance!”
some of the recent calls i’ve hear on vent
As one of the aussies in the guild… latency sits on 430ish normally, any form of voice chat enabled brings that to 560-600, and adds occasional lag spikes. This effect usually increases in proportion to the number of people in channel. meaning when such a service would be most useful (25mans) my ability to respond to game issues degrades to a point where any possible gain from it is completely lost. I have from time to time used in 5 mans, as a previous poster mentioned just to chat and joke around, when that amount of gameplay loss is largely irrelevent. On one of my horde alts on an oceanic server, with all people in the raid using a local australian vent server the degredation in play ability was quite manageable(should also note on oceanic servers my latency is 250ish…but i like my guildies). As well, up until recently one of our healers was still playing on dial-up (she was so very hardcore to deal with that frustration for 4 years) voip ccompletely killed her connection, heck 25man raids with any raid mod killed her connection.
On the subject of required add-ons the previous mention of omen… I have omen on at the moment, and i’ve used it from time to time previously, it’s tps output is largely meaningless, in a similar way to recounts dps is on anything other than a straight tank and spank. I find it distracting more than anything elseand would never advocate mandatory use :/. and having just bagged recounts dps on a site Frost runs i should probably also clarify… average transient dps can be very misleading with respect to total contribution, especially comparing classes with varying DoT contributions to their damage, and magnified when phase switching mechanics impact players ability to maintain direct dps. For instance razor in ulduar.. a person refreshing a single DoT on razor as he goes airborne continues to ‘dps’ razor at a very low rate until there DoT falls off, while classes without DoTs have ceased ‘dps’ to recounts eyes. So even if the DoT’er deals more damage overall it’s highly likely his reported ‘dps’ will be much lower, since he was outputting that low dps for some time… Welcome to why I beat TheGnome in damage on the weekend by 800k over 3 boss fights, while reporting more than 1kdps less for total dps.
Welcome also to a guild tradition WallOText…
Well personally i hate vent or team speak see i am one of those old raiders from a guild that didnt use it prebc and we did shyt just fine but then again we also knew wut to do and when to do it people r just to damn lazy to type shyt out or make macros for certain things they repeat anymore people gotten way to freaking lazy in wow 99% of some wut serous raid guilds requir u to have vent or team speak to me its pointless even the guild i am in now requires u to have it yet we dont use it 90% of the time so u tell me the logic of actually having it even the damn GL dont even use it most of the time cause he plays from his business and to the dbm comments i can see one to 3 people in the raid having them so they can call out to rest of raid to wuts going on but its also helpful to know ur self when to move to a add or run from the boss during certain fights
Dues Payer
dude, on the real, i dont see how a raid can operate without voice. sure, in game clutter of vent can be a distraction, but if its disciplined, vent is often clear during fights except for leaders calling out directions. it helps a ton in fights were tanks have to switch off, or if a tank dies, an OT can call out if he is picking it up so MT healer can switch. faction champs to.
i cant imagine having to stop mid fight and type any of that out. i guess you could macro it, but i rarely pay attention to my raid chat mid fight, what with everything else going on (a pet peeve of mine in vezax since im in charge of poppin saronite, healers tend to type instead of just say “need mana” in vent XO)
if youve raided successfully without voice, my hats off to you. i admit im spoiled with it, but i couldnt raid without it on many of the ulduar and toc fights (older stuff like OS can be done in ones sleep). if you can keep vent clutter down (so everyone wont yell out “im down” when they die, just the important people haha) then i think its a great efficient addition.
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe things will be better after you can communicate vocally with Hrist? Maybe he’s just misunderstood. It is very difficult to convey emotions accurately via text chat. Voice chat doesn’t suffer from this problem. I’m confident that you will get a very good idea of exactly how he feels in a much more timely fashion than you have before.
Enjoy!
Admin
Text chat currently disguises a lot of Hrist hate, if for no other reason than he has time to think a moment before saying something. Methinks voice will amplify the hate.
Well i live in perth WA with a 1.5mb connection which is ADSL 1 and our vent server is in Dallas if not its defintely the USA and our vent holds the 25 man runs we do almost every weekend while still have 2 x 5 man heroic teams running and i have very little problems sometimes a 2-5 sec delay but most the time its almost instant plus if there is a delay its only my voice i still hear everyone else instantly. I use Internode as my ISP provider and there fantastic only been disconnect like 3 times in 8 years so if your haveing problems i think its more your isp provider. I also use a logitech receptionist headset which is great the mic is very loud but with vent you can turn each person up or down as required and im sure somewhere theres a equaliser to bring everyone to the same volume.
Frost from your videos and judging from your interface you seem like a traditional kind of guy, i personally think that you can get by with just voice chat, because it seems like you mostly do 10 mans anyway and they dont take alot of coordination. my guild beat heroic 10 man toc beasts with one tank dead, which may prove your point if your not used to voice chat it may get in the way and prove to be awkward and maybe even unused, but it is a must for 25 man raids for any type of success
Stone,
The only caviat that I bring to your Wall-o-text is that Frost (like myself… hey am I “TheGnome”?) tend to use the recounts feature of total damage done when showing recount. Yes, it lists the dps, but it goes off of the total damage, making it more accurate to who is contributing.