Tredecim wrote:
lol - steam-chat should be fine, or use irc or skype or something similar

I prefer pigeon post, being the old fashioned gentleman that I am...

This is one of those little things that may have a big impact, but I can understand the devs puting it off for other projects within the game.

Malicar wrote:
Currently we just use the ingame chat to discuss are tech partnerships and or fleet options. However if your not already in an allied partnership there is no way to communicate directly aside from STEAM or another 3rd party application. Would be nice to be able to click diplomacy and send a message to that empire via their diplomatic screen or open real time private negotiations.

Yep, I remember a rather unsuccessfull little game called Civilization which had such a diplomacy feature

Currently we just use the ingame chat to discuss are tech partnerships and or fleet options. However if your not already in an allied partnership there is no way to communicate directly aside from STEAM or another 3rd party application. Would be nice to be able to click diplomacy and send a message to that empire via their diplomatic screen or open real time private negotiations.

DMT wrote:
OMFG, are you for real? This destroys macs for sure, was looking at a macbook to gain some mobility and I have had iPhone since they came out in USA! This is madness. Who said Windows sucks? Crazy people.... Ironic

Lol, the fault are not on mac but on the way Endless is implemented. Mac have build-in function to switch between spaces and full-screen apps, but ES seems to block these. Don't know why (ES is my only game to do that).



I'm very happy with my macbook for playing (as for working). Windows was very easy to install in dual boot and I'm glad to not have to install any drivers (mac do it for me).

*edit : I installed Windows for my others non-mac games like Skyrim or Magicka. Or Civ 5 with workshop mods. *



@Eviltacticien : thanks. I tried steam to call several friends but couldn't get it to work. I will probably retry. And I will definitely look this Teamspeak overlay thing.



I tried steam for conference calls and it worked just fine. Thanks Eviltacticien, you did good :-D (funny, isn't it ?)

- On mac, it's impossible to switch to another software when playing ES so I cannot control Skype (unless I use my phone instead)

OMFG, are you for real? This destroys macs for sure, was looking at a macbook to gain some mobility and I have had iPhone since they came out in USA! This is madness. Who said Windows sucks? Crazy people.... Ironic

Gyomb wrote:
- Steam doesn't seem to allow conference calls



PS : everyone talks about teamspeak (not only here) and it seems to work on Mac so I will definitely test it. But I'm afraid to have the same issue as with Skype (ES not letting me switch)

Two comments on this:



First, Steam does allow group voicechat. Simply start a chat with someone, invite more people and "enable voicechat" in the options of that chat window. This will add you to a group chat. We use this frequently if we have a smaller group and for whatever reason someone involved has no access to Teamspeak.



As for Teamspeak - there is no reason to 'switch' windows once it is running. Connect to the right channel beforehand - have your keybinds set properly (you can mute/unmute both sound and microphone independently with key binds) and you're all set. You can also enable an overlay if you desire or make use of functionality on your G15 (if you have one) or similar keyboards to see who is talking at the time. You are even able to set keybinds to talk privately with specific people on the teamspeak server if you would really want.

well, I tried Skype and steam voice functionality and :

- On mac, it's impossible to switch to another software when playing ES so I cannot control Skype (unless I use my phone instead)

- Steam doesn't seem to allow conference calls



So for now I didn't find my "ultimate" voice provider.



PS : everyone talks about teamspeak (not only here) and it seems to work on Mac so I will definitely test it. But I'm afraid to have the same issue as with Skype (ES not letting me switch)

n18991c wrote:
I prefer pigeon post, being the old fashioned gentleman that I am...

Welcome fellow Sir, would you like to have your Steak rare, medium or well done? lol



pigeon post



I prefer Skype - talk and no interrupting from gameplay.

K so I had my first true multiplayer game today and I found a problem that I was not sure if it was just me or not. By the part of the game about 2 hours in, when people started forming their own "Grand Coalitions" I found that I couldn't actually privately communicate with the person I was interested in forming an alliance with. There is the chat system but I played around with it and only really found the general channel and even that wasn't really streamlined. Now, I would think it would be cool if we could get a private chat box in the diplomacy for the individual factions. that way when trying to barter for my next technology that he has if I could help him with his planet under siege just south of my main fleet base. But maybe that is already in the game and I just don't know where to look? Oh and getting a kind of Team speak system like they have in Eve Online would be kind of awesome as well.

n18991c wrote:
Almost as quick as some people talk, huh? lol

lol - steam-chat should be fine, or use irc or skype or something similar

nexinex wrote:
A simple private chat function would be okay. I know people who write you such a program in an hour or less...

Almost as quick as some people talk, huh? lol

A simple private chat function would be okay. I know people who write you such a program in an hour or less...

nexinex wrote:
It is completely ridiculous that this option is not included yet... Can't be too difficult to fix.



PLEASE.

Not sure fix is the right word: it implies something is broken, while this feature is actually missing. As Eviltactician mentioned, it's one of those "nice to have" improvements we'd like to add, but there are more things we would like to focus on.

DesertFoxx wrote:
We should have mike chat available. The game is pretty quiet, so should have no problem hearing each other unlike the starcraft II bound mike system.

Actually, you would be surprised. I had to turn the game music down to 10-20% just to hear people on Teamspeak. It's really pretty loud



In-game voice chat is not something worth doing. Steam already has voice-chat in-build that could be used- and there are so many other superior options available. A 'nice to have' but there are a billion things more important to focus on first.

We should have mike chat available. The game is pretty quiet, so should have no problem hearing each other unlike the starcraft II bound mike system.

It is completely ridiculous that this option is not included yet... Can't be too difficult to fix.



PLEASE.

I've never tried this as we're always on Teamspeak - but it would make sense to be able to send messages to just 1 person and/or your alliance.