> That amounts to facilitating the listening of the music. Whilst the ability > is there but not encouraged Valve are probably ok. With tools about to play > music over the channels TECHNICALLY the people playing it need to be paying > royalties....
There's already HLSS and HLDJ and such; this would basically be improving the support on that end and making it easier to mute people. Royalties aren't any more of a factor than they've always been > I also doubt it would stop people playing it over the voice channel using > the age old method (heh) of sticking their mic against the speaker ;) True, but about the only think that would stop THAT is tossing the entire "audio communication" idea out the window. ----- >I highly doubt this is at all a priority for Valve, but some things to >consider: >Currently, voice is streamed through the game/engine using a speex >codec, optimized for voice and bandwidth. Speex is optimized for voice and bandwidth, this is true, but it's also heavily optimized for low CPU usage. It's better than raw waveforms, but it can't hold a candle to precompressed audio. Since this is for HLSS-type usage where you're streaming a file, the time/memory tradeoff for MP3 or OGG files makes the most sense. You can take a bite out of bandwidth and filesize while still getting improved quality. >This is why music sounds shitty. Basically what you're proposing is >leaving voice chat be and adding a music-broadcast system. The vassst >majority of servers would disable this *immediately*. ... and thus block the usage of HLSS and HLDJ. Yea, isn't it nice how that works out? :D >People would want admin options for it. There would be issues with most >*players* disabling this all the time, so not everyone would be hearing >your music *anyway*. More power to them, I say! >Here's a better idea: Enable javascript in the MoTD. DONE! That's opening the door for possible security risks, and doesn't solve any problems. There are two basic kinds of HLSS user; there's the kind that is out to cause grief, and there's the kind that enjoys actively participating in a shared experience. The ones out for a shared experience wouldn't benefit from server-side music playing, since it doesn't help them share with others or others share with them. I've found a lot of really nice music through HLSS (Creative Commons, mostly), and that has a very positive effect on my playing experience. The ones that are out to cause grief, however, would be discouraged by being denied the use of tools that makes it easy - to wit, HLSS and HLDJ. While I'm certain that some will resort to a hardware bypass, plenty of them would just give up and find easier ways to be annoying. >In terms of realism, this would happen first. Servers could now >realistically have a 'Music' system built into them, though it would be >admin controlled, not player controlled. I've seen servers doing that already. Popular methods include making the client download music as a file and then using a command to make the client play that file, and embedding the music into the MOTD without javascript and just updating the MOTD when the admin wants to change songs. >And might actually be a good tool to add flavor to servers, other than a >tool to make blasting music at each other easier. One of the goals here is to have the people who like to blast music and such at each other group-up into servers that are OK with it. That alone would be a great boon to the community, I think. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
