I would like to see a VOIP squad system similar to Project Reality for Battlefield 2. It used the same system as Vanilla but worked well with a 'realism' community and the fact everyone was expected to have a mic.
The reasons for this are:
- Players found it really easy to start a squad with a name for what asset or role the squad was going to undertake e.g. 'APC' 'VOIP TW' 'MBT' so there would be no confusion or squabbling over vehicles and such.
- There is a distinct lack of certain players using their mics with the current system. Particularly Europeans who could speak perfectly clearly but choose not to do so because of the charisma gap that comes with slightly broken english, also young people with higher pitched voices, shy people etc.
For some reason in BF2 PR's VOIP system, I could start a squad and every squad member would speak up no matter what and they would all have their say. I believe this is from the distortion that came from the VOIP 'homogenizing' the sound of people's voices and the fact that it was small tightly knit squads.
Teamspeak seems to favor clans and the banding together of people from the same country/internet community or whatever. This leads to people taking the mickey out of the aforementioned outsiders.
The PR system could let anybody jump in and take up a role and get everyone talking just fine. You didn't have to establish a rapport or go through some elite tactical initiation process evaluating if you had the necessary levels of 'serious fun'.
Insular gaming clans where everyone knows everyone is fine. But we shouldn't be made to choose between them or basically lonewolfing with scarce VOIP chatter. Lets not kid ourselves, this is the kind of game that attracts not very social people, so why not cater to them?