Is this fair, or mild cheatng?

[Spankinstein]

I've noticed alot of so clan servers, such as NOK's Atlanta Deathouse and The MCC server have voip disabled. After asking, they admitted that their squads were using a third party program to teamspeak. I know that the servers are theirs, so they can run them as they see fit, and whatever they need to do to give them an edge so we don't own them. I'm just asking if this is unfair or actually cheating. Should not both sides have equal footing?

Autobalnce is also disabled at the Atlanta Deathouse.

[The_Eliminator]

Ever heard of TeamSpeak? Its perfectly legal.

[Whiteplague]

no its certainly not cheating vent and TS are fine

[Jessica Simpson]

he's saying they are disabling the servers VOIP, and using teamspeak to communicate more effectively that people forced to use the in game chat, or find their own way to talk over VOIP.

Which does seem a bit underhanded, if that's their intention.

Jess

[GunHappyBob]

Get Teamspeak, problem solved. People pay for a server they have the option. VOIP is a performance hit to a server.

[steel_x]

It is mild enoying haveing the the in game voip disabled. More then likly some stupid kid got in there and started talking smack, so rather then blocking him they decided to use team speak. Also doesn't team speak alow you to talk to your whole team, rather then just your squad?

[ColonelPanic]

Also doesn't team speak allow you to talk to your whole team, rather then just your squad?

TS will allow you to speak to whomever is on the TS server with you and in the same channel. If it's the whole team, then yes.

[Deesies]

It is technically unfair to disable voip only to use a third party chat program for communication.

However, there is nothing against the ROE that prevents admins from disabling voip and things such as teamspeak are simply not under their jurisdiction.

---

The best you can hope for is having voip changed so that it is always on in ranked servers.

[Iwantcable]

1 in 500 people use the VoIP, so it really matter IMO.

[MouseNo4]

Many things are unfair in this game. Someone having an unlock that another player doesnt yet have is unfair. Someone being in a teamwork efficient squad whilst others arent is unfair. Owning an uncap with a walker is unfair. Disabling the use of tier 3 weapons unlocks is unfair. The list goes on.

[Revoluti0n]

I've noticed alot of so clan servers, such as NOK's Atlanta Deathouse and The MCC server have voip disabled. After asking, they admitted that their squads were using a third party program to teamspeak. I know that the servers are theirs, so they can run them as they see fit, and whatever they need to do to give them an edge so we don't own them. I'm just asking if this is unfair or actually cheating. Should not both sides have equal footing?

Autobalnce is also disabled at the Atlanta Deathouse.

Our server has VOIP shut down. We have a ventrilo server but we hesitate asking people to join on it because it gets a tad bit annoying having a kid sqwaking in your ear everytime someone shoots him. However, the regulars that visit us usually jump in to say hi.

[Wasp]

Most clanners use ts or ventrilo since they play matches. I've read that many servers have voip disabled so it's not just their server. I haven't checked how widespread it is since I disable voip during install myself. I use vt when I play. The team balance issue is a bigger concern to me. I've been on servers where I can't switch sides even when the other team has half the amount of players. At that point I usually leave.

[Vyshus]

Well it may be cheaper to be running a vent/ts server and a 2142 server with VOIP off than just a server with VOIP on, but don't quote me as I have never looked at prices for a 2142 server.

[Tormentedhalo]

Our server has VOIP shut down. We have a ventrilo server but we hesitate asking people to join on it because it gets a tad bit annoying having a kid sqwaking in your ear everytime someone shoots him. However, the regulars that visit us usually jump in to say hi.

man i hate it when little kids play then sing i just want to freaking team kill them, they shuoldnt be playing.........PUNKS!:evil:

[IamFodder]

Doesn't Teamspeak require the user to set up before the game actually starts? if this is the case then servers with VOIP off makes it difficult for a person just joining in "off the street" to get on teamspeak with the rest of his team/squad, doesn't it?

If this is the case then it does give a pretty substantial advantage to people that are regular users of the server ( or those that don't use teamspeak)

And how does one know what VOIP system to use as well.. TS, Ventrillo, etc.. Personally I have never used Teamspeak.. it's all new to me.. I always use the in game VOIP, because it's automatic when jumping from server to server after a couple rounds.

[*FMJ*Power]

whats next, people accused of cheating for aiming their weapon? not every server runs voip, its buggy to say the least, sometimes you cant enable it even if you try to on a server, its bugged. it also draws allot of bandwidth from the server causing larger rooms to lag if the server is below average, most servers that have voip off do it so you can have a better game and not complain about lag. leet players use ventrillo anyway, it sounds 100 times better than any crappy voip.

[IamFodder]

whats next, people accused of cheating for aiming their weapon? not every server runs voip, its buggy to say the least, sometimes you cant enable it even if you try to on a server, its bugged. it also draws allot of bandwidth from the server causing larger rooms to lag if the server is below average, most servers that have voip off do it so you can have a better game and not complain about lag. leet players use ventrillo anyway, it sounds 100 times better than any crappy voip.

So when one finds a server with in-game VOIP disabled, how does somebody joining the game know if people are on TS or Ventrillo... and what server they are using for that? I find that if I have to run another piece of software BF2142 minimizes before I can open up another window to get teamspeak set up....that make me inactive, and potentially subject to getting kicked off the server (see my "nature calls" thread).

I know it's a gaming newb question.. bear with me..

[LahLahSr]

For whatever reason - justified or not - the effect is this: the calnners will voice-communicate and everyone else will not.

BF2142 doesn't support ALT-TAB - so it's really a wildly unrealistic notion that everyone else can "just get on vent or TS".

So, a clan with players who know each other being the only ones using voice-com? You do the math.

Not saying that it is wrong or illegal - but I think it's pretty obvious what the effect is - and I'd be surprised if most clans doesn't enjoy that little bonus.

[Ized]

I have had VOIP disabled in B2142 pretty much from the start. Tried it a few times, but most of the time no one on the European servers use it and if they do it's usually some idiot harassing everyone else.

If I need my voip fix, I use Teampspeak or ventrilo with a bunch of friends while playing.

Personally, I think the ingame radio commands and Q-for spotting (and netbat) are clear and fast enough ways to communicate your ingame intentions.

[IamFodder]

....Personally, I think the ingame radio commands and Q-for spotting (and netbat) are clear and fast enough ways to communicate your ingame intentions.

Intentions = yes..

but it's near impossible for me to tell you that from my location I can see a sniper that just activated his active cammo on the south building's balcony near the left side so don't stand up until LahLahSr has him knifed, which will be in about 5 seconds..

[LahLahSr]

LOL..thanks for the flattering inclusion of me in your scenario there. I agree with your assessment btw - but I can't help but smile, due to the fact that I have a whopping total of 3 knife-kills in my all-too many hours of gameplay.

But they are all unique dogtags - just so you don't think I am padding here..lol.

[Buttoneer]

One tag for me - unique too - I win!

I don;t see how the clan can be cheating here, especially if there are performance issues. However, I think if they are going to close the game for VOIP they should have a public area on TS/VT to compenasate. If they don't allow that, you can only assume that they have done this deliberately for the tactical advantage which is pretty weak.

As a voip user (obviously I'm the 'only one' who is 'harrassing everyone else'), I filter out non-voip servers anyway.

[Zarious]

Don't get me started on the MCC guys. I got banned from there for killing an admin with a pistol. The kick message said "obviously cheating"

[Badboris_uk]

LOL..thanks for the flattering inclusion of me in your scenario there. I agree with your assessment btw - but I can't help but smile, due to the fact that I have a whopping total of 3 knife-kills in my all-too many hours of gameplay.

But they are all unique dogtags - just so you don't think I am padding here..lol.

bind "select knife" to the mouse-button 3 press - this is when you press in the scroll wheel you use to select weapon instead of scrolling it. This way you can select knife in a split second whenever you sneak up on someone or run out of ammo.

once you get in the habit of drawing the knife whenever a lone-wolfer has his back to you, this will net you 1-2 knife kills for every round you play - you will have gold in no time.

[WileECyte]

You can edit the config file to turn on VOIP, but if the IP address is specified incorrectly, it won't work. Servers will still show VOIP enabled even if it's incorrectly configured.

[RMcLeod]

Okay another stupid question, if I join a server that says join us on ventrillo, and I do so, doesn't that mean everybody on that ventrillo server can hear me including the enemy?

[RottnJP]

Many clans have a Public channel set up, so anyone can use that. We have our main channel passworded to keep out the singers/swearers/whiners but keep a monitor on the public channel, so if someone's a regular we can pull 'em down if they want. We also have an "opfor" channel so we can avoid "the enemy is hearing me" thing. One issue is, we joined the clan because we get along and like playing together, so we try and stay on the same team & channel. When we have a good run, a few people complain about stacking, but when we're getting "pwned" no one does. :D All it takes is the opfor playing like a team. If you've got a bunch of non-squadding flag-hoppers, don't blame me for your loss! But I digress.

If a server you frequent doesn't have a public vent or TS channel, ask 'em if they can set one up. It's easy to do, and levels the playing field on that issue. Also, you can keybind with each tool to swich channels, etc. on the fly, so once you have connected to a TS/Vent server, you don't have to drop out of game.

[Fakkamajakka]

whats next, people accused of cheating for aiming their weapon? not every server runs voip, its buggy to say the least, sometimes you cant enable it even if you try to on a server, its bugged. it also draws allot of bandwidth from the server causing larger rooms to lag if the server is below average, most servers that have voip off do it so you can have a better game and not complain about lag. leet players use ventrillo anyway, it sounds 100 times better than any crappy voip.

This is all true, but we're talking about one group of people (the clanners and the regulars) having a distinct advantage over the other group of people. Usually the people on ventrilo or teamspeak get on one side and the non-users are left on the other side.

So one side has a communication channel letting everyone communicate with each other, including the commander, who can see a lot more than the normal players. That's a huge advantage.

So should it be illegal? No. But it IS unfair.

The only recourses of action are to either be on the clan side so you don't get creamed, or leave.

[BrokenPhoenix]

It's unfair and cheating (not cheating by any official rule, but c'mon), but it's practically unproveable to EA short of having an EA person actually go into the TS server and look, which they'll never do. So it'll never be officially against the rules. Only solution is to not play on their server if it bothers you.

[jackal22]

Its a little unfair however it wont make a difference on most maps, the only time you really need voip is during titan matches, eg. on camp gibralta (aka karkand2) everyone knows what to do and they tend to spot people out too, therefore eliminating the need for most voip...

however voip can really help make a game, project reality prime example,

but i use skype with my friends so...

[Sir. Tasty]

Never herd of TS ? ...

[jackal22]

i have ts, and the overlay for it, (used it for poe2 torunaments) but the conversations tend to be more or less about anything as well as the game, so we would get kicked from ts servers + its a hastle to switch to other ts servers so we just do a conference call and invite everyone.

[username]

I use Teamspeak for clan servers and i have completley turned off voip. The biggest problem with voip is i cant hear what they are saying most fot he time. people set the mike up properly then move it when they play so the best you hear is a faint whine int he distance so i switched it off. Even when it was loud it was so garbled and unclear it was next to useless. Using teamspeak gets me crystal clear audio i can use tacticlly.

That said 99% of my bf2142 time is just for fun so the teamspeak talk is usually just smack talk with friends and genral p1ss taking of them when you stab them int he back.:laugh: :laugh:

That said when i played competitive bf2 it was essential and it is the difference between winning and loosing the whole game. I dont know of 1 competitve clan that uses voip they all use ventrillo or teamspeak.


I would love it if voip worked aswell as teamspeak if it did i would chat along all day long and merrily cry out BOOM HEADSHOT as i sniped some young kid from 350yds:D

[[TW] Alixsar]

I would love it if voip worked aswell as teamspeak if it did i would chat along all day long and merrily cry out BOOM HEADSHOT as i sniped some young kid from 350yds:D

That's the exact reason why I like that ingame VOIP isn't like that. A small group of people out there would do things solely to annoy other people (I am not accusing you of this, username). Anyone who's played ANY game on Xbox Live probably knows what I'm talking about. I remember playing the Lost Planet Demo at my friend's (it's very boring) and some kid was just screaming the entire game. Just yelling as loud as he could. So we muted him, and then another guy on our team was using the robot voice changer...thing, and we muted him. And then two other people kept complaining about how the teams weren't fair, even though the teams were even. So we muted them. Eventually, we ended up muting everyone because of something they did. I know that using voice ingame is the future of multiplayer video games etc., but some of the people out there make it incredibly frustrating to play games sometimes.

However, it is totally awesome to listen to your clanmates whine after you knife them in the back. That's why I like Teamspeak, you get to choose the people you converse with. I know I sound like a huge elitest jerk, but whatever. I don't think it's cheating to want to hang out with your clanmates when you're playing the game. I realize it could give you an unfair advantage, but I've been in squads without voip and done incredibly well. Actually all of the squads I'm in are without voip, and I usually do alright (I have to disable voip or else 2142 crashes whenever I join a server...I have no idea why either). The commo rose is incredibly flexible, and a squad leader can give a lot of different orders. It might be a little harder, but with the right people a squad can work without voip.

[DaHumpinOgre]

Just an FYI... VOIP is an addon that server owners pay for when signing up for their server.

[Revoluti0n]

man i hate it when little kids play then sing i just want to freaking team kill them, they shuoldnt be playing.........PUNKS!:evil:

It happens on most of our servers (BF2, 2142, CSS, DODS) which is why 95% of the clan members are admins on all our servers. It's better to have everyone as admin that way if things get out of hand with someone the clan members dont end up looking like clown shoes.

I agree, the kids that start singing and randomly talking all kinds of BS is a problem. Unfortunately they refuse to act civilized and we are forced to kick and eventually ban. Life is too short to deal with asshats all the time. ;)

Just an FYI... VOIP is an addon that server owners pay for when signing up for their server.

Actually, we own a dedicated server on a fat T1 pipe so we used to stream VOIP from that until the complaints about singing chilren started pouring in. You can use the game server itself to run VOIP, no extra fees. It sounds like crap when you do this, but it is a free option.

[Spankinstein]

Thanks for the replies and intelligent discussion. I did not realize that voip was an additional fee. Personally, I find that most of the people i have squaded up with, using voip, are mature and into the game. I have not heard singing since my BF2 days.

[JohnnySupreme]

I never understand the point in complaining about a server. Have you ever heard the joke, 'Doctor Doctor, it hurts when I do *this* with my arm'. The Doctor says, 'Well, don't do that with your arm'.

Not a funny joke I know but it has meaning. If you don't like a server, don't play on it.

[Spankinstein]

I only stay on the sever long enough to collect the clans tags.:D