TeamSpeak 3 might not exactly be right around the corner, but it is getting closer each and every day and seems to be the highest-quality and best featured voice communication software ever. Here is a look at some of the inside details on it's development including an overview of the features and benefits of TeamSpeak 3 for consumers.

All information published on this page has been taken from the blog of the TeamSpeak development team and the forums on their website. If you think something is missing, please feel free to contact us via email or drop us a line in our forums.

Release Date

There is no official release date set for TeamSpeak 3. Currently, the developers are aiming for a release sometime in 2008. TeamSpeak 3's development status is ALPHA, which will last until the new feature set is complete. After that, there will be a short Closed BETA with more participants followed by an Open BETA for stress testing.

Development

TeamSpeak 3 is developed by TeamSpeak Systems which is an emerging service enterprise in software development founded in August 2004. Please visit the official TeamSpeak Systems website at www.teamspeak-systems.de to find additional, detailed information about the TeamSpeak development team.

Cross-Platform Collaboration

With the release of TeamSpeak 3, both server and client will immediately be available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The developers are re-writing the code from the ground up, using a new programming language (C++) to improve TeamSpeak's performance and compatibility. It allows TS3's native binaries to be compiled from the same codebase for various OS targets. TeamSpeak 3 clients and servers (both 32-Bit and 64-Bit) are currently running on:

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OS X
• FreeBSD (server only)
  

Graphical User Interface

TeamSpeak 3's GUI will be based on Qt - a cross-platform application development framework which is produced by the Norwegian company Trolltech. Qt uses standard C++, but extends the language by providing an additional pre-processor that generates the C++ code which is necessary to implement Qt's extensions.

Core Architecture

The upcoming version of TeamSpeak is being developed in two layers, the core part called ClientLib and the interface part called ClientUI. The ClientUI uses the ClientLib to interact with the TeamSpeak 3 server and is responsible for the user interface, as it shows all the information retrieved from the ClientLib. According to the developers, the ClientLib can be used to integrate TeamSpeak's functions into a totally different applications (i.e. online games), which is something they're really looking forward to.

On June 20th, 2007, the developers have designed a detailed flow-chart with an overview of TeamSpeak 3's core architecture.

Software Development Kit

The TeamSpeak 3 Software Development Kit (SDK) will be the core foundation to TeamSpeak 3. Supporting a diverse and feature-rich set of commands and actions via TeamSpeak 3's new Application Programming Interface (API), the software will be ready to meet the demands of even the most complex integrated VoIP solutions in today's marketplace.

Although there is still no TeamSpeak 3 client or server available to the public, TeamSpeak 3 technology has already been released in a different way. TeamSpeak Systems is currently working with a small group of hand-picked companies that want to add VoIP functionality into their product. Most of these companies are game producers, that want to integrate a voice communication solution into their game, but they're also working with companies that have nothing to do with the gaming sector at all.

On July 1st, 2008, TeamSpeak Systems and Guild Software Inc - independent game developer and creator of multiplayer virtual environments - announced the integration of TeamSpeak 3 software within Vendetta Online - a 3D space combat MMORPG for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. This is the first roll-out for this kind of integration. For more information please visit www.vendetta-online.com.

Corporate Edition

With the launch of their new website, the TeamSpeak developers revealed that there will be a TeamSpeak 3 Corporate Edition (CE) which features encrypted VoIP technology. TeamSpeak 3 CE is intended as business version of the core product and will not be available until sometime after the initial TeamSpeak 3 core product and SDK is released.

Transmission Protocol

Like the previous versions, the TeamSpeak 3 client communicates with the server via UDP, but it will also provide the option of using TCP instead. Support for TCP connectivity can be very useful when a user needs to connect through a proxy server or a firewall.

Database

The TeamSpeak 3 server will natively support SQLite and MySQL databases. In addition, the server will provide a database plugin system so you can write your own plugin for a completely proprietary database.

Features

During the last months, the TeamSpeak development team has revealed several new features of their upcoming product.

Voice Quality and Latency

TeamSpeak's most important feature - the talking part - is already implemented. TeamSpeak 3 is using a much higher audio codec resulting in much clearer voice quality. In addition, the developers have already significantly lowered the latency of speech compared with TeamSpeak 2 and other voice communication software solutions. TeamSpeak 3 will support the latest Speex and CELT codecs and provides automatic microphone adjustment, advanced noise reduction, and echo cancelation.

 

3D Sound

TeamSpeak 3 now features fully integrated 3D sound support which allows for spatial placement of sound effects and audio streams. This creates the illusion of a sound source being placed anywhere in three dimensional space, including behind, to the left of, to the right of, above, or below the listener.

 

Permission System

TeamSpeak 3 will introduce a new permission system which will be similar to what is present in TeamSpeak 2, but will contain far greater flexibility. Instead of using pre-defined user groups, TeamSpeak 3 provides your organization with an additional level of information access and control by allowing you to create custom user groups.

 

Talk Power

You should all know how a moderated channel works with TeamSpeak 2. With TS3, the devs took this concept to the next level. You can now configure a Minimum Talk Power variable for each channel. Every client has his own Talk Power, which he has received through the permission groups the user is assigned to. A client with a Talk Power of 20 can speak in every channel with a Minimum Talk Power of 20 or lower. Effectively this means that with a TS3 group setup similar to the hard-coded TS2 groups, you can now create a channel where everybody can talk, one where only members and higher can talk, one where only server admins can talk, etc.

 

Sub-Channels

TeamSpeak 3 will introduce a new channel tree structure which supports an infinite number of levels in depth. Sub-Channels will no longer automatically inherit the flags of their parent Channel so every Channel can have it's own password and persmission settings.

 

Tabbed Voice-Comming

The TeamSpeak 3 client will allow you to connect to multiple TeamSpeak 3 servers at once, similar to tabbed-browsing. This was one of the many highly requested features for TeamSpeak 3.

 

Bookmarks

The deveopers have decided to allow the user to store his preferred servers as bookmarks, just like you all know from your favorite web browser. This means that the TeamSpek 3 client will provide a new bookmarks manager which will probably allow the user to manage his favorites more efficient.

 

Avatars

One nice graphical feature in TS3 is the ability to configure an avatar which will be displayed when people click on your name. This is similar to what is possible in our forums, and adds some personality to the people you talk with.

 

Key Bindings

The TeamSpeak 3 client will allow the user to set his own key bindings. According to the official developer blog, the new inteface will support nearly all kinds of input devices, such as joysticks and gamepads. The developers also plan to support things like push-to-mute which requires support to bind actions to button-down and button-up events.

 

Text Messaging 

The text messaging system of TeamSpeak 3 will be an entirely different, and much improved experience compared to TeamSpeak 2. All your messages may contain plain text but you are also able to use BB code tags to emphasize certain words or phrases by making them (for example) bold or italic.

 

URL Catcher

The TeamSpeak 3 client will provide an URL catcher which is used to store URLs mentioned during a chat. A similar feature is known from mIRC - a shareware IRC client for Windows.

 

Per Server Capture and Playback Devices

The developers have recently allocated time for is implementing per server capture and playback devices. This new feature allows you to do some really cool things like hook up two USB headsets to your computer, connect to two different TeamSpeak 3 servers using the client's new tabbed voice-comming feature (see above), hand one headset to a friend and be able to talk as if you were running two entirely separate clients.

 

Sound Packs

TeamSpeak 3 will introduce sound packs. The idea here is to allow all the sounds that are played when some action occurs to be packaged, and distributed easily. When TeamSpeak 3 is released, anyone will be able to create his own soundpack and share it with other users easily.

 

Translations

TeamSpeak 3 will will give users the ability to translate the software into their own language. Both server and client will be UTF-8 native so all languages can be supported.

 

Server Query

The developers are building up a new, powerful Server Query (formerly known as TCP Query) component to TeamSpeak 3. The Server Query interface can be switched into an interactive mode which gives you the ability to use the up/down cursor keys for cycling between the last given commands. You can also use the backspace key to edit the current command-line even if you're using Microsoft's Telnet client.

 

Web Administration Interface

The web administration interface will not be part of the server. Instead it will consist of a PHP-based web application, which can handle multiple virtual servers and server instances at once. The main application of this new interface will be for server farming or maintenance of servers by host providers, since normal end-users will be able to do all configuration and administration of the server from within the new TeamSpeak 3 client.

 

Database Plugin System 

The TeamSpeak 3 server will now support a database plugin system so for example developers can now write their own plugin for a completely proprietary database if they so desire.

Screenshots

On February 13th, 2006, the developers have released the first screenshots of TeamSpeak 3 to public. These screenshots were showing an early version of the TeamSpeak 3 client's Connection Info window which is designed to refresh itself automatically. In 2008, more images were published.

All available screenshots can also be found in our Gallery.

Videos

On October 10th, 2007, Ralf Ludwig - one of the lead developers at TeamSpeak Systems - has published a video of the TeamSpeak 3 client application in the official forums. The 15 second video shows the functionality of the new tray icon which now indicates your current status.

The video can be found on the Google Video website.

Licensing

There are no plans to make any radical changes to the way TeamSpeak is licensed and used. Non-commercial end users (i.e. - most gaming clans/guilds) and Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) will still be allowed to host servers for free, and of course run clients for free. All commercial entities will still have to pay licensing fees based on slot count. Currently, there aren't any plans to change the pricing for commercial hosters either.

The TeamSpeak 3 server software introduces a completely new licensing system containing simplified, automatic, and effective tracking of all of your licensed TeamSpeak servers. The former, tedious "registration by IP" process has been replaced with an encrypted key which will allow a TeamSpeak server environment to be tracked and licensed automatically. The TeamSpeak 3 client application will also indicate to users the type of license the TS3 server is operating under.