Yo, Angel here.
I’ve been an user of TeamSpeak for the past 10 years, and jumped into trying out TeamSpeak 5 as soon as it was available in its beta form.
Seeing how TeamSpeak is evolving, I am kind of scared. I am unsure if other users will share my opinion, but I started using TS3 because I wanted to have a lightweight client to talk to my friends while playing games. Skype at the time was more resource-intensive, so TS was a perfect match for me - slim, simple, and without unnecessary features (it didn’t hit my fps in my potato PC when I wanted to play some CS:GO, yay!).
The latest updates have been focusing on creating communities and enhancing 1-to-1 communication. Screen sharing, contacts, group chats… While I am not judging the usefulness of these features, we already had the buddy system inside servers for our contacts, and servers also did for group chats - and those features were far less intrusive.
Discord brought communities to the table, and lots of people use it for that purpose. They also brought a better system for game streaming your buddies while you are gaming. But I don’t believe TeamSpeak should go down that path.
I reckon TeamSpeak should keep moving towards the community that it has created throughout the years. Yes, TeamSpeak3’s interface looked like it was created during Windows 98 - it was good and refreshing to have it updated. But I don’t want to have options for screen sharing, or contacts, or group chats. I just want to get in a server that’s on my bookmarks, and talk to my friends when I’m going to jump into a match. I don’t want to wait for 20 seconds while Discord opens - or more time when there are updates available. I don’t need to send pictures to my friends, I’ll probably use Steam chat for that purpose because I’m already playing a game - or even whatsapp if I’m out of my PC.
I’m going back to TeamSpeak3 for the time being. I miss my silly jpeg avatars working and hearing GlaDOS say ‘Disconnected’. The TeamSpeak 5/6 app is amazing, it is just not what I am looking for.
Thank you if you went through the whole thing. I hope that this topic brings a good discussion to the table!
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While i get where you’re coming from, i’ve to kinda disagree on this. A reason why Discord is picked up so heavily to the point that it becomes these days rare for people to use Teamspeak (and i honestly don’t know anyone who uses TS anymore, like seriously, not anyone of my old guilds and clans which i’ve still contact with or anything) is, besides of the easy free creating your own servers that TS3 just lacks basic features which is pretty liked and almost mandatory today, plus a more accessable / easy UI.
- Stuff like Screensharing while gaming is one of the Features we almost use daily, heck even when i’m playing on my Xbox Series X which have the feature (sadly unlike PS5) i’m pretty much always open on screenshare… we often have 4-5 people screenshare open - on the second monitor and watch and play together… and that’s a feature we will miss highly on TS3.
- While you could argue that 98 design is more slicker, navigation through it can be a pain. I recently downloaded TS3 since like ~10 Years (not sure exactly when but just since a long time) and before that i used TS since a long time, and now finding into TS3 again is really painfull. Discord is overall a bit more accessable and navigate through despite the featurebloat.
Now you might argue “but yeah if you’ve already Discord why needs Teamspeak to become one as well?” Because i find Teamspeak still hold one of the biggest positives compared to Discord and it would be cool to have a Discord-alternative which takes use of it. And that’s selfhosting with out being schackled to the company who made that tool. Now with the new CEO and Discord wenting public, it might be a matter of time if it becomes a pain with ads and other nonsense, and that’s why we decided to have a backup plan with TeamSpeak (that’s why i got into TS3 back again to begin with), AND if TS6 drop the serverfiles for selfhosting with the featurette of Discord like Screensharing and other stuff like that, it might be rather sooner than later.
And i feel like if they keep it as we’ve it now, nobody loses anyway. People still can use TS3 and stick to the ‘old ways’, and if TS3 is already as perfect for you as you put it, than the fact that a second teamspeak version with TS6 exists, where people like myself can shift back to TS from Discord, than everybody wins. Than everyone can use the best tool for their desire&needs. If they would scrap TS3 however, than i can see your point but then i’d argue it’s less an issue of the Route TS6 Takes, but more that they discontinue to offer TS3 as an option. If your fear is that most TS User will move from TS3 to TS6, than i’d also like to point out, that then the majority is speaking that they prefer the route Teamspeak is taking, otherwise they would stick with TS3.
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