New Ventrilo Release: Certain Death

By: SMG

On March 17, version 2.2.0 of the popular voice over ip application Ventrilo was released. To clients, this version seems to have little to no differences as compared to prior versions. However, for Ventrilo server admins, the differences are far more apparent.

As of this release, Ventrilo servers come in 2 flavors public and pro. Public servers are only allowed to be run once on any given machine, can only run on the default Ventrilo port (3784), and are limited to a maximum of 8 slots per server. Pro servers do not have these limitations and are able to be multi-instanced and a maximum of 200 slots. Pro servers are limited to only licensed corporations. Not even small registered businesses can have them. Flagship Industries, Inc., the parent company that produces Ventrilo software has made these changes in an effort to halt unlicensed Ventrilo sales.

Up until version 2.2.0 of Ventrilo; private non-profit server use was allowed. However, anyone wishing to make a profit from server sales (either through direct means or by adding the product to other packages such as web or gameserver hosting) is required to pay a monthly licensing fee of $.10USD per slot sold with a minimum monthly payment for 100 slots. Many hosts, particularly resellers, did not obey this and sold unlicensed Ventrilo servers anyway. A list of licensed hosts can be found at http://www.ventrilo.com/hosting.php∞.

So, what does all of this mean for you?

A large number of current Ventrilo hosts and private Ventrilo server admins will cease to exist. Many clans are hosted by hosts that are no longer allowed to use "pro" Ventrilo servers. Clans, prior to version 2.2, which were using legitimate private servers now are bound to only using a maximum of 8 slots. Many of these clans currently use more than this maximum. Clients using Ventrilo hosts will suddenly be cut off and unable to connect. Many of these clients may have even paid ahead for their Ventrilo hosting. Will they be refunded? Will the massive amounts of refunds cause legitimate hosts to go under? This would most likely cause massive problems for all those gamers who have these hosting accounts. If you are involved in one of these side effects of Flagship Industries' latest foolishness I highly recommend that you email them regarding this issue. Their contact email can be found at http://www.ventrilo.com/licensing.php∞.

It just; happens that just one week before this release, TeamSpeak, (Ventrilo's number one competitor)  has released a new version of their software. I highly recommend to all of you confronted with the recent Ventrilo problems to take a look at TeamSpeak∞. I would not be surprised if Ventrilo becomes a hotspot in the hacking and warez scene in the near future.