What if announcers were added to the game? A set of voice packs, chosen by players with a set of lines, that can be customized. By customized I mean which lines will play and which won’t.
What would the announcer say? First, the standard stuff already in the game (Overmind under Atack), or more things, like “Enemy Reactor Destroyed”, or “Last spawn is under atack”. This will make communication easier, since even in combat people will hear the voice, but chat can be missed easily.
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Then try reading it. We didn’t add the ~ (console button) for no reason
I’d rather not make communication easier because it takes a key important role out of playing the game that has been here since trem was first made. (Now I’m not saying new things are bad I personally prefer that these types of changes go un-touched and rather learned by the player.)
Also allowing the player to not learn sed-skill(using easy communcation) or learn sed-skill(not using easy communication) such as this can increase the difficulty and this has a both positive and negative drawback. The positive being more people would be willing to rise up to a challenge or rather stick with the old things(sed-skill). The negative baby-spoon feed them mechanics that would make the game less of an experience to learn which could decrease player-interests or decrease communication between players within the game(not sed-skill)
note not all of this is 100% true or accurate these are just my simple opinions of what COULD
or COULD not happen.
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We added ‘voice say’ functionality to 1.3 already 
Try \voicemenu in-game (for humans only, for now).
Eventually we should have ‘sticky’ chat, where the last message (general chat) and the last team message stay pinned on screen.
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I get what you’re saying, however there is a difference between skill and tolerating/exploiting inconvenience. Additionally many skilled players use better communication tools outside of the game, accessing those third party tools isn’t really a Tremulous game play related skill. Difficulty with in-game communications just adds an unnecessary barrier for most new players, and gives an unfair edge to players who use the third party communication devices over the players who don’t.
Many skilled trem players use voip while playing, especially in scrims. However voip is not integrated into the game (well not in a way that is currently well implemented), and there is another set of problems if voip was readily available in-game on public servers (people abusing voip, like blasting music, etc).
With no voip on public servers, team coordination and team awareness is more inconvenient, opening the console does interrupt the game play, text chat can be easily missed at times in the heat of combat, new players not communicating well/efficiently/timely has a negative impact even on skilled teammates, and many skilled players try to compensate by spamming binds.
Voice commands and announcers serve as a nice middle ground between no verbal communication and voip, in regards to public servers.
A very good feature addition imo. However those voice commands are player initiated, Announcers would be automatic (like when the Overmind is under attack), and imo we could use more verbal announcements (could be used alongside and/or in place of many center print messages, being less immersion breaking, not to mention perhaps for announcing things that were not previously thought of, we can definitely use suggestions in this thread).
That would certainly help a lot, but I’m sure there would still be situations where chat might be missed (like if there is a lot of chat going on) (side note, maybe team chat should display in a separate part of the HUD, not just in regards to the last team chat). Still voice commands and announcers would be very useful.
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I really highly doubt you can miss chat simply by shooting at a couple of aliens and if you die there is always a spawn delay with current builds and the amount of players unless it’s like you in some sort of 2v2 then i really dont think communication is that much of a “asset” to be seen asap (now this does depends on the skill of each player and how they play so this can vary).
If we really think about it this is technically a way to add a CSGO voice communication command system into trem but it could rely on you using it or it being automatically used (note im not saying that this is a copy or ripoff or something we are trying to do to make it like CSGO it’s just a simple example of a game that uses Voice commands)
These are viable ideas, but how about a fix?
This is true and can be proved to be a problem, but what about those who don’t like to speak out or use VOIP, just a saying in that case why not make something that does not pause or stop you from playing the game at all? Make it a HUD integration or something if possible. Say for example you press a key and a HUD opens in the corner somewhere, a place that won’t fully block your vision or stop your game and display your teammates past chats? We can use this along side the vocal announcers or VOIP.
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since when has anyone person on trem ever complained about the “console” for not being able to read messages fast enough. I’ve never seen it and I’ve been playing for about many years now?
I still yet to have seen a complaint made by someone
Well, the case in point is, its could be a fix.
The key importance is communication, not just by key but by more better options in which can be faster, make fast game pace and help keep the game smooth, hence why something like what I suggested could be a possible thing to use.
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Maybe it wizzed by and you didn’t open the console to read it xD
I kid, I kid…
The player initiated voice says are meant to enhance play but shouldn’t be required to be used, but can provide aide where players aren’t using any VoIP, or otherwise just need some non-visual cues.
The vsays print a team message, so it’s not required to actually hear the vsay audio and we could allow clients to disable the audio.
TODO: make every vsay a say_area print to show only in the immediate vicinity of other teammates, and only have location-based audio coming from the player (and never full volume).
With that said, vsay can enhance play if the system is unobtrusive and very accessible, is easy to use, and otherwise doesn’t suck. The voice commands can eventually be activated along with a waypoint system for further assisting in coordinating team activities.
Giving players these tools should enhance immersion into the game, if designed with care.
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What if someone misses the print
Sticky team msg and separated game message area (sep from chat).
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What if they miss that
The point is that while various things can be done to greatly improve the text chat interface, generally audio messages can be more effective in communicating than the text form of the same message, and the audio can be more immersive. But in case some may prefer to have the verbal stuff disabled, either generally or temporarily for whatever reason(s), the option to disable should be there, and with that option the communicated information should still be available in some form, like through a alternative accompanying text.
This is not about having perfect communication in all situations, this is about greatly improving the communication built into the game, compared to where it is now, and thus improve the overal experience for all players in general.
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What if people play without audio, I play with audio but I listen to music so hearing the game isn’t that easy.
I also have known a couple of people who play with no sound
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How is an announcer or a voice-line based chat bad for you then? There still will be a printout. That you can check in a console, If you missed It.
Audio is a vital part of the game, footsteps, jump sounds, people being hurt. It all tells you what is going on. I focus on a visual and audio aspect when I play, I don’t have time to check the console in a fight. if I miss something in the chat, I won’t know to look at the console, cause I don’t even know if something happened.
People that play without sound choose to do so. And if you play without the audio, why are you voting against something that won’t bother you?
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@StarSlider The sticky message would make it so that they can’t miss it, if they didn’t hear the audio.
Again, vsays will never be required to be heard - but imagine playing in a public game against a team that consists of players in the same clan who are also all on VoIP, versus you and your teammates not on VoIP. Vsays then serve as a stop-gap from having one side/team be unable to coordinate against a team with superior communication - where they’d otherwise be likely to get totally whooped.
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But what if I’m so busy that i miss the sticky message
To better brainstorm on the types of voice commands and announcements we should have, I’ll make a list of what we have currently available (side note of the current voice commands,some of what we currently have might be redundant, or not needed).
Voice Commands:
- Attack
- Cover Me
- Fall Back
- Flank
- Grenade
- Heads Up
- Look Out
- Rush
- Watch It
Automatic Verbal Announcements:
- The Overmind Has Awaken (note that this one is actually a sound played from the overmind when it finishes spawning, there is support for each buildable to play a spawn sound. But that sound does have its intensity decrease with distance, and everyone can hear that sound when in range, but not too long ago I made it so that the om awaken sound can only be heard by aliens).
- The Overmind Has No Spawns
- We Have Evolved (regarding staging up)
- The Overmind Is Dying
- The Overmind Is Under Attack
Some Possible Voice Commands:
- The Enemy Is Low On Health
- Incoming Tyrant
- Their Base Is Weak
- Incoming Rush
- Their Defenses Are Weak
- The Enemy Overmind/Reactor is down
- We Need A Builder
- Their (insert important buildable here) Is Down
- We Need A (insert important buildable here)
- Regroup
- Lets Move The Base
- Lets Build A Forward
- I Need More Build Points
Some Possible Automatic Verbal Announcements:
- The humans could have counterpart announcements to all the announcements aliens currently have.
- There could be fun “stat based” announcements, like for different degrees of “kill streaks.”
- (insert vital buildable here) Has Been Deconstructed
- 5/1 Minute(s) Remain
- Sudden Death Begins in X Minute(s)
- Sudden Death Started
- For the most part, most of the current automatic center print messages can have corresponding automatic verbal announcements.
Those lists are not meant to be complete nor comprehensive nor detailed, so feel free to post your suggestions to add to the lists.
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