At the turn of the century as chat rooms transitioned to VOIP, Ventrilo stood as one of the two most popular solutions. Alongside TeamSpeak, it was the program of choice for voice chatting with friends and foes in games such as Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 1942. With That, it etched its mark in history as one of the original voice chat applications.
With time, Ventrilo’s popularity has faded. These days it’s much more common for PC gaming VOIP sessions to be run on Skype and especially skype Discord, two programs that dissimilarly don’t require users to host or pay for a server.
While the cost to host a Ventrilo server played a factor, equally as important to its demise was its lack of developer support. Flagship Industries has neglected the software during the past decade as competitors have arrived with incredible force, including Mumble and Google Hangouts.
That largely changed this week with the arrival of Ventrilo v4.0, the first major update to the platform in over 10 years. The patch is described as the following:
Version 4.0 introduces more User control of functionality while still maintaining the ease-of-use from previous versions, as well as many new features. The new version includes the ability to change the look-n-feel of the client window via Themes, and also the availability to transfer files to select Users. Side-Control-Panels for quick one-click access to many of the menu functions. And break-out Main/Channel windows.
The addition of themes in particular has caught the attention of many ex-Ventrilo fans, including myself. Just look at them:
While Discord will likely continue to remain the dominant platform with its ease-of-use and well-organized text chat capabilities, at least Ventrilo is trying to be relevant. If nothing else, this update is a reason to head down nostalgia lane.
If you’re interested, the full feature list is defined on the About page. Or, you can download the software here.
Did you ever use Ventrilo? If so, for which games? Let us know in the comments below.
