Have people played? How about incorporating voice chat?

[Xaltar]

I noticed that people were planning on getting a one-shot started. Has that happened? If so, how did it work out?

It would seem that using a voice-chat program would be a helpful addition to avoid times when excess typing would be bad. At least for the DM to be able to speak even if players were able to listen only. Any thoughts on this?

[Amaril]

I was just thinking the same thing. One of the drawbacks to most online gaming is the lag of having to type. Voice chat would be a wonderful feature to implement.

[Goblin-King]

We left this feature out quite intentionally, the reason being twofold. First, no one in our team is really an expert in what would be required to make a proper implementation, namely real time signal processing for packing, unpacking and analyzing audio, and we didn't want only a half decent solution. Second, there are plenty of voice chat programs out there, that work very well, and that have explicitly been designed to work in the background while some other program, usually a game, is running.

I'm not the foremost expert on the current best options, but I know teamspeak works fine and is free.

[Bitr_Haag]

I'm investigating some VOIP programs, like teamspeak, for voice chatting instead of tons of typing. Does anyone out there know if any other programs that work well?

How about voice changing software that'll tweak your voice for added role-playing ability?

As long as these can run in the background w/o impacting FG, I say focus on game improvements and leave the voice chatting, etc... to others!

[Amaril]

As long as these can run in the background w/o impacting FG, I say focus on game improvements and leave the voice chatting, etc... to others!

I'd like to add to this statement. I find a lot of programs designed for RPGs that have far too many "features" and do nothing but clutter the application to the point where it's far too clunky and difficult to use. I am begging SmiteWorks to not do the same with Fantasy Grounds. I like the KISS approach that I've seen with the demo. Keep it as a simple tool used to emulate the pen & paper tabletop experience without electronicifying, automating, scripting, etc. anything about the RPG experience.

[msd]

I'm investigating some VOIP programs, like teamspeak, for voice chatting instead of tons of typing. Does anyone out there know if any other programs that work well?

How about voice changing software that'll tweak your voice for added role-playing ability?

As long as these can run in the background w/o impacting FG, I say focus on game improvements and leave the voice chatting, etc... to others!

I've never personally used it so don't consider this a recommendation, but people seem to be happy with an app called Roger Wilco

[Elric]

As long as these can run in the background w/o impacting FG, I say focus on game improvements and leave the voice chatting, etc... to others!

I'd like to add to this statement. I find a lot of programs designed for RPGs that have far too many "features" and do nothing but clutter the application to the point where it's far too clunky and difficult to use. I am begging SmiteWorks to not do the same with Fantasy Grounds. I like the KISS approach that I've seen with the demo. Keep it as a simple tool used to emulate the pen & paper tabletop experience without electronicifying, automating, scripting, etc. anything about the RPG experience.

Well, I wouldn't go THAT far.

I say have the ability to automate and script - if the GM wants to be able to. I've been a programmer for years and trying to make things automated does help in some circumstances.

[Amaril]

those were bad examples. What I was referring to are programs like Kloogewerks or DMGenie that get so bogged down with added features that it creates a steep learning curve.

[Xaltar]

Oh, I'm not suggesting that this be added to the core program. I've used gamevoice for playing multiplayer games and I was wondering if anyone had thought about using something of the sort to speed up online game-play.

[Ged]

Let me also add just a personal opinion on this. RPG over the Internet differs from face-to-face roleplaying in (at least) two ways. You don't actually see other people's reactions and you might be playing with "strangers". Having a multi-hour conference call in that situation would be quite ackward, I think.

However, having a conversation by typing is not necessarily all bad, but the actual roleplaying becomes, almost accidentially, more intense. I don't know if you have tried FG seriously, but two of the chat features make wonders, namely the balloon and Zzz graphics appearing on the character portraits when the respective player is typing or has been idle for 'too long' (idle means not typed or moved his or her mouse, etc.). They let you perceive that the fellow players are actually there - this doesn't sound very impressive, but I found it extremely social.

Furthermore, I found it surprising that some people who were less active in conversation could still enjoy and contribute to the game quite a bit by just moving tokens, rolling dice and throwing in an occasional comment.

But as I said, there are just my personal thoughts...