XIV Devs: Discord app now permits integrated game stats!

[Veritas-Ancora]

From today's Discord update:

Detailed game stats and integrations are officially here! Game devs can now integrate their game with Discord to do things like:
-Detailed game stats in your profile (like match duration, chosen character, and more).
-Allow grouping and partying up from within Discord
-Sending game invites within Discord
-Spectate invites from within Discord
If you’re a developer interested in Discord’s Rich Presence for your game, click here to learn more.
If you’re a player wanting to know more, check out our help article.

Devs, Discord has become the fastest-growing program used for Final Fantasy XIV. Please collaborate with Discord to allow this to give us the voice and game integration we need!

Edit: here's the link -- https://discordapp.com/rich-presence

[Rhais]

Discord is such a stupid name for something meant to facilitate communication between people.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Discord is such a stupid name for something meant to facilitate communication between people.

Thank you for your insightful contribution to the discussion.

[Kisagami]

Thank you for your insightful contribution to the discussion.

I laughed. Not sorry.

Honestly, I’d love it if they integratged Discord so I don’t have to alt tab constantly.

[Enkidoh]

Yoshi has made his opinions on voice programs like Discord long known - he doesn't support it because he doesn't want to discriminate against console players which the program cannot run on unless Sony were willing to come to the party (which they most likely would not). Other online games that support voice software usually have servers quarantined between different platforms (separate servers for PC, PS4, Xbone etc) which means such software is more useful in that regard.

But the fact is, FFXIV is a cross platform game and thus not being able to support voice software like Discord is simply a price that has to be paid, and that is reflected in Yoshi's stance on it I'm sorry to say.

[TensaiSogetsu]

Never going to happen, nor would I support it for the reasons said by Enkidoh.

[krinchan]

Yoshi has made his opinions on voice programs like Discord long known

Sauce please.

But the fact is, FFXIV is a cross platform game and thus not being able to support voice software like Discord is simply a price that has to be paid, and that is reflected in Yoshi's stance on it I'm sorry to say.

Please. The PC client has a ton of features and options that were not supported on the PS4. PC/PS4 had features that were not supported on the PS3. The client, while sharing a majority of the code across platforms, obviously can support unique bits set at the point the client is compiled for the target platform.

The discord integration would not make Discord required. It'd just be a nice bonus. Following your logic, just the fact that parsers exist makes them required. Last I checked, most statics don't discriminate against PS4 players so...

There's nothing anti-player here to see.

[Veritas-Ancora]

But the fact is, FFXIV is a cross platform game and thus not being able to support voice software like Discord is simply a price that has to be paid, and that is reflected in Yoshi's stance on it I'm sorry to say.

We've got TONS of PS4 players who use voice activation on Android and iOS while playing the game, including our own raid. If anything, it'd implement the much-needed voice chat without causing any financial loss to Squeenix. Methinks this a win-win for them for a very simple coding implementation to Lodestone and available dungeon data to encourage more people to have more advertising for the game and more resources available outside the scope of what they have to pay for.

[silverlunarfox]

Huh, its almost like Discord is trying to facilitate the console experience on PC gaming.

That being said I like PC gaming for the fact it doesn't have any of this.....Dealing with console gaming for years problems always crop up with the integrated systems and things get broken in updates.

While it's cool Discord has finally branched into this I don't feel like FFXIV specifically needs the integration either.

We've got TONS of PS4 players who use voice activation on Android and iOS while playing the game

The iOS Discord has been terrible as of late. So I don't see this as a winning point. That being said. Most of my FC that is mostly PS4 users I did switch to discord, but only for voice chat. We use Facebook for everything else. Discord is a bit daunting for some older folks.

[Enkidoh]

Sauce please.

Here you go (although I admit my memory wasn't entirelly correct - his reasons for not wanting voice chat in FFXIV are slightly more varied than what I posted, but the context is the same.).

Hi all, it’s ‘coming down with the flu’ Yoshida here,

Thanks for the discussion regarding voice chat. I wanted to present my thoughts on the subject, too.

Conclusion
We currently have no plans to implement voice chat into FFXIV, even for Version 2.0.

Level of Communication
I’m also an online gamer when I have spare time, so I use voice chat when playing MMOs, online games, FPSs, and fighting games. However, voice chat is mostly used by the “hardcore players”. In MMORPGs, “chat” is the main form of communication and because it is text based it is fairly simple to use. However, hearing everyone’s voices when you’re communicating amongst a huge group of players can be highly irritating. Risks put aside, I think that the communication level in comparison to chat is a few steps higher.

Pros and Cons
Everyone pretty much said everything already.

The main cons:

There will be times when voice chat will be mandatory for things like instanced raids.
In particular, there is a fear that female gamers will get harassed when the say something and will then want to stay away.
A gap will appear between those that have/don’t have a mic.
As this will eat up more bandwidth, there will be more bandwidth costs.
We will need to create some kind of sound management, like creating an effect so that it's not your “real voice” that is being heard.


The main pros:

It is much faster than chat for direct communication so when playing as a party it is much easier.
If you can get along well with the other person, it is convenient, just like being on the phone.


Alternatives to Voice Chat
There are loads of great alternatives to voice chat such as Skype and Ventrillo. If we don’t officially support it, I think that there will be fewer cases where people will be forced to use it and told things like "come on, just use voice chat for crying out loud!" So for linkshells and what will become the Free Companies, if you can come to an agreement, I think that it would be good to consider using external software for voice chat purposes.

Summary
We will continue to make it so that our FFXIV players can play safely across all regions. Even if we can technically support it, for things that involve communication, we would have to make it official, but I think we would really need to think about this carefully so it won't be a stressful experience. So with that in mind, we will not be having official support for voice chat.