15 replies to this topic

[Deano]

Which voice communication server would you like to see KoolSource setup?

[Culvert]

I currently run both and have no issues.... so I vote...... no preference! lol

[Rebel]

Mumble?

[TheInfamousBug]

Ventrilo has always been my platform of choice. There's a lot of factors behind this, but let me list my thoughts and why (Speaking from experience being both a Ventrilo owner, moderator and guild leader as well as in the past a Teamspeak channel leader and guild officer on WoW):

Teamspeak is VERY simple to setup. Put in your info, click connect, done. The biggest complaint I have on terms of user ability is that there is no chat room built onto it. If you want to share a link, webpage, or whatever, you cannot. In addition, you cannot setup private binds, private chat, or anything along those lines. It's very basic in terms of function. In addition, the sound sampling is maxed at 32KHz whereas Ventrilo caps at 44KHz. It isn't a lot, but for some, it does make a difference (Myself included, but maybe not y'all ). The other thing about Teamspeak is you cannot modify volume independently, nor double connect (That is connect with two clients on the same server unless it's been patched since early TS3 - I tend to connect my mp3 player and myself so I can listen to music. More on that in a few). Lastly, on the pros, Teamspeak can be completely modified outside of client via server setup controls online. That is really wonderful for those that don't want to be caught modifying major things, but at the same time, it is so simplistic, you can't add or remove things like in Ventrilo.

Ventrilo is a little more difficult on setup since you need to be familiar with setting up the server or such. If you need help, I'd be willing to offer it, since I've both been a global admin as well as an owner of 25+ slot Ventrio servers in the past with WoW guilds. The major plus over Teamspeak I find to be the interface and what options you have on-server versus Teamspeak. You can not only mute and such, but you can also raise and lower volume on a per-user basis, which it does save the settings for (IE: I join, voice is too loud, you turn me down, I quit and relog or you quit and relog, and all the settings stay with the lower volume). Plus, you do have the option to enter private chats with people, a chat room based on either a "Full server" chat room or a "Per room chat room" on the server (I'm not sure if all different Vent hostings allow this option, however, since the one I currently own doesn't have it, but my oldest one did), as well as the option to private chat with keybindings to any person if enabled. Teamspeak has a similar function called "Channel commander," but that's the only way you can create a "private" broadcast that I know of between users. Ventrilo allows you to do it no matter your setup, unless you disable it for different ranks on the server itself. As mentioned above, Vent does use a 44KHz sampling for slightly higher quality (If you ENABLE it, since some people don't realize you need to do this), and the other features have to be enabled both on-server as well as on the website client side.

Overall, I still prefer Ventrilo over Teamspeak. It gets updated on a psuedo-regular basis versus Teamspeak (Teamspeak ONLY JUST NOW came out of "Beta" for TS3 in August. And it's barely changed much from the former open Beta status at all from what I've read. I stopped using TS3 after a guild on Hordeside I raid led for stopped raiding, so it's been a long time since using it at all. Ventrilo I use even now fairly regularly).

My two cents and info for any that might not know about the two programs, or if you want to have info about them.

-Edit- There is one word of note - Mac clients are at a disadvantage with Ventrilo UNLESS you set up the client a specific way on the hosting site. Normally, the sound codec "GSM" isn't supported, however the way around it is by using something different. I highly recommend Speex for this, as it seems to have the best quality I've heard outside of potentially VOIP with Skype. So to those with Macs that go "Can I run it," yes you can - You just have to make sure the server you connect to isn't using GSM.

Edited by TheInfamousBug, 03 October 2011 - 11:58 PM.

[John]

I've administrated both Teamspeak and Ventrilo servers in the past.

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Teamspeak is VERY simple to setup. Put in your info, click connect, done. The biggest complaint I have on terms of user ability is that there is no chat room built onto it. If you want to share a link, webpage, or whatever, you cannot. In addition, you cannot setup private binds, private chat, or anything along those lines. It's very basic in terms of function. In addition, the sound sampling is maxed at 32KHz whereas Ventrilo caps at 44KHz. It isn't a lot, but for some, it does make a difference (Myself included, but maybe not y'all ). The other thing about Teamspeak is you cannot modify volume independently, nor double connect (That is connect with two clients on the same server unless it's been patched since early TS3 - I tend to connect my mp3 player and myself so I can listen to music. More on that in a few). Lastly, on the pros, Teamspeak can be completely modified outside of client via server setup controls online. That is really wonderful for those that don't want to be caught modifying major things, but at the same time, it is so simplistic, you can't add or remove things like in Ventrilo.

Teamspeak has the ability to do all of the things that you said it cannot do. It has the ability for full server, channel and personal chat all from the main window; simply double click on a users name to initiate a private chat; channel chat is joined automatically by joining a channel and you can get to the server-wide chat by clicking on the server's main tab. Teamspeak now has better voice quality than Ventrilo (just about CD quality) and is 100% compatible with all platforms regardless of codec; I don't know how many of you have Mac of Linux but this is always nice to know . TeamSpeak 2 I believe is what your referring to as all of what you said is very much true for it.

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Overall, I still prefer Ventrilo over Teamspeak. It gets updated on a psuedo-regular basis versus Teamspeak (Teamspeak ONLY JUST NOW came out of "Beta" for TS3 in August. And it's barely changed much from the former open Beta status at all from what I've read. I stopped using TS3 after a guild on Hordeside I raid led for stopped raiding, so it's been a long time since using it at all. Ventrilo I use even now fairly regularly).

I disagree with this, the reason it was in beta so long is that they wanted to release a near perfect product, which they did. Ventrilo has not released any updates since 2007 and has limited support for Mac and no support for Linux; there is however a third-party application that "bridges" the gap called Mangler (http://www.mangler.org/). TeamSpeak also supports client side modifications which means the community can now extend TeamSpeak to fit its needs.

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As you can probably tell I'm quite bias towards TeamSpeak but I also have many reasons why I am; I don't mind Ventrilo I just prefer TeamSpeak.

I also think that TeamSpeak has a bigger community backed and supported product. Meaning if you have an issue with anything in regards to TeamSpeak there is an entire community there to help you with your problems. Ventrilo just simply does not offer this level of support. (Possibly because they think you don't need it?)

-John

@TheInfamousBug: I'm really not trying to be an ass and I apologize if my post seems that way; I'm just arguing some of the information you posted.

[TheInfamousBug]

No, it helps. I've never been able to initiate a private chat on server with TS2 or 3. I assume there's a way to disable it from inside the Admin console on web-side client? Or potentially the server was running a TS2 infrastructure? Or could it do that, I thought TS3 was built from scratch. Hmm.

As for having "nearly" CD quality, that means it has worse quality than Ventrilo. 44KHz is considered CD quality. Ventrilo can use that natively. Unless Teamspeak can achieve that, it is considered less than CD. The only way it could get around that (Since I'm not familiar with TS3 architecture under the hood) is if it uses very little, if any, voice compression clientside.

Lastly, I completely forgot about Ventrilo not working with Linux. I thought it did, only because for a short time, I dual booted under Linux on my secondary PC (This going back around 4 years and two towers ago) and actually ran the Ventrilo server program off the PC standalone to have a free 8 slot vent for Unreal Tournament 2004 games between friends from college. We used that tower for server so we didn't have to pay for a cheap 5 slot (Since you can support 8 natively on Vent). I thought since the server would work, the client would, but I stand correct after I looked that up myself x.X

Anyway, fair game on that. It's been a lot longer since I've used Teamspeak at all since I used Ventrilo, so you can see my bias. Whatever we go with, I'm fine with. I think we're all just in our own bias worlds

[Culvert]

TheInfamousBug, on 04 October 2011 - 05:29 AM, said:

I think we're all just in our own bias worlds

Not true. I'm fine using either one. doesn't bother me one bit!

[Deano]

I didn't include mumble as i highly doubt it will get much use. It would be nice as we can have one for free but, yeah, it won't get used i don't think.

I also didn't add no preference because i want a clear answer from the community so people don't complain that i chose due to "no preference" being the majority of votes.

And as for the information in Bugs post, most of it is wrong lol. I'll just put it down to personal preference lol.

I have managed large capacity versions of both servers, especially ventrillo 1000 slots.

Ventrilo is very nice but very simple and actually very simple to setup compared to TS3. However, ventrillo does require you to use a hotkey as it picks up everything! It is very easy to use voice activation on TS3, its just like being on skype.

I actually don't care which one we use, but i would prefer TS3 just for the extra community features and better voice activation, even though a TS3 server is harder for me to setup.

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-Edit- There is one word of note - Mac clients are at a disadvantage with Ventrilo UNLESS you set up the client a specific way on the hosting site. Normally, the sound codec "GSM" isn't supported, however the way around it is by using something different. I highly recommend Speex for this, as it seems to have the best quality I've heard outside of potentially VOIP with Skype. So to those with Macs that go "Can I run it," yes you can - You just have to make sure the server you connect to isn't using GSM.

If we do go with ventrillo we will be using the Speex codec as i mostly use my iMac for working.

[Brad]

What the **** are you talking about Bug?

[Happy0]

Brad, on 04 October 2011 - 12:21 PM, said:

What the **** are you talking about Bug?

Diplomatic as always, Brad. Unfortunately the forum system doesn't let you down vote posts anymore, otherwise I would downvote yours.

Quality issues aside (as I have never noticed a difference in quality between ventrilo and teamspeak), I prefer Teamspeak for usability reasons. I usually have to spend some time guiding people through setting up ventrilo, where as it's easy to at least get somebody connected on Teamspeak. As far as I can see, both programs are very similar in terms of features.

My reason for preferring Teamspeak to ventrilo, is I guess more 'political.' I find ventrilo's licensing very backwards - you may only use a free version with up to 8 users, and if you want to exceed that then you must buy a server from a third party. Teamspeak, on the other hand, doesn't have a cap on user's allowed for non-profit purposes. However, Teamspeak still manages to make profit by selling licenses for selling teamspeak servers. I think that approach is more reasonable, and should be encouraged.

However, that really means nothing in terms of the Koolsource community. In terms of the Koolsource community, we have the money to pay for a ventrilo server or teamspeak server. If we do decide to go for ventrilo, those of you whole prefer Teamspeak are welcome to use the server I have set up for playing League of Legends with my friends (address is Happy0.co.uk), where I will create Koolsource room This is assuming, of course that Koolsource doesn't have its own Teamspeak server too...

Anyway!

[Deano]

Happy0, on 04 October 2011 - 07:33 PM, said:

Diplomatic as always, Brad. Unfortunately the forum system doesn't let you down vote posts anymore, otherwise I would downvote yours.

It does now, john found a way to enable it again lol.

[TheInfamousBug]

Yay, I can downvote my idiocy from my original post. I hate editing things out due to stupidity. More fun to look back and remember how naive I was instead of going "What was there again?"

All aside, why not also poll in-game, perhaps. There's a lot of people that don't visit the forums regularly that are on the server that would perhaps be interested. Maybe have a designated "Sign area" just outside of spawn that you can put a sign up with your opinion. Put it in the MOTD, perhaps. This would possibly garner more votes. o.O

[Deano]

TheInfamousBug, on 05 October 2011 - 04:04 AM, said:

All aside, why not also poll in-game, perhaps. There's a lot of people that don't visit the forums regularly that are on the server that would perhaps be interested. Maybe have a designated "Sign area" just outside of spawn that you can put a sign up with your opinion. Put it in the MOTD, perhaps. This would possibly garner more votes. o.O

Thats a terrible idea.

[Happy0]

TheInfamousBug, on 05 October 2011 - 04:04 AM, said:

All aside, why not also poll in-game, perhaps. There's a lot of people that don't visit the forums regularly that are on the server that would perhaps be interested. Maybe have a designated "Sign area" just outside of spawn that you can put a sign up with your opinion. Put it in the MOTD, perhaps. This would possibly garner more votes. o.O

Nah, I think if someone complains, who hasn't voted, we should just do what a lot of people (naively) do after elections.

Person 1: 'Man, I hate the <such and such a party>!'
Person 2: 'Did you vote?'
Person 1: 'No b-'
Person 2: 'Then you've lost you're right to an opinion!'

Oh, and of course do our best to encourage people to vote on the forums in game to make them aware of the vote.

[Deano]

Too late, we already setup a ventrilo and mumble server.

The information is on our new servers page, located here : http://koolsource.com/servers

[OmegaOmni]

Rebel, on 03 October 2011 - 11:16 PM, said:

Mumble?

I use mumble and its not bad. I have no problems with Vent either. I have never used teamspeak.