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Comment by bluetidepro | Hacker News Reader

> In my experience, Zoom is the most consistent service and works on almost any device. One person in your group will need a paid subscription if you want to host an event longer than 40 minutes.

Have to disagree on this, Discord has been a FAR better solution for my group of friends and I with our online game nights. We tried Zoom, Discord, Google Meet/Hangouts, and Discord has, by far, been the best UI/UX/clarity/quality.

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The one thing I like about Zoom above Discord is the ability to see people's faces. Discord doesn't have this, right? It's nice to use the mini-layout in Zoom and put it off to the side like the article suggests.

I'm still waiting for some guy on Twitter[0] who's working on his own game board simulator to release his 8-bit video conferencing solution. The pixelation gives the perfect feel when you're playing DnD online with friends during a pandemic.

[0] https://twitter.com/HunterLoftis/status/1245385563697545219

Discord has video chat, as well: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500098275...

Oh, nice, I was completely unaware of this feature. I must have missed it because it's only available inside private or group DMs, not channels!

I think it's available in channels now: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004172105...

I replaced the Google Hangout recommendation with Discord. Thanks for the heads up!

Does everyone need a Discord account to join the call?

The big benefit (for me) of Zoom is that I can send a link to anyone and they don't need an account. Asking someone to sign up for a Board Game Arena account AND Discord would be too much.

And yet... asking us to sign up for Board Game Arena and Discord is exactly what the weekly game night I've been involved with the last month did, and they have 8+ people every week. (For that matter, I asked the folks in my new D&D campaign to sign up with D&D Beyond and Discord, and that went fine as well.)

That's fair, I guess depending who you play with, some people may not have a Discord. You do have to have a Discord account, correct. All of my friends and I are already all together in a Discord server, so it makes sense, but if it was new people playing that could def add to the hurdle.

Jit.si is as easy as https://meet.jit.si/joemasilotti Just give browser permissions and you're in.

Vast majority of people IME already use Discord for many things anyway

"Gamer" community bias, IME, as well as other internet-age communities.

It's not the most general platform, but it's one of the best at what it does: voice and text. Video is just icing on top.

If Discord had a version suitably branded for Business, I'd say it'd be better than Zoom and Slack combined.

It just works.

Jit.si is as easy as https://meet.jit.si/bluetidepro Just give browser permissions and you're in.

Yeah, discord is pretty bad, but it's better than Zoom.

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