xfire, roger wilco, teamspeak, kali, ventrilo, mumble, icq. Relics of better times.

Teamspeak and mumble are still alive. Definitely not as popular as it used to be, but not dead for sure.

Mumble is still big in eve online afaik, due to some funky auth processes with EVE account.

Teamspeak forums are still pretty active too, and updates are still being released at a regular pace. I'm still keeping teamspeak as primary voice chat for my small gaming community and i hear from my users that TS3 voice quality is superior to discord. Plus if something happens with server, i can fix issues myself, since i host TS3 server on my hardware. Which is not the case with discord - if you have issues with discord server, your only choice is to wait.

I think Mumble's popularity in EVE scene is due to its support for talking to multiple channels simultaneously and ability to do hierarchical voice channels. This is require for large scale battle coordination. Battle group commanders can talk to each other and then command their ships without risk that any "lower level" can talk on top of them and so on.

This also allows for hilarity whispering to users in other channels who will respond to other users who couldn't hear the initial message.

I've been hosting a Teamspeak server for more than half my life, it's acted as the communication hub for the majority of my time gaming.

It's fallen off in terms of features and UX. But I feel the warm and fuzzies knowing that my memes and conversation aren't being fed into some neural network owned by microsoft.

I also love that I can just change the voice codec to whatever I please without me or my users forking over a monthly fee.

Mumble is popular because it's free, lean on resources, low on latency, and has incredible audio quality.

I believe teamspeak is also pretty popular in the milsim community due to its support for mods in games like Arma 3

Oh yeah, ACRE2, which simulates real-life radios to the point of tracing radio signal paths, accounting for power output, terrain, buildings, antenna plugged into radio, antenna radiation pattern and other factors. Absolutely insane mod.

GameSpy. The original video game match-maker. Also the original home of another relic, Penny Arcade.

A friend of mine self hosts a teamspeak server and REFUSES to use discord. Absolutely won't have it. I play along, I respect the self hosting. And it works, we can chat and game.

Entirely different Xfire, as far as I can tell. The two are unrelated.

I remembered that xfire too. So many applications back then had broad and seemingly global audiences but none seem to have stuck around. It seems like everything now is about getting funding and growth. Back then it just seemed like people making cool applications.

Ah I remember Xfire, pretty sure the biggest draw for me was the FPS counter it gave you.

I doubt this is related to the current domain, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire#Video_game_and_pop_cultu...

I came here to post this. For a second I thought Xfire was alive once more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfire

I remember.

I don't think anyone from the original xfire is involved in this new xfire.com gaming news site, it looks like it's now owned by a New Zealand company called Enoki Limited.