HyperX Gaming Headsets First to Achieve Discord Certification

My fiance streams using a hyper x cloud ii mic and she's pretty clear. Not the greatest but given its only 89 for a really comfortable pair of cans (the clouds not her) and a above average mic. I'm happy with them.

If I could only get Windows 10 to even recognize the Cloud II DAC, I'd be in good shape...

On the road I use a $5 Logitech USB dongle which provides enough power to make the Headset sound good (at the cost of a good amount of background noise) Most 3.5mm plugs do not provide enough power and they sound flat.

Larry, have you tried the Kingston usb dongle on other rigs to see if it works at all? I can confirm the cheap Logitech (eBay has a bunch of sellers of them) works with Win 10.

TechLarry said:

If I could only get Windows 10 to even recognize the Cloud II DAC, I'd be in good shape...

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That has to be an issue with either your system or the DAC itself. You might want to give Kingston a call or email and see what they say.

TechLarry said:

If I could only get Windows 10 to even recognize the Cloud II DAC, I'd be in good shape...

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Aye I would call kingston. HX Cloud II dac works perfectly on all my window 10 systems. It was the thing I used to easily move from one machine to the other for sound/mic for gaming. Used over 3 different builds without issues with it.

Lol what a fucking joke! How hard is it really to be "certified" for yet-another-voip program? I'll stick to mumble thanks.

BloodyIron said:

Lol what a fucking joke! How hard is it really to be "certified" for yet-another-voip program? I'll stick to mumble thanks.

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As easy as taking money from discord and slapping their name on the box saying its officially approved for discord.

Anyone still using mumble or ts simply don't like change. Discord is soooo much better than either of them it's insane. Modern UI, ridiculously easy server setup, easy to keep up with people and share files/links/images/videos etc.

It's just so infinitely better than all the aging VoIP programs that refuse to getget with the times.

trentchau said:

Aye I would call kingston. HX Cloud II dac works perfectly on all my window 10 systems. It was the thing I used to easily move from one machine to the other for sound/mic for gaming. Used over 3 different builds without issues with it.

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It's something with the machine. While Windows 7 works fine, Windows 10 refuses to recognize any USB Audio DAC for some reason. I got a few tricks up my sleeve yet. Still working on i.

Discord is a great program. All my friends and I have switched to it. And the best part, it's free. Any amount of servers you want, and any amount of people. A really good VOIP program.

MaelstromOC said:

Anyone still using mumble or ts simply don't like change. Discord is soooo much better than either of them it's insane. Modern UI, ridiculously easy server setup, easy to keep up with people and share files/links/images/videos etc.

It's just so infinitely better than all the aging VoIP programs that refuse to getget with the times.

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Eh, I mean, Discord may be awesome but in order for me to stop using TS I'm going to have to convince...at least 80 or 90 people that Discord is worth swapping to? Not as easy as you make it out to be.

Edit: Just checked it out and while it seems pretty slick and advertises some nice features, I don't know that you'll be able to get any large gaming communities to adopt it. Servers are invite-only - you can't just give people a server address and a password. This would be a pain for many communities, especially given that in most cases you're usually allowed to give out the server password to your friends who aren't in the community. How do you do this with Discord? Give everyone the ability to add and revoke rights to the server? I don't see that working out. Maybe they'll change this in the future, but for now I don't think there's any chance I'd be able to switch.

Interesting Cross-Marketing by Discord. The Cloud headset is arguably the best price/sound quality/performance Gaming headset and they managed to get their name attached to them even if they are the new guys on the field.

I'd say it's a great marketing coup for Discord, and if it does take off, good contributed marketing for Kingston. I could've done without the "certified" bit, but whatever...

Spewn said:

Eh, I mean, Discord may be awesome but in order for me to stop using TS I'm going to have to convince...at least 80 or 90 people that Discord is worth swapping to? Not as easy as you make it out to be.

Edit: Just checked it out and while it seems pretty slick and advertises some nice features, I don't know that you'll be able to get any large gaming communities to adopt it. Servers are invite-only - you can't just give people a server address and a password. This would be a pain for many communities, especially given that in most cases you're usually allowed to give out the server password to your friends who aren't in the community. How do you do this with Discord? Give everyone the ability to add and revoke rights to the server? I don't see that working out. Maybe they'll change this in the future, but for now I don't think there's any chance I'd be able to switch.

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Well, the way invites are created can vary. You can give different groups of people different abilities as far as the invites go and you can also choose limitations on invites as well. You can set a maximum number of uses for the invite, a time limit for the generated invite to actually work, and also choose to have the user not be able to reconnect unless a role is assigned after they've joined the server.

You can create as many user classes as you like for your particular server and it's very simple to choose what powers each class has. Once you figure out what you need in your server and set up the user classes appropriately, it's very simple to use. This is particularly true because all you have to do is give someone an invite link and they can join instantly because Discord also works just in the browser. So, if they don't have discord setup, they can just click on the invite and it'll open up in a browser window for them. It makes it super easy and convenient to get random people on for doing stuff like dungeon runs or grinding, etc, depending on the type of game you play.

That's really the beauty of it. You don't have to worry about giving out server passwords to everyone you want to connect. Just send any temporary members a temporary invite link and once they disconnect, they can't reconnect unless you've assigned them a role (if you generate the invite with that particular restriction). If you want them to be able to come back, simply assign a base role for them when they connect and the server will be saved for them on their sidebar within Discord!

That is still too much micro vs what you do for mmo raids and the like.

Copying and pasting a link is too much work? Alright, I guess it's not for everyone.

MaelstromOC said:

Copying and pasting a link is too much work? Alright, I guess it's not for everyone.

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So can you give regular users the ability to hand out permanent invites but *not* give them the ability to alter user roles or have any other admin capability?

Regarding the HyperX Cloud II, it is nearly universally noted as a great headset - excellent audio and mic quality for its price, with comfortable memory foam and lots of accessories! Sadly, it felt a little small/clampy for me, but I wear glasses and like a very "loose" fit, so to each their own. I bought a used Sennheiser Game One (ie HD598 + Mic style) and overall I'm happy with it, though it is in a different pricing tier by far. I'm interested in how the Cloud Revolver series will upgrade, such as having fully removable cords, better/high end microphone, and other elements.

With regards to Discord, while I have to say that it seems relatively promising of VOIP of "its type" (ie comparing it to Curse Voice, Razer's Cortex etc...", I still see it as more like a gamer/group "Skype" alternative, rather than something like Teamspeak or (especially) Mumble. While Discord has a lot of "whizz-bang" convenience features, it is still a "free, cloud based" service which in this day and age means "By using our "free" service we get to data mine, record, and monetize you in every way we can think of. Also, its our 'cloud', our servers, ours - so we own everyone and everything involved as well as any content they generate". Looking at some of their investors, from Tencent to Time Warner, it doesn't exactly give me a privacy-first vibe. Likewise, it seems they at the moment are not offering any sort of alternative monetization stream, such as "premium" servers and the like that anyone can purchase. Rather, you can apply to be a "partner", which seems to be more about being a big name streamer/community, as oppose to something anyone can buy. Now, maybe this is due to their early status of their project, but it does raise questions of how they are going to be profitable and make those investors happy while resisting the urge to be "evil", especially if "evil" is easy and profitable these days since "everyone's doing it".

Overall, I prefer applications like Teamspeak and especially Mumble because they can offer what these services cannot - control. Ventrilo is the most restrictive, Teamspeak is in the middle, and Mumble is both open source and by that virtue, the most permissive. With all three users can run their own servers or rent hosting at the host of their choice and professional hosting companies are either technically unable (ie due to password) or unwilling to do anything shifty as monetization, lest they lose the confidence of their subscribers. Mumble's open source nature has some great technical viability, such as dynamic client-side quality setting and more. Are there things that Mumble could certainly improve upon? Sure! However, the openness, user-focus, and control is something I'd not like to cede in exchange for them.

Maybe Discord will evolve in a user-respecting way, but I see a lot of focus on PR, investors and the like, so I'm wary. Right now they don't even have a Linux client, though I am glad one is planned. I REALLY hope the Linux and other desktop clients are not "Chrome" apps, which is an infuriating trend these days. They do have some sort of API, though I don't know the extent of it. If they'd even go so far as to open source the clients at least, or better yet allow private/federated, open source servers as well, I'd feel a lot better about the other facets of the company. No matter what they should offer a clear privacy policy and make it known how users will be "paying", in optional purchases or otherwise. I really wish that we'd see some positive, user-respecting development in this field, but until I see otherwise it appears that Discord may fall into the pattern as many busineses, and in my view being the "best of the worst" isn't much to strive for. I really want to like Discord, but I cant' shake the feeling that behind the shiny convenience, the typical pattern of emerging tech companies as bad actors regarding privacy and user-focus, would be rewarded.

MaelstromOC said:

Copying and pasting a link is too much work? Alright, I guess it's not for everyone.

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When it involves 40+ people, yeah it is an annoyance. It is easier to just give out ip+guest pw and just do that on the raid chat. Plus like Xaeos said, control is a big deal too.

Revdarian said:

When it involves 40+ people, yeah it is an annoyance. It is easier to just give out ip+guest pw and just do that on the raid chat. Plus like Xaeos said, control is a big deal too.

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So I've actually installed and looked over some of this stuff, and at the risk of taking this thread even more off-topic:

The way "instant invites" work is you get a URL that someone just plugs into the client. When you create the invite you can specify how many times it can be used, and when it will expire(both of those can be set to "unlimited", if you want). You can also set the invite to "temporary) meaning that those people will be automatically removed from the server when they disconnect from the discord client unless someone manually assigns a role to them. The roles are pretty granular - you can give users the ability to manage channels, kick, ban, manage the server, create instant invites, and a host of other options regarding the text and voice chat. You can also do all of this on a per-channel basis, giving users the ability to create an invite to one channel but not another, or allow them to kick/ban in one channel but not another. What this adds up to is that instead of needing to give someone an IP/port and password, you just copy/paste the URL and then they just copy/paste the URL into their discord client and you're done. The invite can be used by multiple people(you can specify how many times it can be used, as I mentioned, or make it unlimited) and it lasts for a specified period of time(which can be forever). You can manually revoke those invites at any time if you want.

As for "control" and "privacy", well, in terms of control over your server and its users there's not much more you can get in that respect. As for privacy and other concerns, I read some of what they talked about on Reddit regarding these issues and basically the bottom-line is that their business plan does not involve selling your data. Voice comms are encrypted client<->server and your IP is never exposed to the server owner/admins or to any other user. They don't keep the actual voice communications themselves, but the text comms are kept for the purpose of allowing people to read offline messages. When it comes to using voice chat to communicate about an MMO or an FPS, I'm really not *that* concerned with privacy in the first place but it doesn't sound like there's anything to be concerned about regardless.

Now, as I said before the issue for me(and probably a lot of other people as well) is convincing everyone *else* to use it. So far I think it looks good, the way you can set up your server with a nice welcome landing page and everything is nice...I'm a little unsure if I like the idea of you just permanently being part of whatever server you join unless you manually leave it(and then would, I think, need a new invite link to join it again). The problem there for me is that I have 2 or 3 different servers I might use at any given time and it may be confusing to people to see me as "online" and "in" the server but really I'm not because I'm in a different server(I'd show up in both but, presumably for my own sanity, only have the voice chat enabled in one).

I know this was supposed to be a news thread about the headphones so for any further discussion I might start a thread in the gaming section instead, but I just wanted to clear up some of the questions I had asked now that I've used the software a bit.

Fair enough then, and yeah, telling a whole community that they need to jump to something new just because = herculean task. You can potentially start with your guild in my case but even then... still interesting and fair then.