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While playing movie games can sometimes be a solitary activity, more often than not gamers love playing together. Despite their reputation for introversion three Lies About Gamers That People Still Believe three Lies About Gamers That People Still Believe The word "gamer" comes with a lot of baggage — and the truth is, gamer stereotypes are no longer true. Indeed, "gamers" are now the minority! Read More , gamers can be fairly social. Multiplayer games are also enormously popular, to the point where gamers will create them inwards single-player games three Awesome Multiplayer Mods For Single Player Games three Awesome Multiplayer Mods For Single Player Games These games were created as single player practices, but enterprising players determined to build multiplayer mods for them, and they truly switch the gameplay. Read More .
Considering that multiplayer games have been so omnipresent, and online gaming has been around since the ’90s, it’s a bit baffling how scattershot VoIP clients can be for gamers. My colleague Joel even said in his coverage of voice talk programs for PC gamers Don’t Get Fragged: five Must-Have Free Voice Talk Clients For Gamers Don’t Get Fragged: five Must-Have Free Voice Talk Clients For Gamers Have you ever heard about the paradox of choice? Here’s the gist of it: the more choices you have, the firmer it becomes to make a satisfying decision. This is leisurely becoming a reality in. Read More that Skype, of all things, was the most convenient app despite how cumbersome it is.
There have been various talk programs available for gamers three Free Voice Talk Programs for PC Gamers three Free Voice Talk Programs for PC Gamers Voice talk is an significant part of the online gaming practice, yet PC gamers are left behind the consoles in this respect. It’s the one (big) disadvantage of gaming on the computer. Yes, we get. Read More for years, but many of them are either difficult to use to the point of inconvenience, or just never caught on due to a lack of features.
Hammer & Chisel, former game developers themselves, have created an app that combines the best of all other VoIP clients, adds several features of its own, and is entirely free. Meet Discord, the social gamer’s fresh best friend.
Text Speak
When you open Discord for the very first time after creating an account, you must either join a server or create your own in order to talk to people. Streamers or online gamers who use Discord will typically provide an invite link to their followers and friends, and being invited is the easiest way to join a server.
The typical Discord server is separated into text channels, and voice talk rooms. The text rooms are very much like forums (tho’ if you want an actual gaming forum seven Big Gaming Forums for Unceasing Movie Game Talk seven Big Gaming Forums for Nonstop Movie Game Talk Want to socialize with other gamers online? Look into one of these massive gaming communities that have been around for ages and display no signs of stopping any time soon. Read More , you should look elsewhere). The channels can be configured a number of ways, and set aside for specific purposes, such as announcements, contests, or music.
Also, Discord is designed to integrate with Twitch, and YouTube, meaning you can sometimes talk with streamers while they’re streaming, or interact with them in their off-hours. There are a number of options exclusively for streamers, including options for partnered streamers that give privileges to their subscribers and integrating your bot – essential for some streamers Run a Better Twitch Stream With These Implements Run a Better Twitch Stream With These Instruments Twitch channels infrequently grow popular by accident. Far more often, fame and attention are the result of long hours, innovative ideas, and tireless dedication to making quality content. Read More – into the text channels.
Talk the Talk
In Discord, you join talk rooms laid out on the left panel in the server. Each talk room can be restricted to a certain type of user. Some can be for subscribers only, if you’re a partnered channel; some are for channel moderators, and some are invite-only.
Your in-room buttons are a simplified version of Skype’s layout. You can mute your microphone, turn off sound altogether (which also mutes your microphone automatically), and exit the room. You also have an indicator that lets you see how strong your connection, with the same “red-bar, yellow-bar, green-bar” color shorthand.
Two other features are in the works for the voice talk are movie and screensharing options. The endgame for Discord is evidently to supplant Skype and other gaming movie talk options entirely. They say as much – and rather cheekily too – on their blog:
“The ultimate in ‘I can ultimately delete Skype off of my computer features,’ our third friends list update will include the much sought after and asked for movie talk and screen sharing.” – Upcoming Feature Preview: Friends List
Social Networking
Discord has been releasing a plethora of fresh features since its release, and many of them seem designed to create communities and friendships. For starters, they have instituted a friendship feature, meaning you can have a friends list independent of your servers.
You can send private messages and one of the features presently in development for Discord is the capability to create makeshift groups of friends for quick talks not tied to any particular server. They even couch it in gaming terms:
“Wanna grind some dailies with that healer and tank you just met in a popular server? Begin up a group talk and get questing. If you then run into a charming DPSer you want to include, they can hop right into the group with you two.” – Upcoming Feature Preview: Friends List
In-Game Talk
One of the features that the desktop version of Discord supports is an in-game overlay that will permit you to keep track of your Discord voice talk without having to alt-tab out of the game to do so. You map the overlay to a button combo, then press those buttons to bring Discord up while you’re playing the game and make switches to the room from there.
The trouble is that the overlay can be utterly touchy with some games. The above screenshot was taken in the relatively-primitive game Stardew Valley because I couldn’t get any of my other games to work with the overlay. While this might not necessarily be the fault of Discord, they do say this on their overlay tutorial page:
“As we work on the overlay, if you’re experiencing issues with games crashing or ping spikes, we recommend you disable it temporarily.” – Overlay Issues
Hammer & Chisel says there are a number of game with which the overlay works ideally, and to their credit, the overlay is elementary and unobtrusive. Still, take their advice and disable it at the very first sign of trouble.
By Gamers, For Gamers
Up until this point, there hasn’t been a talk app specifically designed to be compatible with Twitch or YouTube streaming. It’s something at most streamers very likely didn’t realize they dreamed until they had it. Discord was created, according to Hammer & Chisel, specifically because other voice talk apps were lacking.
“As gamers ourselves, we got fed up with these devices and determined to fix the problem ourselves. As a result, we’ve built the best all-in-one voice and text talk app for gamers that’s free, secure, and works on both desktop and phone.” – Our Point of View
Discord makes it effortless for people playing in multiplayer with their team to communicate without having to rely on the caprices of Skype or Steam’s talk client, or having to cope with the thresholds of talk clients like Mumble and Teamspeak. They also claim it is safer for gamers, since it is allegedly unlikely to obtain IP addresses and DDoS other players – a recurring and serious problem How Can You Protect Yourself Against a DDoS Attack? How Can You Protect Yourself Against a DDoS Attack? DDoS attacks – a method used to overburden Internet bandwidth – seem to be on the rise. We showcase you how you can protect yourself from a distributed denial of service attack. Read More .
Another benefit for gamers is relatively low latency, meaning little delay in sound in voice talk, and an alleged lack of frame-rate loss. Despite its moniker, Discord is fairly bug-free at the current time of writing. If you want a voice talk client for speaking with your fellow gamers, Twitch audience, or anyone else, Discord is undoubtedly worthy of your consideration.
Tell Us What You Think of Discord
How many of you gamers out there have used Discord? Has it substituted your other voice talk options, or do you still think it needs more work and features? Have any non-gamers used Discord for any reason?
Is there anything you wish Discord had that it presently does not have? Let us know about your practices in the comments section below!