Hi Everyone, I checked the Suggested features thread and found no mention of this feature, but can anyone weigh in on there being an inbuilt voice chat feature? Everyone has nightmares of the screaming 13 year olds prevalent over Xbox Live and other such services, so this would of course be a feature that can be turned on and off, but text really has its limitations and being able to actually speak to players on the same team/alliance would be very beneficial for executing large scale strategies and reacting quickly to sudden changes. Anyone can voice some support or concerns? Would it actually be possible to mod such a feature or must it interact with the server in ways only Uber can permit?
Remember that Uber has limited resources and working on building in a voice chat system would mean not working on other PA features. There are already a variety of good voice chat programs such as Mumble, Ventrilo, and so forth that serve well enough already, so not having it built in as a feature is not a major lack.
The thing with features so essential like this is that, if Uber can't put them in, they can at least try to explain to people in the game's documentation/menu screens how important they are, and encourage them to adopt them. What needs to be done is to create awareness that PA is a very team- and coordination-heavy game, and that you are missing out on a lot of the fun if you always play alone, or if you play in such a manner that makes it hard for you to coordinate with your teammates (e.g. without voice chat). Uber needs to embrace the coop-RTS mechanic that is necessary for their game to unfold and fully explore its massive scope. That's why even a shoody, badly-implement voice chat feature integrated into the game is better than nothing. It will encourage people to use third-party voice chat apps.
