A move towards Discord

[Kieran]

I'm saying it's being forced down our throats because it IS being forced. Taking it away and giving us one option is forcing. I mean, even the original post described it as forcing..

 

This isn't "emotional nostalgia", it's preferring a superior service over another weaker service. I don't care that discord is the future and is more "versatile". TeamSpeak is a superior service for voice chat and we all know that. There is a preference for it for a reason. Voice chatting is a huge part of the social aspect of the community, and forcing us to use a weaker product and possibly drive some regulars away from using it isn't in our interests at all. Find other ways to make discord more lively and utilized so it doesn't appear dead. Taking away teamspeak is not acting in our interests as the preference for it is as clear as day. If/when discord improves their voice chat functions/features and becomes better than teamspeak then I would say change it.

 

Suggestion: Find ways to encourage using discord to get rewards of some sort in game

[BoM]

I'm saying it's being forced down our throats because it IS being forced. Taking it away and giving us one option is forcing. I mean, even the original post described it as forcing..

 

This isn't "emotional nostalgia", it's preferring a superior service over another weaker service. I don't care that discord is the future and is more "versatile". TeamSpeak is a superior service for voice chat and we all know that. There is a preference for it for a reason. Voice chatting is a huge part of the social aspect of the community, and forcing us to use a weaker product and possibly drive some regulars away from using it isn't in our interests at all. Find other ways to make discord more lively and utilized so it doesn't appear dead. Taking away teamspeak is not acting in our interests as the preference for it is as clear as day. If/when discord improves their voice chat functions/features and becomes better than teamspeak then I would say change it.

 

The argument of 'weaker service' is really not accurate and I wish people would stop saying it. Outside of the ability to create private channels (which we could set up in discord) and the same channel text area, they are virtually the same. The voice quality is not noticeable and anyone who insists that is a thing is simply biased against discord, as its just not accurate anymore. Discord and Teamspeak both use Opus for their codec and with level one nitro you get 128 Kbps audio quality which is higher than the standard cap of ~100 Kbps from TS. I use and am part of many active discords and have seen them successfully function as both a place for information (text channels) and for voice of up to 50+ people. The only truly valid argument I've seen for teamspeak vs discord is the way someone can use text to talk in a channel with people using mics, something that would be much harder to achieve on discord. The argument of private channels is incredibly flawed in reasoning, as that does nothing to help welcome new people or promote a community feeling. Private channels are alienating and often used to avoid certain people or even entire groups of people and overall promotes generally immature behavior.

[Kieran]

The argument of 'weaker service' is really not accurate and I wish people would stop saying it. Outside of the ability to create private channels (which we could set up in discord) and the same channel text area, they are virtually the same. The voice quality is not noticeable and anyone who insists that is a thing is simply biased against discord, as its just not accurate anymore. Discord and Teamspeak both use Opus for their codec and with level one nitro you get 128 Kbps audio quality which is higher than the standard cap of ~100 Kbps from TS. I use and am part of many active discords and have seen them successfully function as both a place for information (text channels) and for voice of up to 50+ people. The only truly valid argument I've seen for teamspeak vs discord is the way someone can use text to talk in a channel with people using mics, something that would be much harder to achieve on discord. The argument of private channels is incredibly flawed in reasoning, as that does nothing to help welcome new people or promote a community feeling. Private channels are alienating and often used to avoid certain people or even entire groups of people and overall promotes generally immature behavior.

 

There are features that are still preferred by the regular base as stated. You can promote liveliness in the discord in other ways, not taking away our preference. Everyone is familiar with discord and we're not using it for those reasons, not this "emotional nostalgia".

 

Maybe it's not "superior" in mic quality or whatever, but it's just more liked. Maybe superior wasn't the right word, but I still don't agree with taking it away.

[delirium]

There are features that are still preferred by the regular base as stated. You can promote liveliness in the discord in other ways, not taking away our preference. Everyone is familiar with discord and we're not using it for those reasons, not this "emotional nostalgia".

 

Maybe it's not "superior" in mic quality or whatever, but it's just more liked. Maybe superior wasn't the right word.

I think that's the key here.

 

We currently have both options available. If discord was superior we would have migrated by now. Like I said in the conversation roux and I had on teamspeak an hour or so ago I'm not really invested in this decision personally at this point as my activity has been close to zero, but, I would like to lobby against something I see as a mistake.

[Dom]

The only truly valid argument I've seen for teamspeak vs discord is the way someone can use text to talk in a channel with people using mics, something that would be much harder to achieve on discord.

 

there is a /tts that is built into discord on desktop which admins have access to but I believe it can be given to lower ranks/roles as well.

 

My biggest "concern" with completely switching from teamspeak to discord is that people will just make their own private servers instead of using the main one whether it's to VC or casually chat. This was sort of brought up in the meeting and I think Dominic said he hopes people wouldn't make private servers to sabotage the main one. There are many private servers owned by SG members and I don't think any of them were created with the intention of sabotaging the main one. If it was more convenient to create private servers rather than private channels in teamspeak I'm sure it would happen too. Realistically, I would say its more appealing to create your own server and invite your friends than to make one of the proposed private channels in the main discord for a few reasons.

 

I don't think anyone has an issue with trying to improve the discord server and making it a more active place for the community but getting rid of teamspeak right off the bat doesnt seem like the right thing to do, especially with how preferred it is by a lot of the community.

[SilentGuns]

What are the benefits of discord voice chat over teamspeak for established members of the community? Why should I, as a regular user, want to use Discord voice chat?

[fantastic]

What are the benefits of discord voice chat over teamspeak for established members of the community? Why should I, as a regular user, want to use Discord voice chat?

 

From what I understand this move is not aimed to benefit established members of the community who enjoy Teamspeak, but moreso to benefit existing players on the server who want an easy way to join our community

[SilentGuns]

From what I understand this move is not to benefit established members of the community who enjoy Teamspeak, but moreso for existing players on the server who want an easy way to join our community

 

 

 

I do get the growth angle. Its ease of inviting, retaining and reaching out to NEW players is a potentially great benefit. There is a significant portion of our playerbase who can not be bothered / do not want to make a forum account and this is a great opportunity to involve them in the community.

 

 

 

 

I just wonder why get rid of TS just to piss off established regulars who are unlikely to use the main discord? That's kind of why I want the idea of discord properly sold to us as community members and voice chat users.

[Gentoo]

A large majority of our playerbase on the servers have no interest in using Teamspeak because it "old and lame" and isn't in line with the Discord culture they're used to. While we do get new regulars into using Teamspeak, it is a rather small portion and is generally people who are already invested in the community by regularly playing the servers or frequenting our forums. As time goes on, unless Teamspeak becomes popular again, it's only going to get harder to gather and retain new players in the Teamspeak. This is why we went about creating a Discord in the first place.

 

Unfortunately, our Discord is a ghost town because the majority of our Staff and some regs use the Teamspeak. Despite claims that we can have both, nobody is using our Discord VCs or even our text channels because of our already established population on TS. We need people to populate our Discord for new regulars to actually want to stay and talk.

 

I personally hate Discord. I don't agree with the perspectives of the company that owns it, I don't like the culture it fosters, I find it's functionality to be counter-intuitive at times, and despite it's claims of "superior or equal" vc quality, it shits the bed from time to time without any way of troubleshooting it. I still think this change is inevitable, and it's better for us to get ahead of it, rather than letting TS slowly die off as oldfags leave, and scrambling to get population on a Discord that is empty. Anyone who thinks that we can have both SHOULD be the ones populating the Discord. We need people populating the Discord to foster a population of regs. Pulling the plug last year may have been a bit premature, but it's likely the only way we will actually get people to use the Discord.

 

The amount of growth we are blowing off because we prefer one platform over another that already has very similar functionality is kind of sad.

 

Discord does not foster the same voice culture that Teamspeak does. The servers may be the most important aspect of this community when it comes to introducing members to us but when it comes to fostering relationships teamspeak has provided that essential environment for many years at this point.

 

This is something I sympathize with the most. I don't think it's arguable that you're going to get the same VC culture and tight knit relationships that TS has fostered over the years. Nonetheless, I still feel this change is inevitable, and it is in our best interest to expand and connect the community by switching entirely to Discord.

[Kieran]

I do agree that discord would help with expansion for newer players, but I would like to see the higher ups attempting other ways of improving activity of the discord before taking away teamspeak. It would be better if they could coexist.