In Game Voice Chat

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sove92

Then why I never need to do that? We all have the same client.

---

No idea. Have no idea how your audio is configured. I just know that the problem still persists 1 year after launch and my FC friends have to log off and log back on so we can use our headsets and talk. Don't have this issue with any of my other games, so it's no an OS issue. It's an issue with the coding of FFXIV that other developers have found solutions for.

Why does the NA forums have to make 50000 topics about the same thing? Like the idea of voice chat but they wont end of story.

WoW had it and no one care and they still use vent over it. Waste of money and time if you ask me :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Feyniphia

Raidcall is free for that matter. ^^

---

lol Raidcall. People still use that piece of garbage?

WoW & EQ2 both have in-game voice clients. They're both equally awful and people rarely uses them. You're better off using a third party program such as Mumble, Vent, TS3, Skype... Hell, even Google Chat is a better option.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noshpan

lol Raidcall. People still use that piece of garbage?

WoW & EQ2 both have in-game voice clients. They're both equally awful and people rarely uses them. You're better off using a third party program such as Mumble, Vent, TS3, Skype... Hell, even Google Chat is a better option.

---

Rarely is an understatment. In 6 years of WoW, no one I know nor myself ever used it. Heck, I've never even heard of anyone actually using it.

If Square Enix would add one, chances are it would be of the same quality as the WoW one and be totally worthless which will make people go back to TS3,Mumble and co. So yeah, I'd rather they don't waste developer time on something barely anyone will ever use.

It would only make it worthwhile if SE's ingame voice chat was equal or better then the main Voice Chat programs on the web.

Because if they are in anyway less... people will still require 3rd party programs. Just like they do in other mmos.

So SE would be faced with tons of work and more servers to handle that many people on voice chat at once time. And even with that people in larger guilds or multi-gameing guilds will still use 3rd party software.

I cannot see it being cost effective to SE to make ingame voice. I do not see that bringing in enough subs to warrant the cost of hardware and development time.

DF extremes and some coils could benefit greatly from voice chat, imo.

Would love to have this feature available.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dwill

Rarely is an understatment. In 6 years of WoW, no one I know nor myself ever used it. Heck, I've never even heard of anyone actually using it.

If Square Enix would add one, chances are it would be of the same quality as the WoW one and be totally worthless which will make people go back to TS3,Mumble and co. So yeah, I'd rather they don't waste developer time on something barely anyone will ever use.

---

I used WoW & EQ2's in-game voice chat a couple of times. Then promptly deactivated the feature when the quality ranked up there with talking to someone underwater. Thus hence "rarely" ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OldGeezer

All these other developers make a seemless transition for a simple task such as plugging in a headset, but SE can not. If SE can't get even a simple task like this right which should be standard, voicechat will be beyond them.

---

I had the issue with other programs including chrome, it's been an OS issue. If the headphones are plugged into a different 'audio device' and made the new 'default playback device', Windows won't channel active audio towards that device until stopped and reinitialized by the software.There is a work around SE could implement which other devs might have applied themselves. Basically, it's like the wireless controller issues we used to have where they didn't work on reconnection unless you relogged.

All they need to do is add a check to the loop to see if the default playback device has changed, and once it has, they have to force stop the sound engine and reinitialize on the new device. Another option would be to allow setting a custom playback device. Just check /systemconfig to see what I mean, Display and Gamepad Settings both have a dropdown box to select what gamepad/monitor to use where the Sound settings lack such options. The reason is because it refers to the default playback device and Windows won't stop the stream towards a device until told otherwise.

Coding wise, it doesn't even come close to a matter if they can or can not implement voice chat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggy

This will never happen. As long as the game is on the playstation platform it will be impossible to add a voice chat system directly into the game. Pc players are unable to voice chat with playstation players. Period.

---

Not entirely true, the game works cross platform, voice should be able to as well. The issue is more the need to optimize and compile versions for each system so it can compress the sound correctly and decode the received data correctly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noshpan

WoW & EQ2 both have in-game voice clients. They're both equally awful and people rarely uses them. You're better off using a third party program such as Mumble, Vent, TS3, Skype... Hell, even Google Chat is a better option.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dwill

Rarely is an understatment. In 6 years of WoW, no one I know nor myself ever used it. Heck, I've never even heard of anyone actually using it.

If Square Enix would add one, chances are it would be of the same quality as the WoW one and be totally worthless which will make people go back to TS3,Mumble and co. So yeah, I'd rather they don't waste developer time on something barely anyone will ever use.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noshpan

I used WoW & EQ2's in-game voice chat a couple of times. Then promptly deactivated the feature when the quality ranked up there with talking to someone underwater. Thus hence "rarely" ;)

---

There's a reason for all this and what makes voicechat implementation into the game just not worth it. The engine would need to compress the audio and be sent along towards the server, gobbling up extra bandwith between server and client, needing to adjust priority of game and voice data and either lag the game, or lag the sound. The solution to minimize this sacrifice is high compression which will reduce sound quality in most cases and thus sounding muffled/underwater like.

The in game voicechat seems to be desired mostly by the console players. The solution should be it's developers adding a client that allows you to connect to TeamSpeak/Mumble or likewise services. Still not ideal, and most voicechat applications seem to have their own idea on how their servers/clients should interact.

Another solution I could think up is if SE implemented the voice servers on the clients themselves and have the server list the hosting clients to redirect voicechat to. This would practically be like 'hosting a skype call'. PS3 users probably won't be able to use this feature still since it will demand extra processing power and SE has already tried to optimize the client as much as it is. And the quality will depend on the connection of who is actually hosting the call.

TL;DR: Hope on standardized voicechat servers and consoles implementing acces. Otherwise, not worth it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HiranaiVashai

Not entirely true, the game works cross platform, voice should be able to as well. The issue is more the need to optimize and compile versions for each system so it can compress the sound correctly and decode the received data correctly.

---

No it isn't. Please offer me one. Just one example of a game on a console that had cross platform voice chat with a pc version or even another console. If you can show a single example I'll retract my statement. Until then it stands.

Sony will not allow it because it creates a inconsistent experience with their user base and it's against their interests to offer such functionality. Games that use voice chat on the console use the built in console voice features and those will never communicate with PC until the console makers change their minds.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggy

That would be a windows/OS function not a game function. So it's not on them. Also, windows 7 and 8 do this as described if you set the windows audio settings properly.

Lastly, many people don't like that functionality by default. I'm one of them.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sove92

I have no issues like this, I can switch audio devices without any issues. This is not a XIV problem.

---

Both of you are wrong I'm afraid.

The game requires Device Events to be handled via IMMNotificationClient interface for newly connected or removed audio devices to switch over correctly when using Xinput, currently it does not do this so upon removal of a usb headset sound is permanently lost requiring a client restart.

Good idea but it will be really hard to implement. They have already problems with servers and housing/population to deal with something so big as this. I think we will never see it. Even if we will see it it will be after some years but definitely not any time soon. For this I don't really care to be honest as I use PC so I have so many options like Skype/Teamspeak/Raidcall etc.

I think it would be a bad idea.

Have you ever played a game with voice chat inside the game?

Example 1 vindictus so laggy when you use the voice then you had playstation home they had to remove the voice cause it was lagging everyone out. Especially since everyone complains about lag a lot here I can just imagine how bad it would be with voice chat added.

I don't see why people can't use other forms of voice or make a forum topic with all the voice chat options people can use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zenaku

Why does the NA forums have to make 50000 topics about the same thing? Like the idea of voice chat but they wont end of story.

WoW had it and no one care and they still use vent over it. Waste of money and time if you ask me :)

---

Cause us muricans will keep complaining till we get what we want!

I personally have two takes on this...

1-A game doesn't need voice chat, ever, you can just play the game and have fun, and if you're in a group, all you need is cooperation/coordination to get things done. A simple world on a macro, mark enemies or spots, should be enough.

2-Having voice chat available opens up more options instead of being limited as we are, I welcome to have more options even if I end up not using it. It's better to have something you could use occasionally rather than to have nothing available.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Both of you are wrong I'm afraid.

The game requires Device Events to be handled for newly connected or removed audio devices to switch over correctly when using Xinput, currently it does not do this so upon removal of a usb headset sound is permanently lost requiring a client restart.

---

Why I never lose sound then?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sove92

Why I never lose sound then?

---

Because you are plugging into an existing jack that lacks jack status (hd spec disconnected/connected state) or simply changing the default audio device in the windows Sound Properties/

The issue is specific to sound devices that become present, or non-present when unplugged (usb device headphones or HD Audio jack with device detection.)

You can reproduce this without owning a usb headset by simply stopping the Windows Audio Service, this will close all audio endpoints and all sound devices will vanish from Sound Properties until the service is restarted - Audio will no longer work in the game client after doing this and will require restarting the client.

Games that support Device Events will recover from the sound service being stopped and started just fine.

As a side note, this only seems to be required by applications that use XAudio, DirectSound (re)aquires the devices just fine.


I may be wrong about the issue being present with hd spec jacks, im not sure if their endpoint becomes fully removed when the status is disconnected, but I know the issue exists with Usb headsets and when the sound service is stopped as I have tested this and because there have been many other reports involving usb headsets for some time.

Quote:

---

The endpoint devices that are reported by the operating system faithfully track dynamic changes in the configuration of audio hardware that has jack-presence detection. While an endpoint device remains plugged in, the system enumerates that device. When the user unplugs an endpoint device, the system ceases to enumerate it.

---

Ok, that seems to be saying that jack-presence would also cause an end point change.

PC, PSP slim, XBox 360.... Skype.

True, not a game, but it is one service that has been cross platform. Games and applications are basically still the same. Both code with data and references, CPU instructions and what not. Not many games have been made cross platform and even this day and age some games are isolated to a single platform per implementation, Destiny being an example. I don't know many games that implement a voice chat server, UT2004 being one of the earlier servers to provide such features. I also honestly don't know many actual cross platform games aside of FFXI and FFXIV.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gextiv

DF extremes and some coils could benefit greatly from voice chat, imo.

Would love to have this feature available.

---

Not if everyone speak different languages.
For some people it is easier to read and write english than to speak and hear english.

With ingame voice-chat we would see more english onry, german onry and french onry parties in the PF.
And maybe also more japan onry parties than usual.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HiranaiVashai

PC, PSP slim, XBox 360.... Skype.

True, not a game, but it is one service that has been cross platform. Games and applications are basically still the same. Both code with data and references, CPU instructions and what not. Not many games have been made cross platform and even this day and age some games are isolated to a single platform per implementation, Destiny being an example. I don't know many games that implement a voice chat server, UT2004 being one of the earlier servers to provide such features. I also honestly don't know many actual cross platform games aside of FFXI and FFXIV.

---

First off cross platform is extremely common in this day and age so this problem would likely have had a solution if one existed. This is hardly the first game that was on multiple systems at the same time but they almost never share servers. Did you ever wonder why? Because it's not an implementation choice. It's because the console developers themselves specifically limit it. Xbox One for example requires developers to use their Azure servers and for the game to be locked to there system. FFXI was an exception that square fought for on the xbox 360 and even it never had cross platform chat.

So you bring up skype instead of an actual game. Skype is cross platform sure but it's also an application that had special support from the console developers (just like FFXI on the 360) to function this way. It's not a game app, it's an application. I still don't see a single game listed that has cross platform chat.

Quote:

---

Both code with data and references, CPU instructions and what not.

---

Sure it's all 0's and 1's and a nice internet connection to tie it all together. That means absolutely nothing if the companies policy prevents that functionality.

Cross system voice chat will never ever happen because the companies (Sony, Microsoft) will never let it happen. It has absolutely nothing to do with square or their decisions or feasibility of the system to perform it.

Trying to convince square is useless. Expecting anything but "no" as an answer is useless. They literally can not provide this functionality without the support of sony even if they wanted to and it appears they don't.