If you are a gamer and play with other people regularly then you will know that communication is key to GG (good game). I, myself, have used a number of VOIP applications in the past; Teamspeak, Ventrillo, Skype, Steam etc and they have all had their uses over time. My own personal list of most used apps has shrunk a lot recently. I generally use Teamspeak and steam and that is about it. I used to use Skype a lot as my partner was overseas but this fell off when they came home. Recently a new multi-platform VOIP app developed by gamers for gamers, has been making waves and claims to be a fresh, harmonius alternative to the older clunkier apps out there and its name, uncharacteristically, is Discord.
So last night after a long day at work I enlisted a group of friends to come try it out while we had a good session in League of legends. I sent everyone the invite link after installing it and it was astoundingly easy to setup, (basically I did not have to as it had already figured everything out on its own) my friends all joined the server I had created and we had uninterrupted, crystal clear voice communications all night. I was very impressed with how clean the app is; it is smooth, spartan, and simple to use, with everything you could need for comms at your fingertips.
At present I have only looked at the voice comm side of things but there are many other features too. You can post links, images etc into the chat bar and they will all be allowed for others to view/read by merely hovering over them. You chat log is kept in history too so everything is retrievable.
So to the Positives of using this impressive new program:
- Free to run as many servers as you wish
- The app is free, did I say that already?
- It is no memory hog for sure
- You can set it to send push notifications to your phone only when you’re mentioned in a text chat or whenever there is activity in the room
- There is no login required – just choose your name and you are in
- Security features: DDoS protection and IP protection
- Reports from the internet say that the tech support via Twitter is second to none (I had no need for this which is a good sign)
- No negatives as I have not found any yet
To summarise; Discord is a great VOIP program that allows users to join voice chat, join chatrooms, and communicate in a way that makes sense!