The Discord Store Beta(blog.discordapp.com)
blog.discordapp.com
The Discord Store Beta
https://blog.discordapp.com/the-discord-store-beta-9a35596fdd4
100 comments
Discord's user experience is incredible compared to Steam. The app is super responsive. If they add video streaming as well they can compete with Twitch & Steam at the same time. Both have abysmal ux.
Eh, I'd say 40/60 in favor of Discord. When network goes bad on my cellphone, Discord tends to fall flat on it's nose (and I end up posting the same message 8 times because Discord engineers haven't discovered TCP yet and the app doesn't show any feedback on whether or not the message got through). Or just convinces itself than 64kbps = no connection.
Steam on the other hand regularly tries to convince me that I am in fact not logged into the store despite being logged into the app (how do you even do that?).
Discord consumes a lot of memory. Steam makes my computer lag while not using as much memory.
Overall, I'd say Discord is a tiny bit better in the department of "not sucking" than Steam.
Steam on the other hand regularly tries to convince me that I am in fact not logged into the store despite being logged into the app (how do you even do that?).
Discord consumes a lot of memory. Steam makes my computer lag while not using as much memory.
Overall, I'd say Discord is a tiny bit better in the department of "not sucking" than Steam.
I'm sorry, what? Steam is much more responsive than Discord.
I've been using Steam since the Vista days, back then it was horribly bloated. Got a bit better later on but Discord is hands down better in terms of perceived responsiveness for me.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. I don't think I've ever used discord and gone "wow, that took a while". To be fair, they are completely different.
Strongly disagree. Steam feels like browsing a slow web page.
Most of the time that's exactly what you're doing, if you're navigating through the 'store'. And it's horrible. Steam absolutely is not an application I would point to if someone asked me for an example of a well optimized and performing desktop application.
(And I still haven't forgiven Valve for killing WON, even if I know they had what they felt was a good reason for it)
(And I still haven't forgiven Valve for killing WON, even if I know they had what they felt was a good reason for it)
Oh WON... Those were the days! HLDS (Half-Life Dedicated Server) was a very big part of how I became a sysadmin - I'm sure I owe a big chunk of my career to whoever wrote it and it's documentation!
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It's an interesting choice, and while I saw it coming after they added a page to view your friends' gaming habits, it's not the long-term move I thought they would take.
Discord basically started out as "Slack for gamers", and very quickly (IMO) surpassed both Slack and Skype in terms of functionality. I don't have to have a different account for every server I'm in unlike Slack, and their video and audio calling has always been much more stable than anything I've gotten on Skype.
With that in mind, I would've thought that their next plan would be to improve on what they do best, and try to market to the professional markets and take Skype and Slack head on. Instead they seem to be veering off and doubling down on the gamers. Judging by the number of people I see who have it, I imagine the profit from Nitro may be enough to keep the company going, and the Slack crowd won't be as lucrative as the opportunities from taking some of Steam's marketshare.
Discord basically started out as "Slack for gamers", and very quickly (IMO) surpassed both Slack and Skype in terms of functionality. I don't have to have a different account for every server I'm in unlike Slack, and their video and audio calling has always been much more stable than anything I've gotten on Skype.
With that in mind, I would've thought that their next plan would be to improve on what they do best, and try to market to the professional markets and take Skype and Slack head on. Instead they seem to be veering off and doubling down on the gamers. Judging by the number of people I see who have it, I imagine the profit from Nitro may be enough to keep the company going, and the Slack crowd won't be as lucrative as the opportunities from taking some of Steam's marketshare.
Anything marketed to corporate inevitably gets bogged down with nonsense. With their current approach they can keep working on what the absolute end-user cares about, and this is how they avoid repeating Skype's mistakes. I think it's interesting how many ways they are planning to mimic Steam's features with moves like these, I still wonder how much traction it can actually gain. But everyone I ask seems positive about it.
Hm, I tried Discord in January, and it was a long way in echo cancellation to where Skype is now.
If you told me two years ago that anyone (even a major player like Amazon) was thinking about competing with Steam, I'd write them off immediately, but this makes a lot of sense. Steam has gotten way too complacent in its social features, and I am getting increasingly frustrated by bugs in the app. My ears picked up when Discord mentioned a "book shop" vibe. With all of the controversy about adult games and Steam's "grand bazaar" approach, I would love a store that was curated and made my gaming experience more fun.
I smell a game vendor war a-brewing. The results could be messy...
I smell a game vendor war a-brewing. The results could be messy...
Well, almost exactly two years ago, Amazon bought Curse. I believe this is forming the basis of their Twitch desktop application. I haven't looked at it, but I imagine the intent is the same.. use Twitch network effect to build an install base, turn it into a distribution/store to take on Steam. That's what Discord had already been doing at the time, largely accomplished via the Twitch platform too.
They must have looked at Discord when they were evaluating Curse, given that they suggested the purpose of Curse was to help build community (though curse was originally a distribution mechanism for mods and add-ons that added community as afterthought, in my subjective opinion). I imagine someone at Amazon is kicking his or herself for the choice today..
They must have looked at Discord when they were evaluating Curse, given that they suggested the purpose of Curse was to help build community (though curse was originally a distribution mechanism for mods and add-ons that added community as afterthought, in my subjective opinion). I imagine someone at Amazon is kicking his or herself for the choice today..
I am still surprised Amazon didn't buy Discord, and my internal canon suggests they must not have liked they price. Between Lumberyard, buying Twitch and Curse and merging them, Discord is a sure thing fit for their gaming arm. Twitch in particular is a great/widespread streaming platform with utterly terrible chat, bringing Discord into that would patch up a big weakness there.
Microsoft has often been suggested as a suitor, but between having Skype and Teams and the Windows/Xbox Store already, I just don't see Discord meshing well with what they already have.
Microsoft has often been suggested as a suitor, but between having Skype and Teams and the Windows/Xbox Store already, I just don't see Discord meshing well with what they already have.
This latest Steam update is particularly awful. The client needs a major refactor, not a simple reskin. It reminds me of Microsoft's ham-fisted attempts to "improve" Skype.
Honestly nothing I've seen out of Valve lately gives me much faith in the company's prospects. They kind of just seem to suck at execution. I used to work in non-profits and I used to see similar types of stuff there. Good ideas, sloppily thrown together with lots of glaring oversights throughout.
They got away with that in the early days because the state on online computer games was so dismal. Their chief competition was services like Limewire and Bittorrent. But we don't live in that world and if they don't get their house in order someone's going to drink their milkshake.
They got away with that in the early days because the state on online computer games was so dismal. Their chief competition was services like Limewire and Bittorrent. But we don't live in that world and if they don't get their house in order someone's going to drink their milkshake.
I have noticed this trend in tech where folks' incredible contributions to the company go unsupported and unrewarded because it didn't align with the goals of some executive. At Valve, where management goals are heavily obfuscated by the "flat" structure of the organization, there are even fewer champions to support and reward you for big impact -- so I am not surprised that no one is able to take meaningful risk nor execute on it.
Competitions are good though this means steam has to try harder now
Personally I am not a big fan of the new steam chat UX, looks ugly
Personally I am not a big fan of the new steam chat UX, looks ugly
Recently, Steam rolled out Discord-like chat/community features: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17609872/steam-chat-new-f...
Turnabout is fair play.
Turnabout is fair play.
Shouldn't discord be considered cheating by Valve? I haven't seen/used it, but I assume it's a voice chat outside a game, so people can continue to give out enemy coordinates even after they die. If that's the case, steam should just refuse to run or ban your account if discord presence is detected, no?
The general way this gets solved is to disallow dead players from seeing anything that alive players cannot see. This is how popular games like CounterStrike work, even with the in-game chat.
An old anecdote...
Back in the day, in SOCOM 2 for the PS2 (5v5 slow paced shooter), there were "alive" and "dead" chats for the players on each team. The dead players could look at alive players in the 3rd person, but pan the camera to always watch their back instead of what they were typically watching.
Dead Players found that they might spot something that alive players didn't notice behind them, so one of the dead men would go into the menu and vote to kick the alive player. The alive player then saw this notification, and knew to check their back.
So future games made sure dead people's POV cameras === alive players, ideally. Then dead people can talk and there's no trouble with messaging or skyping outside the game or anything.
An old anecdote...
Back in the day, in SOCOM 2 for the PS2 (5v5 slow paced shooter), there were "alive" and "dead" chats for the players on each team. The dead players could look at alive players in the 3rd person, but pan the camera to always watch their back instead of what they were typically watching.
Dead Players found that they might spot something that alive players didn't notice behind them, so one of the dead men would go into the menu and vote to kick the alive player. The alive player then saw this notification, and knew to check their back.
So future games made sure dead people's POV cameras === alive players, ideally. Then dead people can talk and there's no trouble with messaging or skyping outside the game or anything.
It's no different than using Skype or Ventrilo or even a phone/conference call. There's no real way to manage who talks to who while you're playing a game.
Honestly, no. What you are talking about is known as "ghosting" and games where that's an issue there is usually some way to limit "spectator" mode or put the viewing of what's happening in the game on delay. For everything else, it's just expected / wanted to have continuous voice communication.
There's nothing in discord that Valve hasn't had built-in to steam or other applications have been doing for years.
There's nothing in discord that Valve hasn't had built-in to steam or other applications have been doing for years.
Voice apps for games have been used for a long, long, long time. Most games don't really keep a constant voice connection (it drops during menus), and it can be very hard to coordinate to all be on voice together in a multiplayer game. Plus a clan may well be too large to fit in a single "squad" or "team" in a game, and require multiple levels of coordination.
Coordination isn't cheating.
Coordination isn't cheating.
If this is an issue than you solve it by not allowing members of the same team to view an opposing teams views.
Not allowing external voice chat is a horrible idea.
Not allowing external voice chat is a horrible idea.
On more competitive CS:GO servers the built in voice chat is intentionally disabled between living and dead players not to prevent such "ghosting" (which is just part of the game) but so that dead players can chat without disrupting living players on their third party (TeamSpeak, Mumble, Discord, etc.) voice channel.
In my experience most games with in-game voice chat don't turn it off when you're dead anyway so it wouldn't matter.
I've long held that Discord lacks an actual business model. This is the first time I could honestly say they have one, as the benefits of Nitro were a joke.
Of course, it's interesting they chose a business model that nobody has ever succeeded at: Competing with Steam. You need exclusives to draw people to your game platform, and with that on PC comes "why can't I just get this on Steam?" Without something like a "Games Anywhere" offering sync, you'd also have to have people buy games anew on your platform.
Of course, it's interesting they chose a business model that nobody has ever succeeded at: Competing with Steam. You need exclusives to draw people to your game platform, and with that on PC comes "why can't I just get this on Steam?" Without something like a "Games Anywhere" offering sync, you'd also have to have people buy games anew on your platform.
Plenty of companies have succeeded going against Steam.
You have game developers like Blizzard, EA, and Epic who all have their own Steam-like platforms on PC where they distribute their titles. Arguably these platforms are more popular than Steam, if only because of the popularity of the titles they own.
You have popular games that distribute outside of these platforms, like League of Legends and Guild Wars.
And you have other studio-unassociated storefronts, like Humble Bundle, Twitch, GoG. Yes, I'm aware GoG is owned by CD Projekt Red, but it's a generic storefront not just for their games, and they distribute their games elsewhere, so it resembles Steam more than it does Battle.net.
The PC gaming space is ridiculously diverse and there is room for competition. There's also a lot of value I can see arising here in the indie space; if Nitro becomes a "Netflix for Indie Games" type subscription, that's something relatively unique (Humble is close, but has a curation problem). Combine that with the huge curation and discovery problem Steam has, and possibly some strategic partnerships with Humble or CD Projekt Red, and it'd be a huge win for small developers and gamers alike.
You have game developers like Blizzard, EA, and Epic who all have their own Steam-like platforms on PC where they distribute their titles. Arguably these platforms are more popular than Steam, if only because of the popularity of the titles they own.
You have popular games that distribute outside of these platforms, like League of Legends and Guild Wars.
And you have other studio-unassociated storefronts, like Humble Bundle, Twitch, GoG. Yes, I'm aware GoG is owned by CD Projekt Red, but it's a generic storefront not just for their games, and they distribute their games elsewhere, so it resembles Steam more than it does Battle.net.
The PC gaming space is ridiculously diverse and there is room for competition. There's also a lot of value I can see arising here in the indie space; if Nitro becomes a "Netflix for Indie Games" type subscription, that's something relatively unique (Humble is close, but has a curation problem). Combine that with the huge curation and discovery problem Steam has, and possibly some strategic partnerships with Humble or CD Projekt Red, and it'd be a huge win for small developers and gamers alike.
I wouldn't consider any platforms distributing solely their own titles as a Steam competitor. Aka, Origin, Battle.net, etc. are not Steam competitors. GOG and Humble Bundle are Steam competitors, and I wouldn't argue either of them are on the same scale as Steam. And Discord needs to make a lot of money if they're going to pay back their investors.
Origin also has Ubisoft games (https://www.origin.com/irl/en-us/store/assassins-creed/assas... ), THQ Nordic games (https://www.origin.com/irl/en-us/store/darksiders/darksiders...) and indie games (https://www.origin.com/irl/en-us/store/opus-magnum/opus-magn...) though you wouldn't easily tell since the front page exclusively promotes their own games.
I stand corrected, then. However, the fact that I was wholly unaware of this also suggests they are not really a viable/successful Steam competitor. ;)
> You need exclusives to draw people to your game platform
No, you just need to draw people to your game platform. And Discord already has people on their game platform. Discord has the active attention of millions of gamers throughout the day. It's just not selling games yet.
This is a horizontal integration play and a very smart one IMO. Before this move, Steam had game sales and weak social; Discord dominated social and no game sales. Now, Discord dominates social and will sell games, at least to some of their millions of customers.
Social features are much more of a defensible "moat" because they depend on network effects and are difficult to "manufacture" relative to other features. In this sense, Discord has a massive head start on Steam. Discord only needs to catch Steam in terms of game sales, whereas Steam needs to catch Discord in terms of social.
No, you just need to draw people to your game platform. And Discord already has people on their game platform. Discord has the active attention of millions of gamers throughout the day. It's just not selling games yet.
This is a horizontal integration play and a very smart one IMO. Before this move, Steam had game sales and weak social; Discord dominated social and no game sales. Now, Discord dominates social and will sell games, at least to some of their millions of customers.
Social features are much more of a defensible "moat" because they depend on network effects and are difficult to "manufacture" relative to other features. In this sense, Discord has a massive head start on Steam. Discord only needs to catch Steam in terms of game sales, whereas Steam needs to catch Discord in terms of social.
People can keep their old Steam games and still use Discord. That's what people have been doing since Discord came out (along with Epic Games, Blizzard, EA, etc.).
I'm curious to see how the social stickiness of Discord will affect their foray into a games/app store. I believe that, for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game. From there, you grow the product into managing and buying your games.
If Discord provides some differentiated social benefits to the games bought through their store, then I could see this doing quite well.
I'm curious to see how the social stickiness of Discord will affect their foray into a games/app store. I believe that, for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game. From there, you grow the product into managing and buying your games.
If Discord provides some differentiated social benefits to the games bought through their store, then I could see this doing quite well.
With Steam comes the achievements, the trading cards, etc. Sure, you can copy all of that, but the challenge is that Discord isn't fighting Steam on day one, they're fighting an established library. How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead?
Sure, people can use Discord for chat while playing Steam games, but Discord really doesn't benefit from that. They need to convert chat users into game buyers, and I think you'd need something like Games Anywhere (or more simply, like GOG Connect), to bridge in what people already bought to start the process along. Bonus if you can find a way to bring over people's achievements and other progress.
Sure, people can use Discord for chat while playing Steam games, but Discord really doesn't benefit from that. They need to convert chat users into game buyers, and I think you'd need something like Games Anywhere (or more simply, like GOG Connect), to bridge in what people already bought to start the process along. Bonus if you can find a way to bring over people's achievements and other progress.
> How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead?
You don't have to, there are always people just starting their library. The Discord client is already significantly better than Steam's (which is why its so popular for chat).
I think people are pretty meh on Steam achievements since hacks to unlock them are pretty widespread, but Discord would need to provide other platform norms like cloud saves and DRM.
I also think Microsoft should swoop in and buy Discord before it's too late. The Xbox brand and UWP need a shot in the arm, and a Discord purchase could finally get PC gamers using Xbox services.
You don't have to, there are always people just starting their library. The Discord client is already significantly better than Steam's (which is why its so popular for chat).
I think people are pretty meh on Steam achievements since hacks to unlock them are pretty widespread, but Discord would need to provide other platform norms like cloud saves and DRM.
I also think Microsoft should swoop in and buy Discord before it's too late. The Xbox brand and UWP need a shot in the arm, and a Discord purchase could finally get PC gamers using Xbox services.
Because that audience didn't collectively jump ship from the last service Microsoft bought _to_ discord. They also don't have a long lasting mistrust of Microsoft due to GFWL, the Xbone attempt to stop game sharing, umpteen "We really care about PC gaming this time, honest" promises, etc.
Frankly, while programmers have benefited enough from new Microsoft that people are starting to give them a chance, gamers have not at this point a MS owned Discord would do more harm to Discord than good to MS. Users already see the Microsoft store as a flytrap to avoid, and any future Discord services would be tarred with the same brush.
Frankly, while programmers have benefited enough from new Microsoft that people are starting to give them a chance, gamers have not at this point a MS owned Discord would do more harm to Discord than good to MS. Users already see the Microsoft store as a flytrap to avoid, and any future Discord services would be tarred with the same brush.
Discord has a pretty fancy emoji system called Emoji Magic, and a sophisticated user model (for moderation and such). So it's not like they're starting from scratch, either in terms of implementation or having a userbase that expects to find interesting stuff on the platform.
> for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game
I believe it's the other way around. At the very least, it's the other way around for me and my friends.
We decide we want to play something. Then we check whatever works for voice chat. Used to be Skype, then TeamSpeak 3, then Mumble, then Discord. When Discord had failed we've just brought back old TS3 server (and while I was doing it, we used in-game VoIP stuff, hardcore-mode).
I believe it's the other way around. At the very least, it's the other way around for me and my friends.
We decide we want to play something. Then we check whatever works for voice chat. Used to be Skype, then TeamSpeak 3, then Mumble, then Discord. When Discord had failed we've just brought back old TS3 server (and while I was doing it, we used in-game VoIP stuff, hardcore-mode).
Discord is used like Slack, you don't arrange to meet on Discord before you meet on Discord, you just fire up Discord and see who's around or message someone. I'm sure some use it the way you describe but it doesn't seem like the most common usage pattern to me.
For day-to-day use, sure. But, a common way that many teams/squads/groups/guilds move to Discord is that they find that _all of the random pick up groups_, or servers, etc, are having people use Discord (instead of Mumble or TS or Ventrilo..etc).
That reason specifically makes me excited about this as hopefully they'll make enough money to keep going.
They are the best chat client around right now IMHO, beating out all the enterprise apps (slack, hipchat, etc) particularly if you want a fantastic client on all 3 OS.
They are the best chat client around right now IMHO, beating out all the enterprise apps (slack, hipchat, etc) particularly if you want a fantastic client on all 3 OS.
They have curation, which is something Steam explicitly lacks, and that makes it pretty bad for discovering new games (or so people say - I've always had on-point recommendations from Steam). I honestly expected to read that Discord is partnering with Steam to allow you to buy games on Steam on their client while also curating the list of games you can buy. Though obviously that way they don't get the same share from each sell, but it would have simplified things a lot for them.
They may not be able to build a better game store platform than Steam, but they might fit into building a better curated store.
They may not be able to build a better game store platform than Steam, but they might fit into building a better curated store.
They have curation, which is something Steam explicitly lacks
How do you figure? Steam has about a zillion curation, discovery and promotion mechanisms.
How do you figure? Steam has about a zillion curation, discovery and promotion mechanisms.
That’s kind of the problem in some ways. There is a whole bunch of user curated and algorithmic noise. It also requires a lot of work on the part of the user to refine the algorithmic recommendations. There’s definitely a place for the lowest common denominator store like Steam but I’d love more boutique curated stores as well.
I don't understand how Steam is 'lowest common denominator'. You can pick your curators. Let's say discord comes up with some super-awesome curation. It can be trivially replicated as a curation channel on Steam. I doubt curation alone is what discord is really going for here, as a distinguishing feature.
Steam has everything which is why I call it the lowest common denominator. Yes it has curation channels but you actually have to go out and find curators who don’t generally have great visibility. And there is little incentive for curation. A boutique store on the other hand makes its money as a curator of taste.
I think I see what you're getting at but that's not really what 'lowest common denominator' means.
A store that sells everything is attempting to appeal to everyone which fits the colloquial usage in particular imparting my negative opinion of that lack of curation.
Yeah, but most of them are pretty meh.
Doesn't Steam have a "Curators" section in their store for a few years now?
I've been a Discord Nitro subscriber since Nov. 2017, so I welcome any additional benefits. That said, I'm not entirely a fan of the game store model. I know Discord's primary audience are gamers, but that's not why I use Discord.
Agreed, they could have have generalized and eaten all other chat services including slack. I guess they want to take on steam but I don't know if it will work.
honestly i was so skeptical of discord at the beginning because as someone who was a regular vent user it really struck me as a niche thing. But they've done a great job to branch into non-gaming communities to get enormous growth. I'm not sure if they're gonna "win" against steam or even make a dent but it will be interesting to see them try.
Discord is claiming that these new features won't add to bloat:
https://blog.discordapp.com/how-discord-maintains-performanc...
Meanwhile I've noticed that Battlenet and Steam have rolled out even more Discord style features very recently.
https://blog.discordapp.com/how-discord-maintains-performanc...
Meanwhile I've noticed that Battlenet and Steam have rolled out even more Discord style features very recently.
I remember telling s friend a few years ago that this is the natural next step for their business. Attacking he steam hegemony won’t be easy though given people already have libraries there. But if anyone can do it it’s them.
I've already moved beyond the everything-in-Steam model. I'm content to have games in Steam, in Origin, in UPlay, in my Microsoft account, in the Blizzard launcher, and standalone.
This is just one more account to keep in mind, though it looks like it's more of a rental model than a purchase model.
This is just one more account to keep in mind, though it looks like it's more of a rental model than a purchase model.
If their "universal library" functions well, it seems like you might be jut about their ideal target audience - if they can significantly reduce the hassle of managing launchers, it could be quite convenient.
That sounds like a stretch, given that they can't even get voice chat right.
What? As someone who has been sitting in a voice chat at least 5 days a week for 15+ years (come at me I have no life), Discord is easily the best one.
It seems to run into issues at about the same rate as all the Mumble/Vent servers I've ever dealt with, except you can simply switch the region on a channel and immediately solve it.
Quick edit: Discord could improve by adding a better interface for testing your input/output, that is lacking.
It seems to run into issues at about the same rate as all the Mumble/Vent servers I've ever dealt with, except you can simply switch the region on a channel and immediately solve it.
Quick edit: Discord could improve by adding a better interface for testing your input/output, that is lacking.
Let's see:
- The overlay still doesn't work on Linux
- There is still no voice ducking
- The text chat channels are persistent and decoupled from the voice chat channels (encouraging spam)
- There is still no way to self-host it
- The team keeps wasting their effort on stuff like this rather than fixing their broken core "service" (if it can be called that)
Mumble had all of this down to a T back in 2013.
- The overlay still doesn't work on Linux
- There is still no voice ducking
- The text chat channels are persistent and decoupled from the voice chat channels (encouraging spam)
- There is still no way to self-host it
- The team keeps wasting their effort on stuff like this rather than fixing their broken core "service" (if it can be called that)
Mumble had all of this down to a T back in 2013.
Perfect example of features hackers want which don't matter at all to anyone else.
- Nobody cares about Linux. They could drop Linux support today and it wouldn't matter in the slightest. I say as a 100% full time Linux user -- we get what we get.
- Users want persistent chat more than they don't. Spam isn't an issue for most people who are are running servers for their friends and coupling them with voice wouldn't really help anyway. Users want to be in a different chat than their voice coms
- Users don't even know what voice ducking is and would probably be surprised by it.
- Nobody cares about self hosting. Gamers clamour for dedicated servers to reduce lag more than than for P2P.
- Users want these features and their core service is best in class. There's a reason it basically killed their competition overnight. I haven't even seen a Mumble/Vent server in ages.
- Nobody cares about Linux. They could drop Linux support today and it wouldn't matter in the slightest. I say as a 100% full time Linux user -- we get what we get.
- Users want persistent chat more than they don't. Spam isn't an issue for most people who are are running servers for their friends and coupling them with voice wouldn't really help anyway. Users want to be in a different chat than their voice coms
- Users don't even know what voice ducking is and would probably be surprised by it.
- Nobody cares about self hosting. Gamers clamour for dedicated servers to reduce lag more than than for P2P.
- Users want these features and their core service is best in class. There's a reason it basically killed their competition overnight. I haven't even seen a Mumble/Vent server in ages.
> - Users want persistent chat more than they don't. Spam isn't an issue for most people who are are running servers for their friends and coupling them with voice wouldn't really help anyway. Users want to be in a different chat than their voice coms
Looking at my old WoW guild's channel now, it's 95% spam that was only relevant to the 4 or so people who were on voice comms at the time any given thing was posted. It'd be fine to have text-only channels, but each voice channel should also have an associated unlogged text channel. For bonus points: prevent people from sending messages to text-only channels without (temporarily) leaving the voice channel.
> - Users don't even know what voice ducking is and would probably be surprised by it.
Tell that to.. anyone trying to listen to music in the background?
> - Nobody cares about self hosting. Gamers clamour for dedicated servers to reduce lag more than than for P2P.
Yup, it's lovely when Discord crashes mid-raid, and there is nothing to do aside from twiddling your thumbs.
Looking at my old WoW guild's channel now, it's 95% spam that was only relevant to the 4 or so people who were on voice comms at the time any given thing was posted. It'd be fine to have text-only channels, but each voice channel should also have an associated unlogged text channel. For bonus points: prevent people from sending messages to text-only channels without (temporarily) leaving the voice channel.
> - Users don't even know what voice ducking is and would probably be surprised by it.
Tell that to.. anyone trying to listen to music in the background?
> - Nobody cares about self hosting. Gamers clamour for dedicated servers to reduce lag more than than for P2P.
Yup, it's lovely when Discord crashes mid-raid, and there is nothing to do aside from twiddling your thumbs.
I believe voice ducking is supported (at least on windows), I don't think their infrastructure is made to self host, it's not a self contained binary is a set of databases, different servers for voice vs text etc.
How does decoupling voice and text channels encourage spam? Why would you want it to not be persistent? Many communities now use discord instead of slack/irc/etc, barely touching the voice features if at all. Everyone already has discord and they have great community management features for groups of people.
I know several subreddits, gaming communities, youtubers, etc. have moved their "live chat" to discord. You don't even have to install discord to use it.
Edit: Mumble isn't bad and it sounds like you aren't the target demographic of discord. If you want a self-hosted, voice chat first program then mumble is definitely what you're looking for.
How does decoupling voice and text channels encourage spam? Why would you want it to not be persistent? Many communities now use discord instead of slack/irc/etc, barely touching the voice features if at all. Everyone already has discord and they have great community management features for groups of people.
I know several subreddits, gaming communities, youtubers, etc. have moved their "live chat" to discord. You don't even have to install discord to use it.
Edit: Mumble isn't bad and it sounds like you aren't the target demographic of discord. If you want a self-hosted, voice chat first program then mumble is definitely what you're looking for.
> I believe voice ducking is supported (at least on windows)
I can't find it on the Linux client, at least.
> I don't think their infrastructure is made to self host, it's not a self contained binary is a set of databases, different servers for voice vs text etc.
Sounds like their infrastructure is broken then? Even if it's not something you supply to users you'd still want to be able to run a local testing server during development.
> How does decoupling voice and text channels encourage spam? Why would you want it to not be persistent? Many communities now use discord instead of slack/irc/etc, barely touching the voice features if at all. Everyone already has discord and they have great community management features for groups of people.
I've primarily been forced to use this abomination for various WoW guilds. The chat tends to be used for three things: 1) announcements, 2) discussions, and 3) context (links and images, primarily) for the discussions going on in voice.
Since Discord doesn't couple the chat channels to the voice channels people end up spamming #3 in the general channels, causing very annoying constant notifications, and clogging up the history. The persistent history is also an anti-feature here, since the history ends up being nearly useless without the accompanying voice conversations.
Since #3 invariably annoys everyone into turning off notifications it becomes an arms race to get people to actually pay attention to #1.
#2 tends to get sidetracked when people spam #3 all over the place, but even without that it's nearly impossible to keep track of multiple discussions at once. Trying to find and/or make sense of old discussions gets even messier. This case is always much better served by a real forum.
I can't find it on the Linux client, at least.
> I don't think their infrastructure is made to self host, it's not a self contained binary is a set of databases, different servers for voice vs text etc.
Sounds like their infrastructure is broken then? Even if it's not something you supply to users you'd still want to be able to run a local testing server during development.
> How does decoupling voice and text channels encourage spam? Why would you want it to not be persistent? Many communities now use discord instead of slack/irc/etc, barely touching the voice features if at all. Everyone already has discord and they have great community management features for groups of people.
I've primarily been forced to use this abomination for various WoW guilds. The chat tends to be used for three things: 1) announcements, 2) discussions, and 3) context (links and images, primarily) for the discussions going on in voice.
Since Discord doesn't couple the chat channels to the voice channels people end up spamming #3 in the general channels, causing very annoying constant notifications, and clogging up the history. The persistent history is also an anti-feature here, since the history ends up being nearly useless without the accompanying voice conversations.
Since #3 invariably annoys everyone into turning off notifications it becomes an arms race to get people to actually pay attention to #1.
#2 tends to get sidetracked when people spam #3 all over the place, but even without that it's nearly impossible to keep track of multiple discussions at once. Trying to find and/or make sense of old discussions gets even messier. This case is always much better served by a real forum.
> Since Discord doesn't couple the chat channels to the voice channels people end up spamming #3 in the general channels, causing very annoying constant notifications, and clogging up the history.
On Windows, voice chats are very much separate from Text chats, it looks like https://i.imgur.com/HBXMPY0.png
And no one in the target audience cares about self hosting instances. It adds 0 value for their core user base. People who want a privacy minded voice chat system can use one of those, it isn't worth Discord's engineering time to support a stand alone release to attract some small extra # of users.
On Windows, voice chats are very much separate from Text chats, it looks like https://i.imgur.com/HBXMPY0.png
And no one in the target audience cares about self hosting instances. It adds 0 value for their core user base. People who want a privacy minded voice chat system can use one of those, it isn't worth Discord's engineering time to support a stand alone release to attract some small extra # of users.
> On Windows, voice chats are very much separate from Text chats, it looks like https://i.imgur.com/HBXMPY0.png
That was exactly the thing I was complaining about?
That was exactly the thing I was complaining about?
Oops sorry, I thought the complaint was about them being separate. I'm not sure I understand the spam complaint, if everyone is on voice chat why are they in general? But then again I mostly use Discord for community activities, not for group gaming.
Hm, I'm a little surprised, I actually opened up Discord to diagnose some windows / bluetooth headphones issues, and checked when the bytes were being sent to see if the mic was being connected.
It made it a little easier to tell if it was me or the other end at fault.
It made it a little easier to tell if it was me or the other end at fault.
Discord could improve by adding a better interface for testing your input/output, that is lacking.
It's been pretty sufficient for me, all things given. Is the app detecting it? I can see levels, everything else happens at the system level no? Otherwise I definitely agree, Discord's voice has been a massive improvement for me. Plus, the overlay is a great feature baked in-Mumble, TeamSpeak and others require a third party download and often they're just....awful, obtrusive, resource intensive and otherwise in the damn way. Discord's overlay does what it can to stay out of the way. I like that.
Merely curious, not attempting to refute you here-but what would you like to see improved there?
It's been pretty sufficient for me, all things given. Is the app detecting it? I can see levels, everything else happens at the system level no? Otherwise I definitely agree, Discord's voice has been a massive improvement for me. Plus, the overlay is a great feature baked in-Mumble, TeamSpeak and others require a third party download and often they're just....awful, obtrusive, resource intensive and otherwise in the damn way. Discord's overlay does what it can to stay out of the way. I like that.
Merely curious, not attempting to refute you here-but what would you like to see improved there?
> Plus, the overlay is a great feature baked in-Mumble, TeamSpeak and others require a third party download and often they're just....awful, obtrusive, resource intensive and otherwise in the damn way.
Mumble has had a built-in overlay for years, and contrary to Discord's it actually works!
Mumble has had a built-in overlay for years, and contrary to Discord's it actually works!
I used discord for the first time two days ago and I missed exactly this.
As a comparison point, I think it is Skype that friends you to a test bot who replies things to you. This would have saved me some awkwardness when joining the group.
As a comparison point, I think it is Skype that friends you to a test bot who replies things to you. This would have saved me some awkwardness when joining the group.
Ah yeah, the Skype test call bot. I agree actually, this would be pretty handy to have.
That said, I really wouldn't be surprised if Discord gets to the point where they start supporting calling phone numbers directly. It's replaced a lot of voice communication channels with a segment of my friends since we all have it on our mobile phones.
That said, I really wouldn't be surprised if Discord gets to the point where they start supporting calling phone numbers directly. It's replaced a lot of voice communication channels with a segment of my friends since we all have it on our mobile phones.
Steam works pretty great on Linux (with a surprisingly large selection of native games). I wonder if Discord is planning on competing there as well, or if they're just limiting games to Windows.
They have no hope until they fix the terrible audio quality on Linux that appeared several months ago.
For me and many others audio input doesn't even work. There is a ticket in their issue tracker, it has been broken for a long time already
Discord itself works great on Linux, obviously can't speak for this new store feature.
We won't have support initially but as a Linux user internally I'm definitely hoping to push for it, and I see no reason why it wouldn't get built!
I love Discord and have been a nitro subscriber for a while now, but I'm disappointed at their responsiveness to bugfixing.
One of their latest updates added a really frustrating regression where emoji autocompletes are spellchecked on ios, correcting it nonsensical words. It took some digging to find their bug tracker and I noticed it's set to their lowest priority. Why was this allowed to be released in the first place?
One of their latest updates added a really frustrating regression where emoji autocompletes are spellchecked on ios, correcting it nonsensical words. It took some digging to find their bug tracker and I noticed it's set to their lowest priority. Why was this allowed to be released in the first place?
>So, we’ve curated some of these golden games and will be adding them to Discord Nitro.
They need to focus this curation in a big way. There's been a lot of flack directed at steam for allowing it to be essentially polluted by all sorts of low quality "games" recently, and discord could really hurt them by actually caring about their community. Valve's hands off nature has not been easy on gamers
They need to focus this curation in a big way. There's been a lot of flack directed at steam for allowing it to be essentially polluted by all sorts of low quality "games" recently, and discord could really hurt them by actually caring about their community. Valve's hands off nature has not been easy on gamers
This'll be really interesting. They might have the best shot so far (IMO) of actually competing with Steam in a significant way.
They have a very sticky app for gamers with best in class UX. People love using it and many have it open 24/7. A lot of companies have tried going "store first" and it hasn't put much of a dent on Steam, but this approach might eventually. Assuming their library gets big enough. Still incredibly difficult though given how much players have invested in their Steam libraries.
They have a very sticky app for gamers with best in class UX. People love using it and many have it open 24/7. A lot of companies have tried going "store first" and it hasn't put much of a dent on Steam, but this approach might eventually. Assuming their library gets big enough. Still incredibly difficult though given how much players have invested in their Steam libraries.
I just hope its not another store with a 30% commission. If they're charging developers 15% or less, I'll definitely get on board.
Valve need to up their game though. Their approach of 'anything goes' when it comes to allowing games on Steam is backfiring. They need to increase the fee to list from $100 to $2000. For legitimate devs that extra $1900 charge will more than pay for itself with the attention you will get launching a game into a de-cluttered store.
Valve need to up their game though. Their approach of 'anything goes' when it comes to allowing games on Steam is backfiring. They need to increase the fee to list from $100 to $2000. For legitimate devs that extra $1900 charge will more than pay for itself with the attention you will get launching a game into a de-cluttered store.
I'd have to disagree on the front of having an outrageous fee such as that on a storefront. Some people could make great games and those same people might not have the same opportunities to acquire funds to pay for that fee. Of course, the storefront isn't really needed, but at times it feels like certain storefronts are almost suicide not to release to.
For instance, I released recently (in my mind) a pretty nice and functional app for Android. Not getting much traction, but that's fine, I wasn't totally expecting that. Where my problem lies is that, a large part of the mobile market, those on iOS, don't get to have the app. As their storefront costs $100 yearly to publish to. On top of requiring a Mac to develop on (easily in the thousands of dollars).
I feel that the barriers of entry for developing (and publishing) applications and games should be lower, and rather instead of introducing these fees that won't do anything to people that have money and just want to release their broken asset store mashup onto a storefront. In my mind, the best solution would be better moderation and curation.
For instance, I released recently (in my mind) a pretty nice and functional app for Android. Not getting much traction, but that's fine, I wasn't totally expecting that. Where my problem lies is that, a large part of the mobile market, those on iOS, don't get to have the app. As their storefront costs $100 yearly to publish to. On top of requiring a Mac to develop on (easily in the thousands of dollars).
I feel that the barriers of entry for developing (and publishing) applications and games should be lower, and rather instead of introducing these fees that won't do anything to people that have money and just want to release their broken asset store mashup onto a storefront. In my mind, the best solution would be better moderation and curation.
Microsoft now charges just 5%, if you do your own marketing.
Thanks, didn't realise that. Its a shame that the Microsoft store is so terrible.
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...
Just wish they would add encrypted messaging. To me that's Discord's most important missing feature.
Well, their privacy policy allows them to sell all of those messages. Encrypting them in a non-reversible fashion (or at least non-reversible to Discord themselves) would impact this or any kind of research they want to do on the years of gamers' conversations.
I like Discord a lot, and to be fair, their people have publicly claimed here and elsewhere that they have no intention to sell the information. Unfortunately, those statements have no teeth.
While they state the same in their privacy policy (in non-binding form about intent), the same privacy policy goes on to specifically allow sale and transfer of user data.
See "OUR DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION" here: https://discordapp.com/privacy
The difference is that the privacy policy is a legal acknowledgement end users must accept before they use the software. The forum/blog statements and non-binding language we read everywhere else are just 'feel good' things for users to hear and for their employees to tell themselves.
If they just wanted protection against an accidental slippage of data then that privacy page could be changed substantially. Instead, they pave the road for the explicit sale of data at a later time.
Ideally they would deny it in current policy if they have no intent of selling the information. They could leave the option open to change in the future with a "this privacy policy is subject to change" clause, but clauses like this only have teeth if there is also a clause that ensures future policy changes won't apply retroactively to historically collected data without opt-in after the policy change.
But this weakens their position in an eventual acquisition by some company who finds monetary value in that data.
As it stands right now, in an eventual acquisition or even just some internal shifts of philosophy in the organization, all historical data is up for grabs for any potential use.
I like Discord a lot, and to be fair, their people have publicly claimed here and elsewhere that they have no intention to sell the information. Unfortunately, those statements have no teeth.
While they state the same in their privacy policy (in non-binding form about intent), the same privacy policy goes on to specifically allow sale and transfer of user data.
See "OUR DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION" here: https://discordapp.com/privacy
The difference is that the privacy policy is a legal acknowledgement end users must accept before they use the software. The forum/blog statements and non-binding language we read everywhere else are just 'feel good' things for users to hear and for their employees to tell themselves.
If they just wanted protection against an accidental slippage of data then that privacy page could be changed substantially. Instead, they pave the road for the explicit sale of data at a later time.
Ideally they would deny it in current policy if they have no intent of selling the information. They could leave the option open to change in the future with a "this privacy policy is subject to change" clause, but clauses like this only have teeth if there is also a clause that ensures future policy changes won't apply retroactively to historically collected data without opt-in after the policy change.
But this weakens their position in an eventual acquisition by some company who finds monetary value in that data.
As it stands right now, in an eventual acquisition or even just some internal shifts of philosophy in the organization, all historical data is up for grabs for any potential use.
Great, distracting games where I least want them.
You are aware that you can completely ignore these features and not use them in any way that you don't want to, yes?
In what way would any of this be distracting to you?
In what way would any of this be distracting to you?