6 ms·

It's crazy to me to think how TeamSpeak and Ventrilo had more than a decade to iterate and never came up with something like Discord. Xfire came close multiple

by joshmn 5y ago

It's crazy to me to think how TeamSpeak and Ventrilo had more than a decade to iterate and never came up with something like Discord. Xfire came close multiple times, but never got the voice part right, though for the time the client was acceptable. Granted, the server model was very different for TS and Vent (more so the latter), but it was normal then. Kudos to the Discord team on making a solid product.

saddestcatever 5y ago
Seriously! It's a shame that Xfire became a thing of the past. I feel like Steam baked in enough of the "community" features to steal their lunch, without ever delivering on the full community element that Discord is thriving on!
- hobs 5y ago
  As far as I remember it xfire mostly developed their own client into the grave, making it more complex and less useful on each change.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Speaking of Steam, it's also a shame they snoozed on it until way after Discord picked up steam. They were also very well situated to replicate it, but to date they STILL don't have message history in chat conversations...
ev0lv 5y ago
TeamSpeak is still used heavily in the gaming community. Discord sucks when you have 50 people in the same voice chat.
- Kiro 5y ago
  I'm a big gamer and heavy Discord user. Haven't heard anyone even mention TeamSpeak in a long time so I'm surprised by this comment.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    It's still used milsims like ArmA and DCS (where there are plugins for radio simulation integration).
    - hhh 5y ago
      This is the only place I have used anything but discord in 6 years.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  I agree, though discord recently has put out updates to improve audio quality in those instances. That being said, I would argue that any voice chat with more than 10, maybe 20, active people talking is going to be nearly unusable. Not due to audio quality.
  - tapland 5y ago
    It's mostly total lack of voice normalization killing it.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    Teamspeak supports plugins so an entire server of 100s of people only hear the players in-game that they are actively working with. It turns this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dM3HqNFox8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dM3HqNFox8) into this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv6Cf4IKgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv6Cf4IKgE).
    - Rebelgecko 5y ago
      One of the really underrated features of ACRE is that it lets you force audio to only play on left/right ear. In Arma, if I'm talking to a character directly in front of me while while listening to 2 radio channels that have people shouting in mono, it all turns into a muddled mess of sound. If I have someone directly in front of me, one radio only going into my left ear, and one radio only going into my right ear, my brain can handle conversations without feeling too overloaded.
  - Keirmot 5y ago
    I use discord as voice coms to raid in wow. A raid can have anything between 10 and 30 people. Maybe it’s the wow culture of having raid leaders and specific callouts, but it’s very much usable and enjoyable. If you want to see how it usually plays out, just search twitch for anyone streaming a raid.
RapidFire 5y ago
It's not really that surprising. At some point the established players ossify and are unable to innovate when the playing field changes. A new thing comes along without this problem and dominates the new playing field. For Teamspeak and Ventrilo the field changed in that it became possible to host the voice servers themselves, rather than the 'customers' hosting.
unethical_ban 5y ago
I've met the creator of Vent. Cool dude, moderately wealthy and I believe very happy to sit on his "fuck you" money and give back to the community upon occasion (Quakecon giveaways, for example). Vent 4 was DOA. Teamspeak though, yeah, I'm surprised it didn't try to integrate streaming into its mechanism. Mumble is still alive and well, and very functional for audio-sharing. Nothing in the way of video or streaming, though.
- dashwav 5y ago
  I think that the biggest differentiator between Discord and the others (mumble, TS, Vent, etc) was that Discord has very mature text chatting as a first class citizen, rather than an afterthought. This is what I have anecdotally seen as the primary thing that has made even people who casually voice chat join public discord servers. The model is much more friendly to casual users than either TS or Mumble are.
  - chii 5y ago
    I agree - text chatting is the first foot in the door. It's non-committal, but gets you the ability to voice chat when you feel up to it. Things like TS and Vent is voice-chat-first and thus, you will only join _after_ you've made friends to voice chat with online in some other platform (like irc or a game). There's no TS community, since it's purely utilitarian, unlike discord.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    When I was using Vent and Teamspeak you had to actually host the server, as I recall... so someone had to set it up and manage it, or you could pay a third party to do it, but that was always too expensive for my friends and I.... discord is a lot easier to set up your own server and find and discover other servers
    - bradlys 5y ago
      Yep. This is the major differentiator to me and it's obvious why it caught on after that. When I heard about Discord I was like, "Weird, so many people are hosting their own servers or paying to host a server now? Why did it catch on now? More affordable?" Once I learned it was all free... kinda obvious.
donkarma 5y ago
teamspeak 5 is looking to be a nice self-hosted alternative to discord if it ever comes out
vehementi 5y ago
They are desktop clients -- iterating from there to a fully self hosted thing, when IRC already exists, isn't really an obvious path for them. I am shocked it took so long for someone to add voice to Slack though.
globular-toast 5y ago
Why does everything have to grow into an abomination that does everything? Teamspeak and Vent were for talking to your team in game. This was their purpose and they did it very well.

by joshmn 5y ago

saddestcatever 5y ago

Seriously! It's a shame that Xfire became a thing of the past. I feel like Steam baked in enough of the "community" features to steal their lunch, without ever delivering on the full community element that Discord is thriving on!

hobs 5y ago
As far as I remember it xfire mostly developed their own client into the grave, making it more complex and less useful on each change.
ehsankia 5y ago
Speaking of Steam, it's also a shame they snoozed on it until way after Discord picked up steam. They were also very well situated to replicate it, but to date they STILL don't have message history in chat conversations...

ev0lv 5y ago

TeamSpeak is still used heavily in the gaming community. Discord sucks when you have 50 people in the same voice chat.

Kiro 5y ago
I'm a big gamer and heavy Discord user. Haven't heard anyone even mention TeamSpeak in a long time so I'm surprised by this comment.
- dharmab 5y ago
  It's still used milsims like ArmA and DCS (where there are plugins for radio simulation integration).
  - hhh 5y ago
    This is the only place I have used anything but discord in 6 years.
xboxnolifes 5y ago
I agree, though discord recently has put out updates to improve audio quality in those instances. That being said, I would argue that any voice chat with more than 10, maybe 20, active people talking is going to be nearly unusable. Not due to audio quality.
- tapland 5y ago
  It's mostly total lack of voice normalization killing it.
- dharmab 5y ago
  Teamspeak supports plugins so an entire server of 100s of people only hear the players in-game that they are actively working with. It turns this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dM3HqNFox8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dM3HqNFox8) into this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv6Cf4IKgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv6Cf4IKgE).
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    One of the really underrated features of ACRE is that it lets you force audio to only play on left/right ear. In Arma, if I'm talking to a character directly in front of me while while listening to 2 radio channels that have people shouting in mono, it all turns into a muddled mess of sound. If I have someone directly in front of me, one radio only going into my left ear, and one radio only going into my right ear, my brain can handle conversations without feeling too overloaded.
- Keirmot 5y ago
  I use discord as voice coms to raid in wow. A raid can have anything between 10 and 30 people. Maybe it’s the wow culture of having raid leaders and specific callouts, but it’s very much usable and enjoyable. If you want to see how it usually plays out, just search twitch for anyone streaming a raid.

RapidFire 5y ago

It's not really that surprising. At some point the established players ossify and are unable to innovate when the playing field changes. A new thing comes along without this problem and dominates the new playing field. For Teamspeak and Ventrilo the field changed in that it became possible to host the voice servers themselves, rather than the 'customers' hosting.

unethical_ban 5y ago

I've met the creator of Vent. Cool dude, moderately wealthy and I believe very happy to sit on his "fuck you" money and give back to the community upon occasion (Quakecon giveaways, for example). Vent 4 was DOA. Teamspeak though, yeah, I'm surprised it didn't try to integrate streaming into its mechanism. Mumble is still alive and well, and very functional for audio-sharing. Nothing in the way of video or streaming, though.

dashwav 5y ago
I think that the biggest differentiator between Discord and the others (mumble, TS, Vent, etc) was that Discord has very mature text chatting as a first class citizen, rather than an afterthought. This is what I have anecdotally seen as the primary thing that has made even people who casually voice chat join public discord servers. The model is much more friendly to casual users than either TS or Mumble are.
- chii 5y ago
  I agree - text chatting is the first foot in the door. It's non-committal, but gets you the ability to voice chat when you feel up to it. Things like TS and Vent is voice-chat-first and thus, you will only join _after_ you've made friends to voice chat with online in some other platform (like irc or a game). There's no TS community, since it's purely utilitarian, unlike discord.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  When I was using Vent and Teamspeak you had to actually host the server, as I recall... so someone had to set it up and manage it, or you could pay a third party to do it, but that was always too expensive for my friends and I.... discord is a lot easier to set up your own server and find and discover other servers
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Yep. This is the major differentiator to me and it's obvious why it caught on after that. When I heard about Discord I was like, "Weird, so many people are hosting their own servers or paying to host a server now? Why did it catch on now? More affordable?" Once I learned it was all free... kinda obvious.

donkarma 5y ago

teamspeak 5 is looking to be a nice self-hosted alternative to discord if it ever comes out

vehementi 5y ago

They are desktop clients -- iterating from there to a fully self hosted thing, when IRC already exists, isn't really an obvious path for them. I am shocked it took so long for someone to add voice to Slack though.

globular-toast 5y ago

Why does everything have to grow into an abomination that does everything? Teamspeak and Vent were for talking to your team in game. This was their purpose and they did it very well.