We usually need to communicate with our teammates when playing multiplayer games . Although, most games provide a chat tool that allows you to talk with other players but typing a sentence while trying to kill enemies in the game can be really annoying. The only reasonable solution then is using voice communication service. They offer easier, faster and a convenient way to communicate with other game players. We will present five best options for voice communication in multiplayer online games.
There are many voice communications programs currently available on the market. Of course, Skype is the leading tool. But is it the best choice to talk to groups of people, especially during the game? Skype is well-known for being sluggish and resource hungry, which is not very optimistic for game lovers. Let's have a look at some alternatives that will surely appease the players, but also ordinary users will find it worth trying out.
RaidCall is a free, and powerful instant messaging software that allows you to communicate with groups of people. RaidCall is mainly geared toward gamers, bringing a completely new experience and great functionality. Officially, Raidcall servers are available in both Europe and the U.S. . Once you launch the application, you are presented with the most popular chat groups, as well as with the latest games news. If you’re interested only in the voice chat option, you may navigate to the Groups section, where you can create your own room, join other groups with dedicated discussions, and invite friends.
The application also provides a slew of additional features that allow you to adjust the volume and microphone, play music and choose the way of transmission (continuous transmission, "press to talk", and so on). You can also transfer files between users, and share screenshots or videos on YouTube. If you do not have the opportunity to create your own server and you are tired with Skype, Raidcall may be one of the best choices to communicate with friends.
The targeted audience for Ventrilo is represented by gamers who can take advantage of a streamlined chat solution that works seamlessly while playing games. It is a reliable voice chat application that allows you to communicate at the proper servers. Therefore, it incorporates client-server architecture. Unlike in Raidcall, if we want to use Ventrilo we need to set up the server to which our friends will join. One person creates a server, and then the rest connects to the server at any time and enters the correct channel.
A well-known "Vent" provides a good sound quality (Speex codecs), and also offers the "Press to Talk" function, so you don’t have to transmit a continuous sound from microphone, but we can decide when to start the conversation, since the program runs in the background. We can either run one server on your own connection or rent one public server where we can create our own channel.
Teamspeak is a powerful instant messaging service packed in a reliable program, that stands out through features such as voice chat and flexible group management. Over the past few years, there was a common belief that the Teamspeak is the best choice in terms of voice communication. Certainly, this is one of the oldest (but still developed) projects when talking about group conversations. The program is easy to use, and available for Windows, Mac and Linux, as well as for mobile devices with Android or iOS.
It also features Press-to-talk function and automatic transmission starting at a certain volume. Similar to Ventrilo, Teamspeak acts as a server-client, where one of the members must create a server or you need to look for free public server.
It is another open source voice chat application that is addressed towards gamers. The application is extremely lightweight and responsive. Available on multiple platforms, as well as provides a set of plug-ins. For example it brings positional audio - meaning that it will make it sound like your friends voice is coming from a specific direction.
As in the case of other voice chat applications, you must have a server to connect to. You can either enter the IP address of your own private server or use any of the hundreds of public Mumble servers available on the Internet.
At the end we propose the latest offering from the company which creates prestigious gaming gear. Razer comes equipped with blazingly fast server infrastructure that will let you get the clearest communication with your teammates.
The application comes bundled with a list of friends, the ability to create groups, chat rooms, and also lets you control the sound transmission (the aforementioned "press-to-talk" option). The program also detects our games, so we can quickly run selected titles. The only downside is that the program is still in beta, so there may occur small bugs and shortcomings. All in all, the application is definitely worth trying, or at least keep track of its development and wait for the final version.
