Technical introduction.
This article is devoted in unequal parts to a magical land, problems and leisure solutions for a virtual community of interests. And also the search for worthy analogues of Discord in a rather limited measurement grid, in relation to the experience of this community. Due to the author’s extreme graphomania and a sufficient number of analogues for consideration, the article is divided into two parts.
Part one.
A fabulous introduction.
In one distant fairy-tale country, it was customary to always give gifts on birthdays. When it is the birthday of the Supreme Archmage, then the bustle and troubles begin long before the holiday. Everyone hopes that the named person will open their gift and are proud of their involvement in the event. Unfortunately, it often happens that great magicians are given a lot of gifts and there may simply not be enough time to open them all, and when you are the most important magician, you have even less time…
This is what happened in our history.
The order of young magicians, united by a common sense of respect for the achievements of the Supreme One and just a little timidity and respect for rank, because when you are a young magician, the worst thing is to be unnoticed in a crowd of your own kind, set out to achieve the attention of the Great Wizard at any cost!
It takes a long time for a fairy tale to tell itself, but it doesn’t take long for things to be done, especially when you’re young and ardent, and you spent an equal amount of time in your studies on lectures and young maids.
The intelligent Magicians of the Unknown – and that is what this Order was called (have you heard of it, a brotherhood of young magicians without a mysterious name) – set to work.
It is worth noting that the zeal of young magicians sometimes took on very unexpected forms, and preparations for the holiday, from time to time, were noticed by the entire magical country.
First of all, in the villages neighboring the secret abode of the Order, milk began to sour – this always happens when the ether is saturated with raw, unbridled magic. Communication services were even more affected – carrier pigeons began to turn into little pink ponies and unicorns, resolutely unwilling to transmit important messages. In the regional branch of the Dwarven Bank, all the gold turned into cabbage and flatly refused to transgress from the branch into the wallets of its owners…
Residents of a fairy-tale country traditionally attributed these events to the machinations of evil elves, and no one could think that it was just a matter of the hard work of a small secret Order. However, there were also experienced magicians who understood the essence and prospects of what was happening and shook their heads reproachfully. Nevertheless, there were no people willing to stop the Intelligent Wizards of the Unknown: on the one hand, I don’t want to become a pony through carelessness, and on the other, no matter what the young magician amused himself with, as long as he didn’t cry.
Needless to say, there was no unity among the brothers in the form and content of the future gift, and their vigorous activity was similar to the rigging work from Ivan Krylov’s fable “The Swan, the Crayfish and the Pike,” which led to an increase in the number of projects, directly proportional to the number of the brothers themselves.
Having started the task in advance, by the day of the namesake the Order had time to spare and could present before the eyes of the Archmage not just one, but a whole multitude of magical trinkets. Unfortunately, at the stage of delivery and acceptance of the completed work, it turned out that the court receiver did not exist, because the brothers forgot to register at the fabulous gift collection point. Not to mention the fact that the wizards didn’t even bother to acquire a technical-magical control operator accredited by the magical court. In other words, it was a mess…
Fortunately, the Order consisted of kind and easy-going magicians who easily switched to new challenges, and therefore, without particularly twisting, they decided to donate all their magical crafts to ordinary residents of a fairy-tale land. Moreover, one of the brothers heard that at the city fair for many years there has been a booth with artists, magic balls and even playrooms for children! What if you give gifts to children?!
With tenacity worthy of better use, the Intelligent Wizards of the Unknown took up a new task…
The real main part.
In a completely different place and certainly at a completely different time, the author and his friends found themselves faced with circumstances that were categorically unrelated to the introduction…
The fact is that over the past five years, future like-minded people have found an excellent virtual haven that corresponds to rather simple aspirations – to get together and chat, first in writing, and then orally. Of course, in the wake of Covid (does anyone remember this?), their first and main home was Telegram, which was rapidly rising from oblivion. Firstly, everyone had it, and secondly, it was he who became the place of acquaintance and unity of souls thirsting for communication. However, the brainchild of an ice bath lover, with all the obvious advantages of the emerging social network, there were also a number of significant disadvantages, primarily in relation to the use of voice chat:
- Terrible noise reduction. The author is convinced that the developers added the “Noise Reduction” button solely to infuriate users with the complete lack of sound changes. It’s not difficult to imagine what was going on in the voice room on the occasion of even a couple of participants walking through public places.
- Archaic algorithms for maintaining video broadcasts. Whether it’s a participant’s camera or a screen broadcast – only the megabit gods know by what principles the “cart” grained up to 20 pixels of the image from users with an average mobile speed of 20 “meters”. Attempts to broadcast videos and even films were regular and moderately painful.
- Periodic “miscarriages” and calls. In fact, according to the 2021 version, they are of a regular nature. When, in the midst of an intellectual conversation, you realize that, at best, you are communicating with yourself, and at worst, not only you, but the entire “troop” is thrown out.
- Low energy efficiency. Extremely poor optimization pleased us with the battery draining by about a third in a couple of hours. Naturally, both old and new smartphones heated up like frying pans. What is characteristic is that similar patterns were observed on such a wide sample of devices that it is not possible to suspect the author of bias towards the Yabloko camp or bucket-loaders.
In other words, there were problems, but they seemed to be of a neglected nature; after all, there are power banks, and even in winter you can walk without mittens. However, the author, as a staunch supporter of diversification, recalled that he already had a tool in his hands that neutralized the existing shortcomings, and therefore began campaigning. Coming from WhatsApp himself and having difficulty accepting the Telegram form factor, the author carefully persuaded, promised and praised, creating and customizing the future haven. And so, they believed Moses, the waters parted in two and the free people poured into Discord, not forgetting, however, their previous place of deployment, which remained an excellent social network.
It’s clear that it’s not easy for users, spoiled by the polished “cart” interface, to get used to all these rooms and chats on a strange server, but the inconvenience is instantly forgotten when the voice room is launched for the first time. In two words – silence in the audience! And this is with standard noise reduction! Then we experimented with the rich functionality of microphone response settings, AI-based Krisp intelligent noise reduction, music bots, and more.
And of course, watching a movie! The picky reader will remind you that in the free version, broadcasting is allowed in no more than 720p and 30fps, to which the author will immediately answer: “Image is nothing – thirst is everything!”, because nothing is as pleasant as watching in the company of friends scattered across various points globe, an old comedy with Louis de Funes. For some time now, the simple payment method for the Pro version has been removed, thereby closing the window of opportunity. This, even in the distant twenty-second, and until recently, did not prevent a friendly company from enjoying films and TV series. What can I say, recently, the initiative group completely reviewed Breaking Bad, as it turned out, they barely had time…
Suddenly discovered “Activities” – mini-games in the application itself, became a pleasant discovery for evening gatherings at the poker table or frantically collecting burgers for a while in a virtual eatery. Moreover, the author and his friends (being very serious people) managed to master Among Us – an action mafia, a bestseller even more distant in the twentieth year. Audiobooks, walkthroughs, crocodiles, monopolies and all sorts of guessing games – they are endless.
Suddenly, it turned out to be self-evident that even under such loads, mobile devices showed themselves not like potbelly stoves, but in exclusively voice chat mode they lasted about three times longer, when selecting statistics from the previous sample of devices.
For a couple of wonderful years, the Discord platform has firmly become the second home for all collective interactive events.
A promising conclusion.
Concluding the comparatively nostalgic praises, I would like to note that the signs of impending changes were observed by a company of like-minded people in advance – when a well-known organization is worried about someone, then the concern is noticeable far beyond the boundaries of this “someone”. In some places, VPN helped, in others no changes were noticed, in general, it all didn’t look very scary. Initiative participants made lazy attempts to tune in to an alternative platform, of which, it was believed, there were an endless heap. But due to the lack of system and the traditional “at random” approach, on a beautiful autumn morning the free people were left without a second home and stared in disbelief at the boarded up door with the inscription “Accounting”. Extremely unstable work under a VPN made all those little joys of collective leisure impossible.
Here we come to the fun part, namely, detailing the experience of frantically searching for an equally richly endowed platform. Fortunately, notes about Discord “clones” became a top search just a decade ago. Traditionally, not wanting to fit his verses into one, but very large article, the author invites the reader to be patient and get the required calculations in the second part of the Marlezon ballet. In turn, the homegrown writer promises to avoid fairy tales and annoying GIFs, focusing his energies directly on reviewing alternatives. And due to the fact that the main leitmotif of the story is already clear, the author will turn with interest to the reader’s similar experience in the comments.
Source: mobile-review.com
