1) Introduces more lag, and LFS relys on a solid connection to provide better racing
2) I'd rather not hear a bunch of kiddys screaming "PWNT N00BZ0RZ!" after every race.
Coming from someone with "Rulz" in his signature, you have room to talk And besides, I bet his English is better than your Lithuanian
Sometimes I think VOIP would be a good thing, other times I think it'd be hellish. Because you don't NEED to communicate with your team to win (unlike FPS games) it's probably not worth the hassle.
I hated the idea of anyone breaking my concentration by talking to me whilst racing. It one of the reasons i was reluctant to join a team that used voice comms.
In the end it took very little time to get used to, and when used appropriately (ie:- not people rambling on constantly through a race) it is a great tool.
VOIP is only good in a team situation though. I'd absolutely hate a public channel in LFS, my god..can you imagine all those kiddy arguments, it would indeed drive you nuts
Don't know if this would work or if everyones wives, girlfreinds, boyfreinds, mothers, and fathers wouldlike it but why note use a conference call on a speaker phone? Then you don't use up any of your bandwidth.
Conference calls would use WAY more bandwidth because it's transmitting ALL of the noise ALL of the time. TeamSpeak uses PTT/Voice Activation for this reason.
When I started toplay LFS I came with the same suggestion up. Now after 1 year racing and after using TS with my teammates I have to say: "NOOOOOO WAY"
Most of the people are way to messed up and the whole thing would just be a playground for kids.
Just check all the writting of messages during the race, now imagine they have just to open their mouth........
It wouldn't be worth the work and time of the devs. There are a lot of other things to do.
but what about enable and disable button if u dont need it disable it , if u need it than anable it and talk, or if u need , and u don't whant to hear anoyng kids that are disturbing u, than it sould be added mute button. What about that?
Yeah...like typing (can block users) ... what a waste of a feature communication is, i mean, it can just be disabled..right? Sorry, that was a silly statement. Anything that is an OPTION falls under your logic of being worthless...
Voice should be added. When it's done correctly, it's invaluable. If you want to turn it off for public races, then fine.
Alot of games have done great implimentations of voice, Halo 2, for example, and even moreso in Halo3. The problem with halo is alot of kids yelling and such, but it takes 2 seconds to mute the bad ones. Bing able to tell a tell a teammate something in a split second is great.
The thing that made Halo2 amazing, and makes it so that teamspeak/etc cant touch it, is proximity voice. You can hear everyone in your proximity...but only your teammates far away, and only if they pudh the talk button.
Alot of the racing games on XBL have done similar, where you can only hear 2-3 cars ahead of or behind you (or 200 ft, instead of cars...etc).
If you can set it so that you can only hear the closest cars to you (and the volume they come through at would be determined by distance), it becomes very useful. Now, when you type "im passing you right" to a lapper, nobody knows who the heck your talking to, because your name isnt in the mirror...etc. Well, you could say "Coming up on your right, bob" ... alot quicker and safer than typing it. And things like "thanks" and "pass me up here after the chicane" are much easier...
Can it be used to annoy, maybe...but if that's your cause, then we should disable collisions with other cars, because people can intentionally wreck you, too. One of my favorite quotes ever "Every tool is a weapon". If it can do good, it can likely do bad. you cant control how people use a tool, but that shouldnt stop you from deploying it.
As for bandwidth, XBOX Live has proven that bandwidth isnt really an issue. I've been in FULL halo2 games with EVERYONE talking (deathmatches...shit-talking is par for the course, and part of the fun) and had no problem. With the amount of people on broadband, its becoming even less of a problem. I can remember playing Nascar '99 (papyrus) over dialup using Roger Wilco, and never had a problem. Most of the time, voice is 8k per second for those apps, thats a drop in the bucket these days.
You have to provide options (like blocking players, blocking anyone not in a car, dis/enable talking post and pre-race ... etc), but its far from harmful.
And if hearing someone talk into your ear messes up your concentration...well..work on that...situational awareness FTW.
@rjm of course, unless it's a feature as widely dispised as this. It would be nothing more than a nuissance to the majority of LFS users, thus it couldn't be worth it. Go download vent or roger wilco or teamspeak.