Please understand that I’m not a programmer and so this is probably a really dumb question, but Mumble works so great for voice chat and it already has text chat capabilities. It could just do with a UI refresh and maybe some added functionality to really provide a much better alternative to Discord. Any thoughts?
Someone is creating a discord alternative: https://revolt.chat
They don’t really advertise the server software on their website. How come?
They show off all servers, so surely it is self hostable. How come they don’t show off the server software?
They are working on the client at the moment and the server software work will be worked on when that is done, as currently it’s not working for self hosting or something.
They definitely got the Discord aesthetic down. Unfortunately, it seems to be both self-hostable and unfederated, which means that the userbase is going to be split up between a bunch of small and quiet instances with no convenient way to interact with the larger ecosystem. Their FAQ suggests that while it’s not in the roadmap currently, they’re still open to the idea, so maybe we should let them know that this would be a desirable thing.
Yes, hopefully they can solve it where so many haven’t. I’ve never met a federated messenger/protocol with reliable voice and video chat between servers as TURN is costly it seems and things like JAMI are ime unreliable, though that’s more distributed than federated.
I think that only centralised messengers are capable of providing such features reliably as I’ve yet to see any evidence to the contrary.
I did find out recently that the team behind the Element Matrix client made Element Call and integrated it into their apps recently, but I’ve never used it personally. Have you used it? How was it?
I used it when it was a seperate thing and it had frequent disconnects or at least moments where I couldn’t hear the other person.
However, I don’t tend to use Element for Matrix as it’s large, slow, bloated, has a bad UI and UX, and ironically despite all that doesn’t have all the features I want or need (such as spoilers, multi account in one app/window or easy custom emoji/stickers).
Not sure I’d count Element Call as ‘between servers’ though, maybe it is but I will have to look into it to make sure.
Hm, hopefully Discord takes awhile to enshittify. Sounds like the current solutions need time to polish up.
Yeah. Though we have never used discord due to its lack of e2ee in text messages, requiring a phone number in some circumstances, that shitty nitro thing and personally because we don’t like group chats that much unless they are small and only people we already know.
Plus ioo it has already enshitified with an LLM, and other things that cannot be turned off.
Still no voice activation after yearsssssss
Eh. The world needs to go back to push to talk anyway.
Does that work now?
No idea. I just don’t want to hear my friends coughing into their mic overall.
I prefer voice activation with machine learning noise filter to remove stuff like coughing, eating, etc
Like how discord has
Or mumble
I use easy effects for the filter to apply across all apps
That’s not a Mumble fork.
Mumble is great, but there are some things that people have come to expect from group chat services that it is not designed to do. For example, running in a web browser, persistent message history, and multi-device access to a single account. Adding such things would be no small amount of work, which is probably the main rason it hasn’t been done. (And, of course, the changes required would make the result incompatible with Mumble.)
Considering what exists today, I think Matrix has the best chance at becoming a Discord alternative. It already has a lot of the needed features. The new voice/video system (now in beta) looks very promising. And, of course, it also supports self-hosting and end-to-end encryption, both of which Discord lacks.
Okay, what’s the biggest and most active gamer community on Matrix? In fact, what’s the biggest and most active community for anything, not counting software developers, on Matrix? I’ve tried using Matrix many, many times. It’s a ghost town if you’re not a software developer. It’s not a viable replacement for Discord. At least not by user count. Why is that? I’m sure I’ll get slammed with nasty replies for this, but I’m just telling the truth. Have at me, if you will.
Okay, what’s the biggest and most active gamer community on Matrix?
I don’t know, and don’t really care. I play games mostly with friends. Listening to a large chat room full of random people doesn’t appeal to me at all.
Regardless of social preferences, I think you’ll find that there is no Discord alternative with public chat rooms as big and active as Discord’s, nor will there be any time soon. The network effect is strong there.
Nevertheless, we can choose tools that serve us better, and invite others to join us when it’s practical. Ex-redditors have been doing this with Lemmy. Ex-Windows gamers have been doing this with Linux. Shifting away from an entrenched platform is usually slow and gradual, but not impossible.
Okay, what’s the biggest and most active gamer community on Matrix?
As far as I know, https://friendlylinuxplayers.org/ . I’m sure it’s not as active as whatever Discord communities you’re in but it’s fairly active and actually friendly.
Last I checked matrix only supported calls, not voice rooms you can freely join and leave
I guess you haven’t checked recently, then. :)
https://element.io/blog/introducing-native-matrix-voip-with-element-call/
https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/livekit/README.md
Fuck yeah
someone has been trying and it looks like it has potential if it keeps on being developed: https://github.com/Fancy-Mumble/FancyMumble
Thank you for this. It actually answers my question, and I appreciate it.
Because no one wanted to?
You haven’t, right? Why? As you said, you don’t have the programming skills (neither do I).
It’s always just that simple - someone with the expertise doesn’t feel like doing it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sometimes, people like you and me get motivated enough to go learn how to do these things, or find people with the skills.
It could just do with a UI refresh and maybe some added functionality
That is actually huge ask.
Mumble works in an “engineer brain” kinda way. Cause it has been made by engineers making sure the underlying tech is available to be used in so many scenarios.
Making it work in a “user” kinda way is a huge change.
And it would either make the code really difficult to maintain, or would isolate the power users by restricting the flexibility of mumble.
The fact that mumble is FOSS is absolutely fantastic!Feel free to fork the project and refresh the UI.
Or sponsored programmers to do this. If there is actually a market, you would be able to overtake mumble. You can even start from their codebase, the license is very permissive (just make sure you credit mumble!)Are you putting down the money or what?
