What do you use to chat in game? (poll)

Wondering what's most popular, what's worth signing up for...

I'm enjoying the irony of a thread about 'what you use to communicate' generating absolutely 0 discussion.

(yes, this is a thinly veiled bump back to page 1. promise this will be the only one, just trying to get a decent sample size for the poll).

I really don't use a voice chat program at all but if/when I play with friends I use Google+ Hangouts since it's lightweight and everyone already has it.

This sort of relates to my other request that it would be great if there was a built-in option solution like (CS:GO) that would dramatically help pickup games between teams and communication.

When I play with my friends we just all use Skype.

Most people use TS, RLM has a server that plenty of people have access to, and now there is the PACE server as well. Personally i prefer open source alternatives like jitsi and mumble but whatever. I avoid skype like the plague though.

http://imgur.com/LpcFSXu

When I play with my friends, we usually call using Skype, because virtually every my friend has it. It may not be the best option but we use it nevertheless.

My friend and I use Skype - So I guess thirdparty free..

Mumble, TeamSpeak, and Ventrillo all do not have sign-ups.

Well I lie. They do, but it's per server and it's nothing more than just typing in your display name. If you don't like the people there, leave, go somewhere else and you'll be left in peace.

Steam, Skype, and Google+ are conceptually the opposite - one account, no servers, and lots and lots of persistence. Which is good when you have a group of people you know well, but not so good when you're dealing with strangers.

Teamspeak is the way to go.

Most Clans use Teamspeak and we use Teamspeak for PACE tournaments.

At the end of the day, what you use will be determined by the people you want to communicate with. If you're in a clan or community, you'll use whatever program that particular community uses. If you're chatting with friends, you'll all agree a program to use.

I actually have most of those programs installed on my PC, tucked away in a folder called full of voice communication thingies. The only one I use though is teamspeak, because that's what the Realm uses, it's what the Vanguard use, it's what PACE uses.

EDIT: Nice poll though, and interesting results.

Good info - honestly I haven't bothered even visiting any of the websites yet. Last time I messed with chat software was, gosh, 10 years ago? Scene was quite different then.

What do you mean by persistence, though? The requirement to have a full-fledged account with personal info?

Exactly.

Hell, Google goes as far as checking that your name looks like a real person's name. So Asdf Qwerty can't be your name for a Google+ account.

That's actually what I'm trying to avoid.. I'm a minimalist kinda person. Besides that, I reinstall Linux w/ each new version (which is not quite as frequent as PA updates ) so I was hoping to find a single program to have installed to maximize the chance of compatibility w/ randoms.

Looks like TeamSpeak it is! And they even have a linux version.

You didn't add an option in there for Skype. I don't use the PVP centric VOIP clients because those are for the masses, like more then talking to one person at a time... When I play I just play with a small select friends which skype works perfectly for.

Pretty much my thoughts too. When I started gaming in a clan we used Teamspeak, but switched to Ventrilo as we found the sound quality better. Been using that now for probably around 12 years, and we have rented a server for it pretty much constantly since then, and even though we have considered looking at mumble a few times due to a few recommendations, the consensus has always been to stick with what we know, since it does exactly what we need.

I use Mumble with a mate because for a couple years already we got a solid 24/7 server on there with a private channel just for us that we don't even have to pay for. Hell, I don't even know who owns the server, who pays for it or how we managed to liberate it.
But, when needed, mostly for other games, we roll on TS. Skype sucks balls, the call quality is great, but it eats too much and no push to talk.

doh! skype. I should have included that, eh? my bad. I actually ran out of options on that poll! didn't even have room for the "xbeeborp I have cooties and am too itchy to respond to this poll" option.

my friends use Mumble, got our own server.