New Eve communication system: is it worth it?

Mors.Magne · March 2007

A question for those who have tested the new Eve communication system - is it worth it? Will you be using it?

I've heard a number of people will be sticking to TS/Vent because they are free. Will they be missing out?

killkool · March 2007

Stick to TS or ventrilo it does not cost you $10,00 a year. And it always works

LordSlater · March 2007

Its not even working properly yet

Mors.Magne · March 2007

Some corporations have tested it for CCP. I was also under the impression it was working correctly. My apologies if this isn't the case.

Mors.Magne · March 2007

Deckard Bishop has kindly shown me a forum thread that discusses this issue:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=482572

GlacianNex · March 2007

Originally posted by killkool

Stick to TS or ventrilo it does not cost you $10,00 a year. And it always works

You are right it costs a lot more. 4.95 a month is the cheapest server (unless you host one from home). so 4.95 * 12 = 59.40 that is for about to 10 people server.

If you want 40 - 50 people get ready to dish out 20 - 30$ a month. It is never free it only means that your guild mates pay for it.

Mors.Magne · March 2007

I will probably use the new Eve communications system because:

1) I can afford 10$ a year

2) It's an integrated system

3) CCP will probably adjust it to perfection as time goes by

iCeh · March 2007

Well I know I'll be sticking to Ventrilo, but mainly because I have friends who don't play EVE, and we're always on Vent, and any other integrated voice comm (CS:S for example) has always caused me problems while running vent.

Tulisin · March 2007

Will it only work if the person you want to talk to has paid as well? Sounds pretty useless to me. No one is going to get it for their alt accounts, and a majority of the population won't get it at all, the only time I see it being useful is as a corp if you make it mandatory, which of course will put a RL $$$ requirement on joining a corp, lame overall.

Mors.Magne · March 2007

My definition of lame is piloting a futuristic space caft and having to type messages like - "Help me stanger, I'm being attacked by pirates!" or "I'm a pirate - your money or your life!"

Another definition of lame is organising a group and having to pass on the password, and sort out TS/Vent.

vampen · March 2007

I think it´s a good idea. Though Ventrilo and TS are working just fine, I believe a lot of players will find good use of the ingame Voice Comminucation. The good thing is that the Voice Com channels are connected to your gang, which means for an example when the FC speaks, everyone else is muted. And you can talk to different squads seperatly. I recall TS having this kind of feature, though the ingame one may be more suited just for EVE.

It is optional so why not have it

Mors.Magne · March 2007

Oh, by the way, if you spend the absolutely enourmous bankrupting sum of 10$, you can use it for all your alts.

Mors.Magne · March 2007

Here is a video of a developer explaining the new Eve communications system:

http://evevault.ign.com/fms/Download.php?id=129

killkool · March 2007

More bribing, of i sit too wait too local talkers.

TS is more for people that want too talk so what you get every one pays a lot for something what is already there. If 40 people have ts is cost 200 euro if those same 40 people use chat from eve it cost 40*10= 400 euro

w175jab · March 2007

I don't think it is worth it if you can use a secondary program to communicate for free.

However, I do like that it is integrated into the game. (which has ups and downs itself)

It will be fun to be able to actually talk to others while walking in stations or moving about in your ship though... maybe someday even standing on the surface of EVE's moons and planets. Voice seems to just be a stepping stone to more game depth.

RevMrBlack · March 2007

The EVE Voice system is totally not needed, nor is it something that most Corp members should waste their money on. All it's going to do is cost people money and cause additional lag. I know the voice streams are through Vivox servers, but their has to be /some/ packets of data, however small, going between the client and Tranquility. It might be small, but every additional byte of data will add to lag. And if everyone starts using it, look out.

As for the pricing, at $9.99 / year, it's not really worth it. Sure, you get some nifty features like seeing who's talking and Fleet Commanders being able to auto-mute others when they speak. But it's not worth almost double the cost of a hosted Ventrilo or Teamspeak server. I went and looked for the prices I could find, and none of them are anywhere near as expensive as the EVE Voice system is going to cost. Let me break it down for you:

Each player will pay $9.99 per year for the service. ($14.95 if they sign up after 6 months) That's 83.25 cents / month, effectively. Sounds cheap, right? Wrong. Not when you compare it to how many players in your Corp, and how much a dedicated Vent/TS server would cost.

Say your Corp is 100 players big. That means you would be paying a total of $999 for the year, or $83.25 / month to talk use EVE Voice. Compared to a dedicated Vent/TS server, which might cost you max $50 / month, which works out to $600 / year. That's a savings of $399 / year versus using EVE Voice! It doesn't matter what size your Corp is, the cost is less than 50 cents / month per player for a dedicated Vent/TS server. Only if you have < 6 players does it end up costing more. And then you could probably host a server yourselves. My RL friends and I do it, no problem.

And the upside of the dedicated Vent/TS server, is you can talk to each other outside of EVE. Sure, it might be more problematic when you team up with strangers in EVE who don't have your Corp's Vent server's IP and password.

Oh wait ... when do people ever do that?

So, all in all, it's kind of a useless thing to be working on. And I'm very surprised at their pricing scheme. I thought it would have been more like $5 / year. Or maybe 50 cents / month.

Also, that video Jack_Target linked is almost completely useless. The only thing the guys says is that it won't involve talking in Local, period. So you won't be able to just chat with other players, you'll have to form a group or fleet with them. That's a good thing, though. Just imagine what Jita would sound like ...

*shudder*

Tulisin · March 2007

Originally posted by Jack_Target

My definition of lame is piloting a futuristic space caft and having to type messages like - "Help me stanger, I'm being attacked by pirates!" or "I'm a pirate - your money or your life!"
Another definition of lame is organising a group and having to pass on the password, and sort out TS/Vent.

Except odds are that "stranger" and "pirate target" will not have bothered to pay the $10, and the system will be utterly ineffective. The only way it would revolutionize in-game communication is if everyone had it, but when you put a pricetag on it (even if it won't break the bank) many people just won't bother.

LeJohn · March 2007

My corp has been using Xfire's voice for a year. After testing the EVE vop on SISI we were not impressed.

Main reasion, we know whos talking and thus we know who's the leader, whos the healer (rep bots) and who's the bait (usally me).

If the quality was better we may have looked at EvEs' but my corp is composed of clan mates and EVE is just one game we play. WE have dedicated TS and Vent servers also so why spend addition moneys?

Jump on the test server and you can check it out for free. The log on Xfire and check the vop there. See if you get a diffrense because I sure dont.

Taram · March 2007

No, I refuse to pay $10 / year for something my alliance already provides free.

And until they have a client that works OUTSIDE The game then there is no way in hell we'll even think about using it. Too many of our members hop on vent from work or other areas where they can be on vent but can't be on the game.

As long as it is completely tied to the game client we aren't interested.

As long as it costs 10x as much as running a vent server that handles 700 members we aren't interested.

700 players using Vivox = $7,000/year

700 players using Ventrillo = $900/year (That's for 700 CONCURRENT users, you don't need 700 concurrent connections for a 700 person alliance. At most you need a 200 or 300 member server, which runs about $429/year)

Frankly it just can't possibly offer enough features for the difference in price point. Granted we're talking about a price dispersed across every player. But if we were to REQUIRE our members to pay for it we may as well charge members a $1/year fee for the vent server.

Frankly I just don't see ViVox as a viable alternative to voice options that are already available far cheaper. If they want to add it as a FREE feature, great. But for $10 a year extra? I just don't see it happening. Too many people won't bother. Has nothing to do with not being able to afford it. Has to do with not enough people will pay for it, thus it'll be useless.

Taram · March 2007

Originally posted by RevMrBlack

The EVE Voice system is totally not needed, nor is it something that most Corp members should waste their money on. All it's going to do is cost people money and cause additional lag. I know the voice streams are through Vivox servers, but their has to be /some/ packets of data, however small, going between the client and Tranquility. It might be small, but every additional byte of data will add to lag. And if everyone starts using it, look out.

As for the pricing, at $9.99 / year, it's not really worth it. Sure, you get some nifty features like seeing who's talking and Fleet Commanders being able to auto-mute others when they speak. But it's not worth almost double the cost of a hosted Ventrilo or Teamspeak server. I went and looked for the prices I could find, and none of them are anywhere near as expensive as the EVE Voice system is going to cost. Let me break it down for you:

Each player will pay $9.99 per year for the service. ($14.95 if they sign up after 6 months) That's 83.25 cents / month, effectively. Sounds cheap, right? Wrong. Not when you compare it to how many players in your Corp, and how much a dedicated Vent/TS server would cost.

Say your Corp is 100 players big. That means you would be paying a total of $999 for the year, or $83.25 / month to talk use EVE Voice. Compared to a dedicated Vent/TS server, which might cost you max $50 / month, which works out to $600 / year. That's a savings of $399 / year versus using EVE Voice! It doesn't matter what size your Corp is, the cost is less than 50 cents / month per player for a dedicated Vent/TS server. Only if you have < 6 players does it end up costing more. And then you could probably host a server yourselves. My RL friends and I do it, no problem.

And the upside of the dedicated Vent/TS server, is you can talk to each other outside of EVE. Sure, it might be more problematic when you team up with strangers in EVE who don't have your Corp's Vent server's IP and password.

Oh wait ... when do people ever do that?

So, all in all, it's kind of a useless thing to be working on. And I'm very surprised at their pricing scheme. I thought it would have been more like $5 / year. Or maybe 50 cents / month.

Also, that video Jack_Target linked is almost completely useless. The only thing the guys says is that it won't involve talking in Local, period. So you won't be able to just chat with other players, you'll have to form a group or fleet with them. That's a good thing, though. Just imagine what Jita would sound like ...

*shudder*

Nice post.

Minor correction: A 100 concurrent connection Vent Server costs a total of: $239/year

And a 100 person Corp doesn't need a 100 connection server. At most they'd need a 50 concurrent connection server. Because odds are that all 100 of them will not be online together nor will all that are online be on voice. There are times when I'm online just to change a skill or just to check market prices, or playing an alt, or whatever, where I DONT tune into vent.

pihlssite · March 2007

well it's a good idea and cheap.

I see some compar.. betwenn TS & vent. I think most have no clue about cost
I rent a vent server costing me now for 200 slots Cost/month 50 Price 612.00 Euros.

200 man Ventrilo Server $49.95 USD

I dont understand the " TS/vent" is free ? even if you host the server at home the cost
of running a server at home is a cost for that to.

Let me think I was in Xetix alliance way back and they used a Ventrilo/TS.
I station in europe and the server in US. Well the sound was horrible with CCP solotion this will be sorted.

RevMrBlack · March 2007

Originally posted by Taram

Nice post.

Minor correction: A 100 concurrent connection Vent Server costs a total of: $239/year

And a 100 person Corp doesn't need a 100 connection server. At most they'd need a 50 concurrent connection server. Because odds are that all 100 of them will not be online together nor will all that are online be on voice. There are times when I'm online just to change a skill or just to check market prices, or playing an alt, or whatever, where I DONT tune into vent.

My prices of $50 / month and $600 / year were based on some mythical "maximum" one would pay. I saw way cheaper prices online, but who knows what one might have to pay in Europe, for example. All the prices I found were for North America, I'm guessing.

And you are right about the maximum concurrent users issue. No 100 player Corp is going to have 100 people online at the same time. I wasn't factoring that into my equation, as I was trying to prove that even if everyone needed to be on Vent at the same time, the cost for a server that could handle it would still be far cheaper than EVE Voice.

And thanks for the comment. I tried to break it down as easily as I could. It's nice to not get flamed for once.

Cheers!

yobatsam · March 2007

I tested EVE Voice, it works fine. defintely worth €10 a year!

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