9/12 RogerWilco vs. GameVoice
DOWNLOAD - Microsoft Sidewinder GameVoice
DOWNLOAD - Roger Wilco

There is nothing like trash talking your friends live during a game with no typing involved. Simply buy a cheap headset (pair of headphones with microphone attached) and load up one of these free software packages.

GameVoice - Put out by Microsoft specifically for gaming purposes but I'm sure it would be well used for long distance calls. I'm impressed with how easy it is to set up however many of us experienced delays as long as 30 seconds before comments were heard. There are reports that it sucks up CPU on weaker machines. It has a nice menu to launch Microsoft games from GameVoice although, on first try, MechWarrior 4 worked MechCommander 2 didn't. The person serving GV launched Mech 4 from GV, started up a server and when it was up our computers launched our individual Mech4s and proceeded to bring us into his server. Darn nifty.
There is also a GV server which claims "You do not need to download the Game Voice Server software in order to join one of these chat sessions." and "you can go to the Public Server list on the Game Voice Web site, find a chat session, and join it". If it's good we'll start a chat session up for y'all to congregate (or at least try).

RogerWilco - GameSpy presents, Roger Wilco. It supports Windows and Mac and since HappyGamers plans to involve Mac gamers in the future we like this. Set up was very hard and echoing was maddening but we were able to clear it up after experimentation. If you hear yourself echo it is probably because someone else in the chat has their headphones turned up too loud or mike sensitivity way up. This is a hard balance to achieve. Make sure "Voice Activation" is turned on so you don't have to hit a key to transmit. If someone had to reboot their computer that person normally had to go through setup all over again to get their mike working, even if the reboot was intentional. Try this before you go through setup again. If you lack ability to talk but can hear try slamming up the mike sensitivity and the voice activation sensitivity to their highest. It will make you really loud then adjust it down from there. It seems to jar the mike into working again. The delay in transmitting was only 1 or 2 seconds which allows coordination of complex tactics with your teammates. The newest upgrade released in late August supplies a list of servers but makes straight IP connections harder to accomplish. Make sure to password your sessions. Idiots tend to find open server and make sounds to ruin your game. Apparently the stupid are bored fairly easily and will do anything to entertain themselves. Roger Wilco does have a server called Based Station. "the next advance to consider is adding URLs to webpages to allow friends to join you on channels hosted on the Base Station as easy as clicking on a link or shortcut." Watch our Server page and News releases in the future for servers such as this. Maybe a Roger Wilco Base Station will show up. Sign up for the email newsletter. Let us tell you about it.

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