D&D General Looking for Skype alternatives

[MerricB]

Well, Zoom's the big one. Probably the primary videoconferencing platform in the last few years. I"m not sure how long it's free for though (45 mins?)--I have a paid sub. That said, only the host needs the subscription.

I didn't even realise people still used Skype!

We did. Discord was so unreliable for us when the pandemic hit - it'd randomly mute a player, and the only way it'd start working again is if they restarted. (And when you're muted, at first you don't realise there's anything wrong... you just think you're being ignored). And since Skype worked, we kept using it after.

With Skype ending, we've moved over to Teams (personal). Which is funny, because all the old Skype conversations are still there.

Cheers!

 

[payn]

We did. Discord was so unreliable for us when the pandemic hit - it'd randomly mute a player, and the only way it'd start working again is if they restarted. (And when you're muted, at first you don't realise there's anything wrong... you just think you're being ignored). And since Skype worked, we kept using it after.

With Skype ending, we've moved over to Teams (personal). Which is funny, because all the old Skype conversations are still there.

Cheers!

I’ve had one player this happened to all the time but nobody else. Don’t think it’s Discord doing it.

 

[Belen]

I’ve had one player this happened to all the time but nobody else. Don’t think it’s Discord doing it.

We routinely have bandwidth issues with using discord. This is newer since they are pushing more ads and seem to be making the product worse in order to sell their nitro boosts etc. Discord was much better before they sold out.

 

[payn]

We routinely have bandwidth issues with using discord. This is newer since they are pushing more ads and seem to be making the product worse in order to sell their nitro boosts etc. Discord was much better before they sold out.

I keep hearing this, and i'm not saying it isn't happening, but if im being honest, ive seen no reduction in Discord service.

 

[Rabulias]

Google Meet is OK (1 hour max and only $10 a month). I think we’ll probably go with that.

Nothing against Google Meet, but if you are willing to spend $10 a month, you could get a Zoom Pro account for just a little bit more -- $15.99 per month or $159.96 annually ($13.33 per month). You would not have the time limit, and Zoom has some nice features. I also find its ability to cancel out extraneous background noise quite remarkable.

 

[payn]

Nothing against Google Meet, but if you are willing to spend $10 a month, you could get a Zoom Pro account for just a little bit more -- $15.99 per month or $159.96 annually ($13.33 per month). You would not have the time limit, and Zoom has some nice features. I also find its ability to cancel out extraneous background noise quite remarkable.

I have a zoom from my work account. Yeah, its performance is impressive.

 

[el-remmen]

I’ve been using Zoom since 2020. For my in-person group, it is our backup, and for my remote group we use of mix of it and owlbear rodeo - but mostly we do minis on a table with a camera.

When I started using it, it was 12.99 a month. It just went up to $16.99. But only the host needs to pay it (try the chip in!). It is only free for meetings under 45 min.

I am really liking it AI tools for writing session summaries.

 

[payn]

I’ve been using Zoom since 2020. For my in-person group, it is our backup, and for my remote group we use of mix of it and owlbear rodeo - but mostly we do minis on a table with a camera.

When I started using it, it was 12.99 a month. It just went up to $16.99. But only the host needs to pay it (try the chip in!). It is only free for minutes under 45 min.

I am really likening it AI tools for writing session summaries.

As a bad note taker, the A.I. companion would be a welcome feature.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I don't like Discord (mainly because of the culture around it and its not being written in Common Lisp, or failing that, native machine code) but as a videoconferencing thing it's been working for me. Biggest glitch in my games is one of us (the referee, more's the pity) tends to get dropouts a few hours into a session, which in my completely uninformed opinion is likely caused by a resource leak somewhere and not necessarily in Discord itself.

 

[jian]

Nothing against Google Meet, but if you are willing to spend $10 a month, you could get a Zoom Pro account for just a little bit more -- $15.99 per month or $159.96 annually ($13.33 per month). You would not have the time limit, and Zoom has some nice features. I also find its ability to cancel out extraneous background noise quite remarkable.

My numbers are CAD so Meet is half the price, but I agree the sound is better on Zoom.