Discord implements 'boosting', gating superior quality (and emojis!) - Discord once more proving to be like any other VoIP service, except twice as 'cute'.

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

Some time ago Discord implemented the idea of 'boosting' to their test branch; allowing you to boost your favorite server through a one-per-person unit for a range of benefits.
That is, if you're a $10 Nitro subscriber. The $5 Nitro subscription is advertised as chatting benefits, while the $10 allows access to the games store. So what makes more sense than to make you pay for game store access when you want a better chat experience?

The idea is that each $10 Nitro subscription can boost (1) Nitro unit to (1) Discord. This means that you can add a $ in front and a 0 behind each tier below to see the required investment:

Source: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352

Rather than simply offering packages like most old VoIP services did, they wrap it up in their cute little concept some zoophile intern probably made their magnum opus:

 

[Eryngium]

Did they lower the average voice chat audio quality for non-paying users or is it still the same?

 

[The tired cat]

I mean, let's be real. Nobody is really gonna care for this crap, unless their discord chat is part of a gaming company (usually small indie types), some popular youtube celeb or well streamer. Usual folk who use discord won't really care that much.

Did they lower the average voice chat audio quality for non-paying users or is it still the same?

Haven't noticed that much of a difference, so it's the same it would seem.

 

[ghostmice]

"4.99 a month per server boost" i understand wanting to support a service you use but expanding nitro like this is fucking retarded, I guarantee either this will flop or boosting will be required in the future to have a halfway functioning server.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

So they're hemorrhaging that precious investor money trying to keep their servers up and are holding higher quality audio and perks for ransom.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I've abandoned Discord, partly for deleting our channel, and partly for their privacy policy.

 

[Slap47]

This is to get people invested in their servers so that they comply with their rules.

 

[Irrelevant]

It's not like gamers lurch from one "free" voice chat app to the next every couple years.

In terms of text chat Discord is a mess. Why does every server have 10+ rooms that all move at a snail pace and it's impossible to constantly check them all for unread messages.

 

[SwanDive]

I doubt anyone is going to buy nitro because of this, it's more like an added bonus although the only thing that seems worth boosting for is the extra emoji space. But then again, as someone who's in almost 100 servers to begin with, this really doesn't change much.

As for the audio quality, I really don't care. I'm not an audiophile and I honestly couldn't really tell the difference between 128Kbps and 356Kbps.

 

[Coolio55]

I hope discord doesn't die. I hate it and I hate that every "community" lazily uses it instead of a proper channel like a forum but the wave of nuclear faggots unleashed on the rest of the internet would be legendary.

 

[Eryngium]

I hope discord doesn't die. I hate it and I hate that every "community" lazily uses it instead of a proper channel like a forum but the wave of nuclear faggots unleashed on the rest of the internet would be legendary.

Why wouldn't you be support of it dying then if you hate it and its community?

 

[TerribleIdeas™]

Some time ago Discord implemented the idea of 'boosting' to their test branch; allowing you to boost your favorite server through a one-per-person unit for a range of benefits.
That is, if you're a $10 Nitro subscriber. The $5 Nitro subscription is advertised as chatting benefits, while the $10 allows access to the games store. So what makes more sense than to make you pay for game store access when you want a better chat experience?

View attachment 785367

The idea is that each $10 Nitro subscription can boost (1) Nitro unit to (1) Discord. This means that you can add a $ in front and a 0 behind each tier below to see the required investment:
View attachment 785369
Source: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352

View attachment 785402

Rather than simply offering packages like most old VoIP services did, they wrap it up in their cute little concept some zoophile intern probably made their magnum opus:
View attachment 785415

I'm in the same boat as Vjij.
Fucking assholes.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

If you're shelling out cash for high bit-rate voice chat anyway why not buy a mumble server and just use the text chat for image sharing and emotes?

 

[Coolio55]

Why wouldn't you be support of it dying then if you hate it and its community?

It's in the post... It's cuz they'll ruin something else.
It also helps that Discord is designed for these faggots from the ground up and it's a good marker.

 

[Irrelevant]

As for the audio quality, I really don't care. I'm not an audiophile and I honestly couldn't really tell the difference between 128Kbps and 356Kbps.

Lulz I just noticed the bitrate differences. In the real world 128kbps is already considered super high amazing CD quality for VOIP and call centers will squeeze it down to 64kbps or even just use GSM at like 16kbps.

Who the fuck needs 356kbit for use with their gaming headset microphones.

 

[totse]

It's not like gamers lurch from one "free" voice chat app to the next every couple years.

In terms of text chat Discord is a mess. Why does every server have 10+ rooms that all move at a snail pace and it's impossible to constantly check them all for unread messages.

What used to be a single IRC channel or Skype chat moved to a discord "server" where, like a fart expanding to fill its container, the users feel the need to spread out and make multiple channels they don't need, just because it's there. It somehow ends up more dead than when someone actually makes their own IRC server because they proceed to sperg about putting shit in the correct channel and make it too hard to discuss in a roving, general manner.

Maybe a better comparison would be when someone sets up a tiny webforum nobody goes to yet, but they still insist on making a subforum for every little category they can imagine.

P.S. the human ear can only hear at 60kbps

 

[Irrelevant]

What used to be a single IRC channel or Skype chat moved to a discord "server" where, like a fart expanding to fill its container, the users feel the need to spread out and make multiple channels they don't need, just because it's there. It somehow ends up more dead than when someone actually makes their own IRC server because they proceed to sperg about putting shit in the correct channel and make it too hard to discuss in a roving, general manner.

Maybe a better comparison would be when someone sets up a tiny webforum nobody goes to yet, but they still insist on making a subforum for every little category they can imagine.

P.S. the human ear can only hear at 60kbps

It would have made more sense if you had to pay per channel or private channel or something. But that'll never happen now since the users have already made a mess of it and there'd be outrage.

Unlimited small channels makes sense for voice but text is better with a few big channels.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

Lulz I just noticed the bitrate differences. In the real world 128kbps is already considered super high amazing CD quality for VOIP and call centers will squeeze it down to 64kbps or even just use GSM at like 16kbps.

CD quality audio a very specific thing. Specifically LPCM 44100 Hz 16 bits stereo at 1411 kbps.

LPCM, meaning the data is stored uncompressed as a list of amplitudes.​

44100 Hz meaning those amplitudes are sampled 44100 times every second.​

16 bit meaning each amplitude can be at 1 of 2^16 or 1 of 65536 positions.​

1411 kbps meaning that a maximum of 1411 kilobits of data can be stored per second of audio.​

44100 samples a second * 16 bits a sample * 2 because it's stereo = 1411 kilobits per second​

128kbps is really high for VOIP though, if that's what you're saying. This is considered a low end MP3, even though for voice it's overkill.
Regardless, everyone knows the ideal bitrate for voice chat is 1200 bits per second through irc.

Who the fuck needs 356kbit for use with their gaming headset microphones.

Audiophiles who want to stream music through the voice chat for some reason? High voice chat bitrate wouldn't be the most ridiculous thing those people have bought.

 

[Irrelevant]

CD quality audio a very specific thing. Specifically LPCM 44100 Hz 16 bits stereo at 1411 kbps.

LPCM, meaning the data is stored uncompressed as a list of amplitudes.​

44100 Hz meaning those amplitudes are sampled 44100 times every second.​

16 bit meaning each amplitude can be at 1 of 2^16 or 1 of 65536 positions.​

1411 kbps meaning that a maximum of 1411 kilobits of data can be stored per second of audio.​

44100 samples a second * 16 bits a sample * 2 because it's stereo = 1411 kilobits per second​

128kbps is really high for VOIP though, if that's what you're saying. This is considered a low end MP3, even though for voice it's overkill.
Regardless, everyone knows the ideal bitrate for voice chat is 1200 bits per second through irc.


Audiophiles who want to stream music through the voice chat for some reason? High voice chat bitrate wouldn't be the most ridiculous thing those people have bought.

I was joking about how people call even G.722 CD quality in comparison to GSM.

The problem with VOIP is that you want low delay and high reliability rather than quality. Discord uses Opus which claims to do both (it's Vorbis + Speex) but my understanding is it's still a juggling act that requires manual tweaking for each use case.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

I was joking about how people call even G.722 CD quality in comparison to GSM.

Well don't I look like a fool.

The problem with VOIP is that you want low delay and high reliability rather than quality. Discord uses Opus which claims to do both (it's Vorbis + Speex) but my understanding is it's still a juggling act that requires manual tweaking.

Yeah, streaming data in general is a juggling act. Streaming data real-time even moreso. Good compression is an art. That Vorbis + Speex is interesting though.

Reliability isn't really that important for real-time voice chat. It's one of the times UDP actually makes sense because a bit of lost data isn't that big of a deal. Reliability only becomes a problem when there are large gaps or drops in data, or when there's a disconnect. That's more of a socket programming issue than a file-format and bit-rate issue though. If you want as close to real-time as you can get you use UDP because of the decreased overhead, but if the net is really unreliable where you are and UDP looses too many packets, a TCP option may be a necessity. Like you said, balance. The net is a strange beast with a lot of clever engineering too many people take for granted.