Absolutely is feasible. EASY, even. I did it two days ago.
My ordinary gaming circle games in Brampton - I'm in Scarborough. The two suburbs of the Toronto area about 60km away from each other. I was not able to attend at the game on Saturday physically as a player, but I was able to sit in front of my computer screen at home. So that's what I did. And I played via Skype the whole time and it worked
extremely well, too.
We used a Skype video call. We arranged it ad hoc on the day of, so while I have a Microsoft Life Cam over the top of my monitor with a built in microphone (which also works surprising well) , the "game" camera and microphone was simply the one built into to one of the more recent laptops.
They aimed the cam at the Battlemat, putting the laptop at about the height that others sat at around the living room. The Battlemat is on a coffee table.
I could hear every person in the room where the game was and they all could hear me. The part I was most worried about was feedback sound coming off the laptop speakers and into the microphone on both ends of the connection.
It never happened - not even once. Skype is sophisticated enough that the software adjusts for it and cancels it out if you leave the auto-adjust features on. Very impressive for "free" software.
The game went very well. I played for about six hours or so. I dropped only a couple of time - (due to others screwing around with bandwidth they ought not to have been - not because of what we in the game were doing)
In any case, a quick call back and 15 seconds later I was back.
The game went exceptionally well using this method. How well?
I am absolutely going to do it again. How's that for a big thumbs up?
If you are trying to coordinate multiple people in this fashion, I might not recommend it. At about 4 participants (NOTE: I am talking computers linked to the call, NOT people present at the game), Skype video conferecing starts getting temperamental (which is why if you go beyond four or five simultaneous audio connections in Skype, you switch instead to Ventrillo or Teamspeak.
But for only 2 or 3 computers connected to the call?
Totally, utterly 100% doable and rock solid. I might recommend adding another participant computer+cam on the game side, so there are two cameras at the game, one where the remote player can see the players better and another focussed on the Battlemat. He can choose on his end which cam display is bigger, depending on the focus of the game at that particular point in time.
You would only want one microphone turned on at the game side, obviously.
Anyways, if this is your plan it is 100% feasible. Makes for a fine game too. Play with confidence and buy any necessary AV cams & mics with the knowledge that it will most definitely NOT be a waste of money.
I would go with a hardwired connection to your router if at all possible, as opposed to using a wireless connection. It is a bandwidth intense application - so don't hobble it unnecessarily if you can avoid it.
It works - and it works pretty damn well, too. If you are inclined to purchase a microphone for the game side, I would rcommend picking up a Blue
Snowball from Tiger Direct. It will give you
awesome sound aroung the gaming table for your remote player to listen to.
Microsoft Life Cam HD-5001 is a solid purchase as well if you don't already have one.
