Steam News - Voice and Chat Updates Incoming

[CSN NewsBot]

I'm about to bring you, the lovely readers of CS-Nation, something you've been wanting for a while. News that directly affects the game of Counter-Strike. Do you need a moment? Ok, I'll wait.



The latest Steam news update (March 2nd), brings about news that some changes are in store for the chat system within Source games, and also an improved voice communication system is in the works.

We'll be releasing an update soon to both text chat and voice communication in the Source Engine that will improve communication for people in multiplayer games. We've completely rebuilt the text chat system, adding the ability to browse your chat history right in the chat window and a filter to remove messages that clutter your game screen. Voice communication will be getting a huge boost in quality, so if you have a microphone sitting on the corner of your desk collecting dust, now would be a good time to plug it back in.



We hosted Eurogamer here at Valve a couple of weeks ago to look at Left 4 Dead, and they've posted their thoughts on what they played. With Left 4 Dead plus the other three games we're working on internally (Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) we've been having a lot of people come by and take a look at what we're working on, so people should start seeing more and more coverage.



In Source MOD news, the Eternal Silence team has released the version of their game that they will be displaying at next week's Game Developers Conference in the Independent Games Festival area. For more information on this space themed MOD, head over to their web page, or you can just download it and start playing.



We're also running a special limited time promotion of 25% off Half-Life 2 (sale price $22.45). Still holding out. . .?

So, they're finally ditching the severely lacking voice codec they're currently using?

[icemanz-alb]

Zips is a poopy-pants.

[IC dead people]

This is excellent news!!



First GOOD CS-CSS news in a long long time...



Time for me to go back to not being able to afford a "Maverick Carbine"



(PS: Joking I haven't seen a server with DWP on for at least 2 months here in europe)

[omgomgz]

Technically this is Counter-Strike Nation, not Counter-Strike: Source Nation, so this is partially irrelevant.

[DaRk-AnGeL]

omgomgz wrote..

Technically this is Counter-Strike Nation, not Counter-Strike: Source Nation, so this is partially irrelevant.

What an idiotic comment.



CS-Nation. Covering the future of Counter-Strike. Which means all versions of CS. CS 1.6, CZ, CS:S.



You sir are a douchebag.

[FLeK0]

For our high skilled game developers, it would be reaaalllly hard to replace the voice codec in 1.6 too. Unfortunately they don't have time to press control+c in the cs source work dir and control+v in the 1.6 directory.

Here we come again, Ventrilo.

[omgomgz]

DaRk-AnGeL wrote..

What an idiotic comment.



CS-Nation. Covering the future of Counter-Strike. Which means all versions of CS. CS 1.6, CZ, CS:S.



You sir are a douchebag.

Relax buddy it was a joke.



Christ.



Coming from the guy who hates the Wii, you sir, are the real douchebag.

[DaRk-AnGeL]

omgomgz wrote..

Relax buddy it was a joke.



Christ.



Coming from the guy who hates the Wii, you sir, are the real douchebag.

I envy your use of a console with crap graphics and games made for 8 to 12 year olds ;D

[washuplushie]

DaRk-AnGeL wrote..

I envy your use of a console with crap graphics and games made for 8 to 12 year olds ;D

jesus you two are retards.



as far as voice, my only hope is that a higher quality voice chat won't raise latency and i'm interested in the changes to text chat

[kalabalana]

Dark-Angel, you're a troll. You need to play some 1.6.

[V.C. Sniper]

ZOMFG!! This is soo 1337!! I can't wait to see the awesomely 1337 new chat system! Its going to be like, soo n00b PWn4g3!!! Can't wait to try out the next text chat features! I wonder how 1337 OWN4g3 the voice communication quality will be. Maybe the voice quality will be soo high that you swear to god that a player is right in your own room screaming at you next to your ear to stop using awp and camping like n00b plz!1!! ZOMFg more coverage on Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Portal and other 1337 games = ZOMfG h34d expl0de because of 1337 l3v3l t00 high!!!

[entRo]

I'll stick to Ventrilo. In-game voice is only good for swearing at everyone and screaming.

[Thortok2000]

I guess updates to CS:S come indirectly. This sounds like the source-engine team at work.



Again...CS:S team is nonexistent. Valve has yet to prove otherwise. I think they fired everyone working on CS:S or made them work on something else instead.

[DevgruSeal H.E]

I'll stick with ventrilo as well.



I also have voice_enable set to 0, because I hate hearing 20 pubbers screaming at each other about "PLANT MOFO" when they're dead and all-talk is off, pub strategies like RUSH A, next round RUSH A, next round RUSH LONG, even though it never makes a difference. Oh yeah, and it keeps me from hearing just general voice-spammers.

[ukHazard]

This is good news, at least.



In other news, Ritual seems to have cancelled SIN Episodes (apart from multiplayer).