voiceovers!

[MarkG]

i loved them in smac!

any chance we'll see them in candle'bre?

[Velociryx]

Funny you should mention that, Markos! I was driving to the local Chic-Fil-A this morning to grab some grub, and I was....ummm...practicing.

In this particular case, I was imagining players clicking on their army icons on the main map, and getting various responses from their units a la Warcraft, where if you keep clicking the same unit repeatedly, you'll "irritate" the unit in question. Always thought that was a stellar touch, and found myself experimenting with every unit I could produce, just to see what they'd say next.

Now, I have at least a bit of understanding about what goes into making top notch sound effects, and I can honestly say that we don't have the equipment to get toooooo elaborate, but yes, I can see numerous instances where we could introduce simple voice effects (I've got a sound mixing software package I've been playing with of late....can add feedback, reverb, noise, speed up or slow down the sound stream, etc). Some opportunities I can see where we can add in simple voice overs:

1) When clicking on army icons on the main map
2) When a new tech is discovered
3) When a new building is complete
4) Possibly if/when players elect to use governors (and here, we can either have a single voice for the governors, or try to enlist the aid of a number of team members to make recordings).

Springboarding off of the writing thread a bit, it'd be really cool if we could have a few different "feels" where voices were concerned....that is to say, we could base the *type* of voiceover heard on your current honor standing.

If honorable, you get the noble sounding knights and advisors.

If infamous, you get sleezy, shifty sounding voices giving you reports.

If you're somewhere in the middle, you get...something in the middle...lol

But yes, I think there are numerous opportunities for us to experiment with that, and it won't take any fancy/expensive equipment to do standard voice effects. Just a mic and the mixing software I've got should take us quite far down that road.

Granted, for the fancier effects we'll either have to find an outside source or invest in some studio quality equipment, but we can start simple and work up to that....

-=Vel=-
(making lists of everybody he knows who's in a band)

[Velociryx]

PS: some of the ummm......"practice phrases" I was muttering to myself on the way to breakfast this morning were:

"Knave, a pox upon thee!" (I have no idea... )

"We shall drive the recreants from the field, m'lord!" (possible response when an army is ordered to attack)

"Knave, I smite thee!" (I have no idea...lol)

"Plague and pestilence shall be your undoing!" (in a sinister, whispery voice, perhaps with a bell tolling in the background when the wizards unleash pestilence on a target province)

"At your command, sire!" (general response when clicking on an army unit?)

And a few others....

-=Vel=-

[SpencerH]

I think the voiceovers, even simple ones like:

1. You've just built

2. A barracks

or

2. A temple

Would be a lot better than the stupid pop-ups.

They save on the constant mouse moving and clicking

[SpencerH]

I wonder if it would be posible to use mp3 rather than wav files to play them it would save a lot of space. I dont think a small mp3 player in the .exe would take too much.

[Velociryx]

Good point...and it wouldn't be difficult to have some fairly "canned" responses...perhaps do it like in SMAC where the first time you build a particular building, you get some detailed verbage about it, and thereafter, you simply get a canned voiceover:

"Barracks completed in Brom and Illium....Temple completed in Skanalarr..."

Stuff like that maybe....

-=Vel=-

[SpencerH]

Yeah,

with different voices/faction and type of background music perhaps depending on the type of building. IMO voiceovers should be used whereever possible to replace pop-ups. Instead of improved writing have improved writing in the form of voiceovers. As you say warcraft did it what 10 years ago and are still doing it.

[MarkG]

Temple completed in Skanalarr...

what do you do with custom city names?

you have the player record the name of the city when he builts it!

[Velociryx]

Good point re: Mp3 format over Wav....lots of space-saving potential there. The short answer is....I'm not sure! The whole sound issue is one that we've not delved too deeply into thus far, cos we're conspicuously absent a sound person on the team (I've bought some basic equipment and am learning, but am by no means an expert!).

My instinct though, is that you're right....will have to discuss that possibility with Ram and the code team to see what our options are though, and see what we can do....

And Markos! Dang...I had not thought of that....Hmmm....and it provides an interesting dilemma.....not 100% sure about how to get around that one.

One possibility is to simply have a set of province names built in, and the RMG assigns them, but I do know that lossa folks like naming their own provinces and such....don't know....will have to mentally chew on that one for a while....

-=Vel=-

[SpencerH]

Same thing for generals etc

[SpencerH]

I'm sure it would add complexity to the .exe but a move to voice from text and the ability to add new names, comments etc would be a new direction for any game. If the sound format was simple enough to incorporate in the game there would be modders churning out new sounds for everything as there is for CIV graphics etc today.

[MarkG]

it wont be hard to include a sound recorder and an mp3 compressor in the game

[Lemmy]

including mp3 will require more processing power...with the decompressing and all....

[Cyclotron]

If we do sounds for units, there need to be at least 10 for selection and moving... SC had about 3 or 4, and that got annoying real fast.

I say Vel has auditions... post a script or two, and have people post wav files or somesuch on the thread.

Does anyone know if other games like SC (or even CTP) actually had voice actors, or did they just use the programming team?

[SpencerH]

Sure it may require more processing power but by the time this game is out the optimum processor may be 4GHz and 2GHz will be passe.

[moomin]

Processing mp3's isn't a problem on any half-way modern box. Licensing is. Fraunhofer Institute will wan't to se a little something for every game you sell with a mp3 decoder in it. I don't know what they do demand for freeware, but you would be well advised to write sound routines and make samples that can be re-used in the commercial version.

Consider Ogg, a truly free compressed format.

[moomin]

Originally posted by Velociryx
In this particular case, I was imagining players clicking on their army icons on the main map, and getting various responses from their units a la Warcraft, where if you keep clicking the same unit repeatedly, you'll "irritate" the unit in question. Always thought that was a stellar touch, and found myself experimenting with every unit I could produce, just to see what they'd say next.

While I agree that the voiceovers where some of the best features of SMAC, let's remeber that they were good and fitted the mood of that game beautifully. That probably is a lot of work to set up.

More importantly, considering where not to have VOs should be a priority. While I agree a good VO the first time you build a building of a certain type is a very nice feature, I personally positively hated the warcraft/starcraft style unit reponses. I could sure do without them in a TB game.

[Skanky Burns]

Consider Ogg, a truly free compressed format.

Seconded.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by moominparatrooper

While I agree that the voiceovers where some of the best features of SMAC, let's remeber that they were good and fitted the mood of that game beautifully. That probably is a lot of work to set up.

More importantly, considering where not to have VOs should be a priority. While I agree a good VO the first time you build a building of a certain type is a very nice feature, I personally positively hated the warcraft/starcraft style unit reponses. I could sure do without them in a TB game.

But imagine if voiceovers are changeable like unit graphics (or included with unit graphics).

"We'll be damned before we assault that fortification m'lord. We havent been paid in three months!"

"You want what?"

[moomin]

"Yes, Sire!"
"Yes, Sire!"
"Yes, Sire!"
"Yes, my Lord!"
"Yes, Sire!"
"Yes, my Lord!"

Arrrgh! They'd better be real smart to work well...

[Velociryx]

Trooper - excellent point....it was the repitition that got to me in the end too, regarding the unit voiceovers in WarCraft....BUT....here's where we have something of an edge.

I think the main reason the repition got so bad in the RTS environment is that, mid game when you've got a gazillion units and you're clicking on them individually (or even in smallish groups), that's still a whole lotta "yes sires!" going off on a near-constant basis, but with us, if we stick to army icons on the main map, there won't be nearly as many responses from the units themselves (cos there won't be nearly as many units to begin with), and if we can create a few different "first tier/first click" responses, it should break up that sort of irritating tedium.....don't know for certain, but that's my sense of it as I think it thru....would be something I'd be interested in experimenting with tho....and I do kinna like the notion of swappable sound files in the same vein as swappable graphics....fits in nicely with the "moddable everything" approach.

Still, I quite agree that we don't wanna build in irritants to the game....if it doesn't work well at the army icon level, we can ditch it there and keep experimenting with it in other places....the idea of maybe using voice effects to reduce popups is kinna groovy tho....

-=Vel=-
buzzing on meds

[SpencerH]

Its easy enough to have a un check a tag to turn em off.

"Charge!"

[Cyclotron]

Or, you could have a moving sound (hoofs for cav) and only have voices when:

1) They are ordered to attack (Charge!)
2) They are ordered to attack a city/fort (up the ladders, men!)
3) They fortify in a city/fort (Man the towers)
4) They are ordered to cross impassable terrain (Are you mad? Our horses can't set foot among those towering crags!)
5) They win (The day is ours!)
6) They lose (AAAAUUUGHH!)

[SpencerH]

"Once more into the breach dear friends"

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I suggest a bit of comic relief. I envision an imp (right out of Animal House) giving advice like F*** im F*** their brains out.

Og

[FrustratedPoet]

Lots of famous quotes from literature would be pretty cool. They'd have to be ones that are out of copyright, of course, but that still leaves a few hundred years to choose from.

Examples from Shakespeare ('cos it's what I know ):

Espionage and Diplomacy:
"Sirs, stop their mouths; let them not speak to me, but let them hear the fearful words I utter." Titus Andronicus. 5.2.167

"He doth wrong me to feed me with delays." Titus Andronicus. 4.3.43

"What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues plot some device of further misery to make us wondered at in time to come." Titus Andronicus. 3.1.111

"Because I cannot flatter, and look fair, smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog, I must be held a rancorous enemy? Cannot a plain man live and think no harm?" King Richard III 1.3.47

"You must not, dare, for shame, to talk of mercy, for your own reasons turn into your bosoms as dogs upon their masters, worrying you." Henry V. 2.2.81

"Their villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up" Henry V. 3.2.51

Intro:
"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention, a kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!" Henry V. 1.1.1

Combat:
"Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths." King Richard III 1.1.5

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more." Henry V. 31.1

And that's just a quick sample ... there will be millions of them to use in diplomacy if we wanted.

[TCO]

I like some of them. Others are a bit too dry. Would be a neat touch to have some literature mixed into CBR like this. But do it in such a wayt that Joe Sixpack isn't too trurned off. (Let me screen the Poet's quotes.)

[moomin]

You identify with Joe Sixpack, do you, GP?

[FrustratedPoet]

You're right there GP, although it would be cool to mix some literature into the game, there comes a point (maybe not too far down the road) when you start to have too much of a good thing.

A few of them, especially the shorter ones (ie. "Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths."), would be very nice I think. The longer ones less so ... and not all of the quotes I listed are entirely suitable, regardless of length.

However, those were just the 3 plays I happen to have sitting on my desk and I only briefly flicked through them. With a more thorough exploration of literature and careful pruning and screening of the quotes I'm sure that this could add a little something to the mix.

[moomin]

I always felt there was something missing in the Civ3 resource model. Now I realize they should've sounded a "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" When you connected your fist horsie resource...