read the original update here: https://cityoftitans.com/content/sounds-titan-city
Feel free to comment on the update below.
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[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
Wed, 06/09/2021 - 21:53
#1
Discuss: Sounds of Titan City
This.
So much THIS.
One of the audio cues I'd forgotten about from City of Heroes was that in Praetoria as you ascended in altitude the sound of the wind got louder. So on the ground there was basically no wind sound, but running over the tops of the arches of bridges would lift you high enough to start hearing wind noise, which would then fall back down to nothing when you reached the ground on the other side. Being on top of skyscrapers, like where [url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Chimera]Praetor Sinclair[/url] stood on top (of the world) up high in the sky had a lot of wind noise up at such a high altitude. If you were just flying around under your own power (or fell from a high place) there was wind noise high above the ground but the sound of it dropped off to nothing near street level.
It was one of those subtle things that helped immerse you into the setting, all from a simple sound cue.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I write this as I listen to the soundtracks, so I'm not done with the update yet. The impetus to respond, however, is irresistible.
First, I am thoroughly impressed with the volume of work. Tal has been prolific and I can't imagine it was easy composing, performing, mixing and producing all those soundscapes!
Second, I am thoroughly impressed with the professional sound. There is depth and feel to them that not just anyone with a sound app can put together. I'm sure I never could, even with all the hardware and software in the world. Sometimes there's just no substitute for talent. And he reached into so many sources, not just changing the rythm and beats, but the core sound concepts with each zone, day and night. Like, how the hell did he make Downtown sound like [i]downtown[/i]? And that NERD day soundscape I wasn't a big fan of when you shared it with us before now seems [u]perfect[/u] that I know where it is going to be playing.
Third, I'd like to send a shout out to the MWM team. This update shows how seriously you are taking this project. Any other effort by a small team would have settled for a few scores to just play on a loop for us as we go about the game. No one would have been the wiser or would have questioned it much. From a Systems Engineering point of view, this would have been disproportionate effort in a parameter that has little weighted value in the final trade-offs. Any SEs out there understand what I mean. But if, and this is key, if this is the bar you set for the sound of CoT, then you have set the bar fairly high and I can't wait to see how the rest of the project is going to be.
Edit: I think I'm going to enjoy cruising around Old Bradford at night. I dig that vibe.
Edit 2+: I've updated my comments above as I go throught the individual tracks.
Edit ?: I think I'm going to be humming the Victory Beach waltz for a decade after playing this game.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I can't say it better than Huckleberry just did. Kudos to Tal!
Spurn all ye kindle.
I like how the overall vibe of the music feels familiar, in the same way that aspects of CoT's design feel familiar to fans of CoX. But at the same time the music is significantly higher-quality, because it doesn't consist of a bunch of tiny looped tracks that only run for a short time and change every time you enter a new sub-zone. I like that it's one continuous track that evokes the particular feel of the zone it was written for. I also really like that you have separate tracks for daytime and nighttime. I think the only other MMO I have played that did this was Final Fantasy XIV. It's cool to see it here because it will help keep the music feeling fresh while also instantly reminding you of where you are in the city, at least once a player has spent enough time listening to the music in a given zone that it becomes recognizable.
Hopefully at some point in the not-too-distant future, hearing one of these tracks will bring back that same surge of emotion that any CoX veteran felt whenever we entered Atlas Plaza and heard that iconic theme tune.
I'm not sure we'll be hearing the entire tracks in game. I say this because I don't know of a single game that plays soundscapes this long. I think we will get shortened clips that probably won't last more than a minute or maybe two.
As far as I am aware, the soundscapes will probably be hosted client-side to save bandwidth. If this is the case, we should be able to make a case that the length of the clip should be as long as the composer wants it to be, and not shortened by the game. I'm pretty sure that even the lowest-end bricks the game will be compatible with should be able to handle sound files of this length and fidelity while playing the game.
Would like MWM to say what their intentions are in this regard?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
That raises the question of whether a particular piece of music will play to the end regardless of whether the player changes neighbourhoods (as it does in the old game) or will the music be interrupted when crossing a boundary? And similar question with day/night.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Good questions. If it were up to me, I'd just do a fade out of the one currently playing and start the new soundscape at the beginning. I'd like to be able to recognize the beginnings of the various 'scapes after hearing them a few times so that I'd pick up on the cue immediately when I hear it.
This does cause one to wonder what happens when a player crosses back and forth across a boundary repeatedly. I'm sure the devs would be able to think of something to deal with that. I think that's where the fade-out comes in handy. it would be a defacto buffer delay of a few seconds to prevent a jarring restart of the soundscape with every step across the line.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The triggering of music can happen in a variety of ways in the game. At the start of loading into the game music can start. When beginning a mission music can start. Moving through the neighborhoods is one planned trigger for music and the trigger is planned to be ranged for each neighborhood, so it will fade out if you leave the neighborhood. That said, the music could play to its entirety if you stayed in one spot in the neighborhood... The music can also be triggered by rotated hours, so a night music trigger may only be active during certain hours while day triggers are available other hours.
The most important part of sound is that it is conducive to the player experience moving through the world, so we are currently working with the music tracks, ambient sounds, and coordinating them with the environment to orchestrate a play space that is immersive, exciting and makes logical sense.
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
As far as I know, we'll be storing all the music client-side, and it's actually a fair part of the space estimates, I think.
As Red said, I expect you'll hear the entire tracks if you stay in the same area, and it's also possible there may be multiple tracks for a area. The music currently in the AB is actually a playlist of multiple tracks, and that's how the sounds are generally entered into the game, so it doesn't have to be a single track looped forever, even. That will ultimately depend on how many tracks we want to place at each location - there is both a development cost and a download size cost to each one, so there are tradeoffs there.
The map changes in the AB always restart the music tracks, and I'm not sure how easy it is for carry them across map changes, or if that's even technically possible. A lot of the game state data gets wiped when you change maps, and it takes a fair amount of effort to carry it over to the new map. But I don't know if it's possible to carry over the current position in a playlist and restart that same playlist on a separate map, mid-way through. I haven't seen anything that suggests that would be possible, but I've only briefly touched the sound stuff. Also, the city map structure is a bit complex, it's a whole-city map with sub-maps for each of many sections that are loaded independently when needed, and I'm not sure exactly how that behaves yet.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team [/color]
Fade out/fade in are the obvious solutions to deal with music tracks on repeat when moving between neighborhoods.
I personally found that the optimal setting for me in City of Heroes was to have each track play once upon entry to a region but then not repeat. So the music cues were triggered at neighborhood boundaries but then only played once. If I crossed into another neighborhood on the same map before a sound track had finished, the "old" track would fade out (in like 2 seconds) and be replaced by the "new" track for the new neighborhood. There were places in Steel Canyon, Boomtown, Port Oakes and even Cap au Diable where depending on how fast I was hauling across the map I could have new music tracks overwrite a music track that hadn't finished playing yet because I was crossing music boundaries that quickly.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Listening to the [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/city-of-titans-theme/s-XRxnj50wgYw]City of Titans Ambient[/url] track made me start wondering about a night music track for a neighborhood that sounds like the ghostly echoes of fife and drum of a minuteman militia carrying over the hill on the night wind. The melody would alternate between mournful and morale boosting (so modulations between minor and major keys) telling the "story" of group of long dead militia men who marched and died, but their spirit still carries on the winds. So a haunting marching tune, but one that isn't directly frightening ... except in its implications of Revolutionary War history in the area.
We are, after all, talking about nor'eastern Massachusetts.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Having listened to the [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/alexandria-night-01/s-wu52InTfknF]Alexandria Night[/url] track, I'm not entirely sure this is a particularly apt choice for this neighborhood. I mean, [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/alexandria]Alexandria[/url] is the northern "starter zone" putting it more in line with Galaxy City and Atlas Park and Nova Praetoria, so I'm thinking this kind of moody/edgy feel I'm getting from this track might not be the best fit for the Phoenix Plaza and University part of town around City Hall in the night hours. Should work perfectly fine elsewhere in the city, but I'm not convinced this is a best match for Alexandria.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
For Old Bradford [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/old-bradford-day-01/s-YLf9bg8ai8f]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/old-bradford-night-01/s-OYDw9AOegy6]Night[/url] ... I wasn't that impressed with the Day track. However I think the Night track is excellent for what I imagine [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/old-bradford]Old Bradford[/url] to be like, creating a rather fitting soundscape for the location.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
For Downtown [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/downtown-day-01/s-EvVD1neZk4P]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/downtown-night-01/s-OMSX2VyRS1F]Night[/url] I have to agree with Huckleberry that the Day track is extremely well fitted to the ambiance of a [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/downtown]Downtown[/url]. However, I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed with the Night track not having more "distance" from the Day track so as to create a sort of "urban jungle gothic" kind of feel to it that's more neon lights amid the towers in the darkness.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
For Northeast Research District [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/northeast-research-district-day-01/s-JZc5gqGHT9i]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/northeast-research-district-night-01/s-EkICcQPhTsl]Night[/url] ... [b]I am extremely impressed[/b] by both tracks (for a change!). These two tracks fit almost perfectly to the space of the [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/north-eastern-research-district]Northeastern Research District[/url] ... the NRD.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
For Aurora [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/aurora-day-01/s-VtV2u9jKtYz]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/aurora-night-01/s-2nfUJxdym2j]Night[/url] ... I have markedly different responses. For me the Day track kind of fails because it doesn't seem to have any character to it, it's just kind of ... there ... so I don't think it works. By contrast, I really like the Night track and feel like it evokes a proper sense for the [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/aurora]Aurora[/url] neighborhood at night. So while the Night track feels purposeful, like it's going somewhere (and I want to know where that is), the Day track is the opposite in that it feels aimless and pointless to me. If that's what was intended ... mission accomplished?
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Rhinehart Park [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/rhinehart-park-day-01/s-dlMyyMRU91R]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/rhinehart-park-night-01/s-3B5tUySUIbJ]Night[/url] both qualify as music tracks I would prefer to never hear again. I don't know what you were angling for with these, but when a music track encourages me to leave the area so I don't have to hear them ... that's a bad sign. For my ear at least, both of these tracks might as well be labeled "GO AWAY" as far as enjoyment to listening to them is concerned. So as far as I'm concerned, neither of these "work" in a Fit For Purpose sense.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Victory Beach [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/victory-beach-day-01/s-JUoBX3q4y3c]Day[/url] is a treat since it gives you that carnival atmosphere feel that [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/victory-beach]Victory Beach[/url] ought to evoke in the daytime. The [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/victory-beach-night-01/s-naD987YXKsj]Night[/url] track however just sounds like jazz trying too hard to be jazz-y and it doesn't evoke any sense (in me at least) for a sense of place. It's just aimless and wanders around to no meaningful purpose, which is kind of sad because the guitar and drums under everything makes for a nice foundation to build a musical soundscape on. Kind of wish there had been a melody played in bells and chimes over the guitar and drums to better fit the sense of atmosphere at night for the place.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Interesting. I was going to comment myself that the music of Rhinehart at night made me feel like I didn't want to get caught there after dark. In my mind that was a positive thing.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
In this case I'll want to make an important distinction of nuance.
There's a big difference between a musical track the predisposes you towards wanting to be "on guard" against what might be lurking in your surroundings. The music "warns" you that you'll want to be alert and paying attention to your surroundings. It's that keep you on the edge of your seat sort of vibe. The music is telling you that the location "isn't safe" so you need to watch yourself when you're here.
That is a perfectly fine purpose for an environmental music to play. It serves notice to put the audience (in this case, the Player) "on edge" so they aren't prone to acting in a lax way or being caught by surprise. Music that tells you [b][i]You Are Not Safe Right Now[/i][/b] is serving a useful purpose of providing a correct atmospheric/emotional cue. Something that acts as a warning without angling towards "jump scare" sorts of fright.
Here are some examples I've pulled from the City of Heroes music tracks to demonstrate the kind of thing I'm talking about (and yes, most of these are Dark Astoria tracks):
[b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//5/58/DarkAstoria_N_RomeroHeights.ogg]1[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//4/43/DarkAstoria_N_RaimiArcade.ogg]2[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//f/f1/DarkAstoria_N_BarcaPlaza.ogg]3[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//2/2d/DarkAstoria_N_DidosView.ogg]4[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//c/c8/DarkAstoria_N_MothCemetery.ogg]5[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//b/b6/FirstWard_MotherOfMercy.ogg]6[/url][/b] . [b][url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//d/d6/DarkAstoria_StElegius.ogg]7[/url][/b]
Contrast that kind of musical direction with something that doesn't "raise your hackles" as a warning to pay attention to your surroundings ... but instead makes you tune out and turn off because you don't want to listen to it anymore. Rather than "accepting" what the music is trying to "tell" you, instead your only natural response is to "reject" the music and wanting it to stop bothering you.
In the case of the Rhinehart Park tracks, both Day and Night, I had that kind of a "turn it off, make it stop" sort of rejection to the musical tracks. Neither one of them "spoke" to me in a way that conjured up an idea of PLACE. Because of that, they turned into sound that carried no meaning or importance and which compounded my sense of rejection of them the longer they played. I'm thinking that's not what the composer intended.
I have no problem with music that warns you to pay attention, watch your step and stay alert ... because You Are Not Safe Here. That's perfectly fine.
I do have a problem with music that makes me want to reach for the mute button so as to not have to listen to it. I figure that's a problem.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I had no aversion to it, myself. But I think i can understand where it might be coming from. Not only is it a very slow beat, but there is a mild dissonance against the harmony that reminds me a lot of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies. In other words there is an implied beat and the listener is expecting the notes to land on the beat, but they don't. They land just a tiny bit past the beat. In the Gymnopédies it results in a languorous sensuality, in Rhinehart park it results in an uneasy feeling of languorous negligence instead.
I think this dissonance can be unnerving to people sensitive to it. Apparently I'm not one of those people, because I find it well constructed and evocative.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
TBH background music in games like this are roughly my 57th highest priority in terms of what I care about in the overall production. Obviously it's an important aspect of the game and clearly it needs to be handled well. But its role in the game is something I really haven't been overly worried about in the last eight years of following CoT.
That said I do generally like the tracks that were released for this update and I'm sure they'll be tweaked to blend in with everything else in this game. As others have said they do sound "professional" and I have no doubt they'll serve their purpose well.
P.S. To be blunt I'm the type of person who'll usually mute the background music of any game once I've heard it 10 or 20 times. I suppose if this game manages to get me to -not- mute it then that'll be my long term vote of approval for it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's one way to interpret it. Subjective impressions and all that.
For me, neither Day nor Night evoked a sense of being in a park. So even the impression of the setting was absent ... from the beats, from the melody, from the instrument choices ... all of it. It didn't evoke a sense of being in a park of any kind whatsoever.
On top of that, it didn't evoke an atmosphere of lurking wariness or danger sense. Instead, all it did was provoke a feeling of annoyance, in part because nothing synchronized up into anything actually meaningful. I guess the best way to explain it was that the music wasn't painting any pictures of the locale for me, on top of irritating my sense of what the music ought to be doing (which it wasn't). So for me at least, the result was a dissonant asynchronous mess that didn't "add up" to anything useful or even atmospheric. So my musical sensibilities rejected both tracks.
Uneasy? No.
Languorous? No.
Negligence? No.
Annoyance? Yes.
Like I said, probably not the response desired nor intended by the composer.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm the type to mute it myself, but good music can make or break how it feels to see something for the first time, for sure.
[color=red]PR Team, Forum Moderator, Live Response Team[/color]
The thing about music is, people can love or be annoyed by the same song. Someone mentioned that Aurora Day wasn't one of their favorites - it's absolutely one of my favorites. I could run around for a long time listening to that one song and be happy... But it's great to see so many people feeling positive about the breadth of what we are doing with soundtracks, and the thoughtfulness we are bringing to creating an immersive environment using sound.
I think that some of the songs might also sound a little different when placed in the environment. Someone mentioned that they didn't like a North Eastern Research District song they heard earlier, until they saw pictures of where that song would be playing, and it made sense. Rhinehart Park is our last zone we are building for launch and we don't have pictures of it yet, so there really isn't any context for the songs there to draw any connections. And also, you have to consider that some of the songs will be playing in contrast with 'combat music'. So, you might have a low hum of a kind of eerie song in the background, and then a twisted song like this [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/wyrd-sisters-theme-01/s-HYZ9YOn8b2o]Wyrd Sisters[/url] song might start to play in contrast... (Wyrd Sisters are a faction planned for Rhinehart Park, so this track is one that will roll out when you are running around that district...).
Maybe some songs will always be annoying to some of the players, and there is always the mute button for that. But I'm happy that there is an appreciation for the scope of work Tal has done for the soundtracks here, and that people are liking many of the tracks...
Also, it was good to hear Redlynne's comment about the triggered wind sounds when you reach higher skyscrapers... any feedback people can share about sounds they noticed and enjoyed in other games would be helpful as we are figuring out which sounds to prioritize at what locations... Sound has a cost, and we especially want to make sure the things people enjoy hearing in the game are in there...
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
Question about zone soundscapes vs. faction soundscapes. Will they be playing on separate channels/layers simultaneously or will they just be alternating when one is in a location that both apply? I would expect that the faction songs would play in the instances, while zone songs play outside. Also, you alluded that the faction songs would be the combat music? Will there also be dedicated generic combat music?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Here's something you ought to hear at particular locations around the city.
The hum of 60hz AC power.
Transformers hum with AC power.
Some types of lights will also hum with AC power, especially if they're old (and flicker).
The background sound of 60hz AC power hum can be a surprisingly effective immersion sound cue if it's not overused or excessively loud, since it is a sound that is often times unique to urban environments.
Another sound that can be heard intermittently in urban locations would be ... the scolding of crows.
Extra bonus points for keying the crow scolding to a set of particular costume options ... like Cat Ears and Cat Tail (so catgirl/catboi) ... such that the scolding is only heard/triggered in locations by some PCs costumes but not by other costume parts. That way, you don't have an automatic crow scolding for everyone in the same places. Instead you have different crows scolding different people in different places. At the game engine level you can set it up as a collection of locations where the sound can be triggered, but then have different triggers for each of the locations and key those triggers to different costume parts used by PCs.
So you could have crows scolding Witch Hats in one location, but in a different location the trigger is Demon Horns and/or Demon Tail and/or Demonic Aura effects as costume options. This then means that the soundscape the of city is not identical for all PCs, which would be a subtle to the point of subliminal thing which would add a richness to the soundscape that would be easy to notice but hard to recognize for what it is. And then when you're in a Team-8 situation, you'd hear it more often in places you hadn't been hearing it before (because more costume parts in the group) ... but then when you leave the Team it doesn't repeat in those same places when you're solo. I would like to think that such a dynamic in sound FX would be relatively simple to program, and also something that could be easily replicated to extend into additional parts of the city (so you don't have to set it all up at once).
If you're going to have commercial airliners flying through the sky landing at the Titan City Airport, set up the airplane engine sound overhead to play from a location BEHIND the aircraft as they move so as to simulate the sound lag due to distance, particularly if the aircraft are flying above the maximum altitude of the skybox that PCs occupy.
Echoes of the Ocean ... can happen inland from the seashore if there's a pipe that runs inland, carrying the sound of the waves to a place you wouldn't otherwise expect to hear them. Likewise, a particular arrangement of building geometries might create a patch of ocean waves sounds up away from the beach where you wouldn't expect to hear them (albeit, not as crisply as if you were closer) due to sound reflections and reinforcement patterns.
And ironically ... FOG.
You know how when it gets really foggy, the ambient sounds distant from you get dampened?
Basically make it so that when the environmental condition of fog is present, sound volume loss due to distance would be increased. Again, a subtle thing that would be remarkably immersive for the environment.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
In contrast to the Rhinehart Park [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/rhinehart-park-day-01/s-dlMyyMRU91R]Day[/url] and [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/rhinehart-park-night-01/s-3B5tUySUIbJ]Night[/url] tracks, I REALLY like the [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/wyrd-sisters-theme-01/s-HYZ9YOn8b2o]Wyrd Sisters[/url] theme (although I'd want to do some additional tweaking to it if I were working on it). Hearing the Wyrd Sisters theme, I wondered if some of the elements in it were carried over into Rhinehart Park, so I tried to listen to the Day and Night tracks again (tried...) and was able to spot a couple of congruencies before I had to bail out on the sound of the Rhinehart Park tracks (I really can't stand listening to them). So I can kind of understand transitioning from one into the others, but the Rhinehart Park tracks just really don't work for me.
A couple of elements that I'd want to make use of to polish up the Wyrd Sisters track a little would be to use stereophonic location to make it sound like the music isn't playing from a single static location (where the speakers are), but rather be something that feels like it "circles around" in a left, back, right, front sort of way and that it circles around at different distances (so close, then far, then close again) which would vary the volume a little bit over the course of the track. Done right, it could create the impression that the theme is "following you around" where you go ... which seems like the right kind of response/impression you would want for a group called the Wyrd Sisters.
But definitely a good starting point for the Wyrd Sisters theme!
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I've been thinking about the overall impression the [url=https://soundcloud.com/user-651059585/city-of-titans-theme/s-XRxnj50wgYw]City of Titans Ambient[/url] track makes, and how it's so fundamentally different from the utterly iconic [url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//1/14/AtlasPark_AtlasPlaza.ogg]Atlas Plaza[/url] and [url=https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//4/45/GalaxyCity_FreedomCourt.ogg]Galaxy City Freedom Court[/url] themes used in City of Heroes ... and I think I've found a way to articulate the all important difference between them.
Atlas Plaza and Freedom Court, since they were set in Paragon City, were really straightforward Hero Salute type themes. They were really "pure" and unapologetic in their heroic tones. You listen to them and you FEEL heroic. There isn't any real "doubt" in the sense of being a hero with those themes ... and in that respect they are very comic book-y types of musical pieces, specifically American comic book style themes.
City of Titans Ambient, however, is completely different. Yes there are strains of heroism in it, but what the theme evokes is a sense of struggle ... and the courage needed to go on, without having any certainty or guarantees that you'll win the fight. But what matters most, is stepping up to the line when it's your turn to be called into the battle, and to make your stand. Rather than having heroism handed to you (on a silver platter) or thrust upon you ... there is a sense that you have to EARN what heroism you lay claim to, because it isn't given to you for free.
Some will rise.
Some will fall.
But what matters most, is to [b]answer the call[/b] ...
In that respect it feels much more like a manga or anime inspired piece of music in the character themes it's invoking. It's telling you that the outcomes are not foreordained, because where you start does not solely determine your destiny for where you end your journey. The future, is what you make of it. That is a VERY different thing from the American comic book style where the best people have all the gifts and the heroes win every time (because [url=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RightMakesMight]Right Makes Might[/url]).
Even better yet, the City of Titans Ambient even works on both sides of the Red vs Blue divide, because it not only works for Heroes on their way up the ladder but also for Villains who are quietly accumulating power and preparing for their moment to shine. That's the real gift of this track ... the sense of anticipation for what the future may hold ... [i]and for the stories not yet told.[/i]
So yes ... totally an [b]Answer The Call[/b] theme.
[img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//3/37/Ghost_Widow_Emote_Bow.gif[/img][img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//f/fc/Ghost_Widow_Emote_HeroLoyal.gif[/img][img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//9/91/Ghost_Widow_Emote_VigilanteLoyal.gif[/img][img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//4/42/Ghost_Widow_Emote_VillainLoyal.gif[/img][img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//2/26/Ghost_Widow_Emote_RogueLoyal.gif[/img][img]https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//1/13/Ghost_Widow_Emote_FancyBow.gif[/img]
At this point, I'm thinking that City of Titans Ambient ought to be the login screen music that gets used all the way up until completion of character creation to enter the game.
It's just that strong and evocative of a theme, in my opinion.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
So much lovely music! I haven't listened through all of them yet. NRD was just right.
This is exactly how I felt. I really enjoyed the night track. The day track didn't feel like "old town". Alexandria's guitar was definitely an older, more established feel. Perhaps folksy notes? Or mock-classical? Not saying it has to be Dropkick Murphy's Amazing Grace or A Fistful of Dollars, maybe just something that lets a little birdsong in. As you can probably tell I have no idea how to express myself in this space.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
While I agree Alexandia had an older feel to it, It sounded more Stevie Ray Vaughn old than Old Bradford old. If you want to get the Old Bradford old, you're going to need to go acoustic. As i write this I think of [url=https://youtu.be/2kZASM8OX7s]Ashokan Farewell[/url], an acoustic strings piece written in the 1980's but is so authentically old sounding as to have actually made it onto a list of songs of the Civil War. But despite the name "[u]Old[/u] Bradford, according to [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/old-bradford]Titan City Lore[/url] Old Bradford is old only in name. It's apparently the home of the wacky, oddball and modern artistic elements of Titan City. I believe that's what the composer was trying for.
But I think you might be on to something, @Airhead. Since the wacky cultural element is in a neighborhood with deep historical roots, I think it would make far more sense to try to emulate that. Give the Old Bradford (day) soundscape an old-sounding (acoustic perhaps guitar or strings or brass, or piano again like the night 'scape?) structure and then add the odd anachronisticly modern and wacky flourishes to it to represent the modern culture in the historic location.
Edit:In my opinion Ashokan Farewell should be listed for all time in the Smithsonian as a treasured American work. It is pure perfection, no matter what music style you prefer to listen to.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Well I can assure you I won't be muting the music. For me, musical themes are as much a part of the character of a neighbourhood as the visuals. To this day there are themes in the old game that can still evoke memories of the first time I visited those areas some 16 years ago. I hope I live long enough to have the same experience with the music in CoT.
Spurn all ye kindle.
These're all great suggestions!
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
Yes - thank you for those... taking notes...
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
I like pretty much everything Redlynne said here but I'm replying specifically to this one line because my main will likely have all that "Demonic" costume stuff.
If you're talking about having certain music being triggered by being in certain locations then maybe we should be able to have certain music play when we're close to our personal base entrances or when we are actually in our personal bases. Having a "soundtrack" for your personal base might be fun and not too hard to implement.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
We make every pretense of competency around here. ^_~
Let me know if you desire more.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
If you have more, please share! It helps very much to hear player ideas for this...
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
Red's competence is legend.
"Well now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places
Ah but the horns they're blowin' that sound."
Some of our neighborhoods should echo with the lost ghosts of jazz, particularly in the evenings. Blues and Jazz, Bluegrass and early Rock down on honky-tonk row. A misty mix-tape fading in and out, from a strange radio station, WYRD perhaps.
Phantom Busker - Just a faintly luminous Sax, playing joy and pain, under a random streetlight. Or a guitar on a half-ruined stair.
And, well, since Titan City seems to be a little bit of a crossroads for the wyrd, as an event or whatever, have a 'Flying Dutchman' come into the harbor. I know TOG had the ghost ship, but that was a Tanker/Freighter. We could have a much flashier event in a 3-masted tall ship. The ship, itself, is not an enemy, but it attracts/carries/drops off all manner of other strangeness, which can be combatted. And, of course, the ghastly crew could be having a bit of party - which could showcase another type of music, locally.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Under the heading of [i]Great Minds Think Alike[/i] ...
I was thinking of having isolated pockets of solo musicians either playing on their porch or balcony or simply performing on the street for a time before they pack it in. So less of a ghostly presence like Fireheart is advocating for and more of a flavor of civilian life in Titan City kind of thing. Probably the most appropriate location for these kinds of impromptu musical performance events to take place would be in [url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/old-bradford]Old Bradford[/url]. I'm thinking guitar, harp and flute would be the most likely solo instruments for civilians to perform with (where the PCs could see and hear the performers). Extra bonus points to the developers if an option is enabled to tip the musicians with in game currency. Extra EXTRA bonus points if you figure out a way to enable tipping of the neighborhood musicians to "add up" towards being awarded Clues for Missions or other kinds of "springboard" options to enable content to play. That way, it isn't just a single NPC Contact (with their feet nailed to the ground in one spot) you need to talk to. Maybe there's a gossip network among the musicians and you simply need to find ANY of them (and give them a tip from your wallet) in order to "unlock" that specific civilian NPC to pass along something interesting to your PC.
An ambient sound that definitely ought to occur in most of the green spaces of the city (especially if they have trees) is the sound of leaves rustling on trees in the wind. And while that might sound a bit too ... ordinary ... under most circumstances, if you've got an especially "weird" location in a stranger part of town, just imagine what it would be like to have the (seemingly) constant sound of the wind blowing through the leaves of the trees (so perfectly ordinary, right?) and then that sound just [b]STOPS[/b] ... as if time has frozen. Except, other sounds aside from the leaves in the trees haven't stopped, just the leaves in the trees blowing in the wind. So while the leaves in the wind sound isn't there, you can now hear what that sound was previously covering up ... and then the sound of the wind in the leaves "unfreezes" and resumes. Depending on how it is done, that could sound spooky, weird or even mildly terrifying.
An alternative to this would be to use an ambient sound cue like this for any kind of extra dimensional doorways (like a faerie ring, for example). When you get near to the doorway, the ambient world sound drops away, and then when you move away from that spot the ambient world sounds resume. The point being that you shouldn't hear the ambient world noise cut out like that ... unless something "weird" is going on at that location.
In other words, you could use a silencing effect that would mute ambient world sounds, but which would have no effect on combat sound effects (like gunshots or melee combat or explosives, etc.). You then use the localization of that muting effect to indicate You Are Here™ for any kind of otherworldly/extra dimensional "doorway" you might want to implement (with Mission Door being the most likely use).
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/victory-beach]Victory Beach[/url] ought to be a location where there should be an above average population of civilians, particularly in the Midway area, for some parts of the day. When there's a lot of (civilian) people together in an area, you tend to get an ambient "hub bub" of voices mixed together from various people talking to each other. Judicious location of localized sounds of a background noise of voices in the vicinity of places that the civilians in the area will tend to be (especially if there are queue lines for rides in the Midway) would seem to be called for.
In the more run down if not abandoned areas and buildings of the city, there are all kinds of sounds that can be added to the city to increase immersion. Creaky hinges on doors and gates that get blown around in the wind. Screen doors that blow open and clap shut again. The rattling of poorly fitting windows. The tinkle of a bit of glass falling and shattering. And of course, everyone's favorite ... the drip of water that echoes on stone (way louder than it has any right to, but the echoes are reinforcing the sound). You can even have squeaky weather vanes on rooftops that turn in the wind.
And speaking of things that make sound when the wind is blowing ... wind chimes. You could have some houses (with porches) and even apartments (with balconies) have wind chimes outside their windows, creating localized sounds consistent with the tinkle of wind chimes.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
There is at least one game that increases the sound of crowds depending upon the number of Player Characters in an area. I think this really makes sense and it helps makes the cities seem alive, especially diring something like a costume contest like we used to have in ToG. This could all be done client side just by the number of other characters within a certain radius of the PC.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
WYRD (in an AM and an FM incarnation) is apparently still in South Carolina. Alas, they seem to have gone sports/talk, as opposed to the eclectic, possibly oracular music mix that Tannim (the Misty Lackey character, not our Dev) used to listen to...
Edit: OTOH, I don't know that Our Tannim222 wasn't also listening WYRD, back in The Day...
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
Wonderful idea Fireheart for having jazz and other music playing in evening spots - love that (And thank you for the kind words!)
And Redlynne - wind chimes are such a solid idea for having small, localized sounds triggered that could convey a sense of place - love that idea too! I'm taking notes on all of this. (The features you are proposing related to missions and sound and other logistics I think Tannim or others might be better able to consider how we would work those in, but very interesting ideas...)
A big part of what has made our city environment so interesting has come from the mogul architecture that our players have shared. We have a much bigger pool of creativity by incorporating your ideas into the game. As we look at sound, I really value ideas like these to help my thinking about how to create something we all will be inspired by.
Thanks for sharing and please feel free to share more ideas!
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
As my little pupperoo reminds me, Dogs bark all over. She's griping because I didn't share my dinner, but around town, dogs bark because something is Happening and they, variously want to get involved, or to warn it away.
Actual NPC Buskers in appropriate locales sounds great! There's also a phenomenon I used to experience in SoCal, which might be interesting in Mass... 'Drum Circles' on the beach.
Buskers could be a 'Faction' that might give out missions or clues to young heroes. Also Taxis. Porch-sitters, park visitors, anyone who might be sitting someplace and watching the city go by. They might see something and want to tell us about it.
Additional sounds of city life ... HVAC.
In apartment complexes that have air conditioning, you will often times see outside cooling units, either up on the roof (for flat roof buildings) or down at ground level (around pitched roof buildings). The sounds they make while in operation are a distinctly urban residential element of a city soundscape. You can also have larger forced air chilling stations for commercial buildings, that involve banks of fans outside to provide thermal regulation to multi-story buildings. When running, they can make a pretty distinctive amount of noise. These can also be rooftop and/or ground level installations.
[img]https://www.peakhydronics.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/shutterstock_170033063-768x512.jpg[/img]
Homeless people and beggars. They see EVERYTHING ...
The Gabby Cabby is already canon.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
If you're thinking of the same one I am, a downside to this is that the ambient crowd noise has several very distinctive voice events that are really noticeable as the track loops or is triggered repeatedly. I'd prefer not to have the same laugh or yell occurring every 20 seconds whenever I'm in a crowded area.
Somewhere, somehow, we have to include the [url=https://youtu.be/cdbYsoEasio]wilhelm scream[/url].
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Dogs barking on random - fun idea... drum circles - also a fun idea (I'm from Nor Cal and we know of those things here too!)
HVAC noise... yes very good...
Annoying distinctive sounds on repeat - yes, we definitely need to strike a good balance here, and try to not have the sound get in the way... point well taken...
Wilhelm scream? Maybe from one of the fun houses or dark ride spots in Victory Beach? There's gotta be somewhere it would make sense... ;)
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
I'm like 98% sure they put the Wilhelm Scream into TOG somewhere. I don't remember exactly where in the game but I vaguely remember it being mentioned by the Devs back in the old TOG forums. So yeah it pretty much needs to be in CoT somewhere.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Since we're going to have battles on top of airships and tall buildings, I think it would be perfect for whenever you knock someone over the edge.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The ideal condition for the wilhelm scream would be any NPC falling at a velocity above a set threshold.
That way, if you knock one off a high place, they'll do the wilhelm scream on the way down to the ground once they've fallen far enough/fast enough to trigger the conditional.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
This was one of my pet peeves about Imperial City back in City of Titans. The ambient sound of traffic would run a loop that wasn't long enough and you kept hearing the same honking of car horns happening repeatedly for no good reason.
Would definitely fit as a localized thing for a specific ride attraction.
Of course, you would want to blend it with the sound of the doorbell at 22 Twain house.
[youtube]o4RfA6_MI9Q[/youtube]
Oh and if you haven't seen Murder By Death ... you really should find a way to do so at some point.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
They're just perfect for a day of vigilance. I'm truly gonna enjoy hanging out only for enviornment music. They somehow feel fresh thinking about older urban/scifi/superhero games.
As a Hero: Fhantom Raven, the Ghost from Heaven (League of Lights)
As a Villain: Greem Reaper, Toxic Wanderer (Empire of Thorns)
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[img]https://cityoftitans.com/sites/default/files/Sounds-Banner.jpg[/img]
Water.
Running water.
Water flows.
The sound of water flowing through pipes (above and below ground).
The sound of water flowing down street gutters into storm drains (when it rains).
The sound of roof gutters gathering rainwater to pour out at ground level (when it rains).
The sound of water flowing through creeks and ditches, running downhill.
The sound of water gushing out of public fountains and splashing into pools.
The sound of water sprinklers watering lawns and landscaping.
And that's before you cannonball into the nearest swimming pool during a sunny afternoon.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
'Murder By Death' is a superb classic.
Breeze in the Trees is a great ambient sound effect.
Titan City might have Bike Lanes, but of more use would be 'Super-Pedestrian Lanes'. Citizen goes out for his early-morning run and he's just gotten into his pace, when La Gazelle nearly runs him down. (Sproing!) Looney Toons progresses. Cheetah Girl zips by, spotted tights and short-shorts, and the whole zoo in pursuit. Even if there are no alleys in town, we'll want Pursuit paths. Citizens will want to look Left/Right/UP before crossing a street. Even more so, if there's a game of Big Red Ball going through the borough.
There's gonna be Sirens, every once in a while. Steel Canyon Apartment Fires?
You're jaunting down your patrol path, hopping and popping. Parkour your way over a wall and land in an open dumpster, manage to stagger out of the knee-deep Don't-Even-Ask, crash through the garbage-can corral, and all the dogs for a 3-block radius start posting your scores. The Pomeranian Judge gives you a 2. You grimly push onward, but now all the dogs can smell you coming.
Hmm *Public Refreshment Booths*? Just the thing for the Titan on the move.
Wind 'Wuthering' around the corners of buildings.
This has been a (brief) presentation of Fireheart's Free-Association Fever.
*One thing to think about - 'Hip-Hop' and other music with drums, may not be the right sound for every part of the city. If the 'mood music' is too insistent, I'd probably look for ways to mute it. In TOG, I did set certain channels of sound to 'half-volume'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/districts/victory-beach]Victory Beach[/url] ... The Front ...
Two words.
[center][b][size=48]STEEL DRUMS[/size][/b][/center]
[youtube]4gbRUNa5nIM[/youtube]
[youtube]G9czsuzbEWg[/youtube]
[b]Drum JAM[sup]2[/sup][/b] ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
By the way, if you're ever needing an instrument to carry a melody for a haunting ghostly carried on the wind musical sound, may I recommend use of a Glass Harp as one of the instruments to put in the mix ...?
[youtube]XKRj-T4l-e8[/youtube]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Just encountered [url=https://i.imgur.com/sP5tzdu.mp4][b]this randomly on imgur[/b][/url], and I'm wondering if this sound might inspire some ideas for ambient noises/background music that could put Players on edge about where they are.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
One-person car-wash. Hose off the bugs and mud, *Whoosh* yourself dry, and you're ready for the next fan-selfie.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I would love to see these in pit-stop like placements on the side of the road or on top of tall buildings. They would be something you fast-travel through. And have billboards advertising them around as well, so we get the context. On the billboard there would be a speedster talking about how it gets the bugs off his goggles, or something like that. This would be TOTALLY immersive.
[img=480x480]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1755/5355/products/mock-22-1515-121314-nh-ns-55093167999909301981488409550-3_900x.png?v=1568911024[/img]
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Kind of makes you feel for the speedsters without goggles, though.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ssuaF0n.gif[/img]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Also a convenient place to leave your character singing the 'Rubber Ducky' song, while you go AFK to deal with personal maintenance issues.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Feel like a jerk now. Good music, but I really do not play with music background. Breaks my immersion in a way. I do the same with CoX and other games.
Evolution is key. And mutants are key.
Nothing wrong with that, not all people hear music as a background element. I too sometimes get annoyed by BGM.
However, I do hope to hear City Sounds! A quiet city is a dead city. It doesn't have to be continous and if it is on a loop, I hope it is a very LONG loop. Easiest way to do that is to take a recorder to different neighborhoods and record an hour of each type. Clean it up if needed and play!
Generally speaking, I like to hear the music once or twice. Otherwise, I often have Other music playing. Some Dire Straits, Clapton, or some Jazz/Blues, or SRV, or vocal, like Ladysmith or Bobby McFerrin. Put my player on shuffle and let it sample the collection - I once calculated it would take 2 years to play it all.
I'm just the opposite. I put my headphones on and shut out the world to immerse myself in whatever the game's creative directors have chosen to provide.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
That's something I just can't bring myself to do - 'shut out the world'. I'm already hearing-impaired and I've had to work, almost my entire life, to be aware of what's going on around me, so I don't miss something important, like Mom calling, or the Dog needing attention. Even when I'm completely immersed in a good book, I'll keep half an ear out for issues.
The world is not completely safe, so I can't afford to disconnect.
Be Well!
Fireheart
There are three EASY choices to put into the options menus for dealing with neighborhood theme music tracks.
Do Not Play
Play Once (when entering region)
Repeat Play (while in region)
Not that difficult to implement either.
After that it's just a matter of figuring out how to switch music tracks when moving from region to region.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Quick tangent story: Back in the late 1980s I lived a couple of years in a dormitory mostly populated by hearing impaired students. I studied at RIT but on the same campus was The National Technical Institute for the Deaf. As a non-impaired person it was an interesting experience being a "minority" amongst hundreds of deaf/impaired students. I think the whole idea of having the integrated campus was to give everyone the chance to experience the "diversity" of the hearing and non-hearing social groups. I picked up a little sign language and generally everyone got along. You could probably hear the weekend parties we had from miles away because we cranked the music up to jet engine decibels - I'm almost surprised we didn't shake those dorm buildings to rubble. ;)
Of course now that I'm in my 50s I believe I'm starting to lose some sense of hearing just via old age so what comes around goes around I guess. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
How about this then?
In single family housing areas (1 house per lot, fenced yard, you know the drill) ... you could key the sound of dogs barking to NPC Faction Reputation of the PC.
So ... for example ...
Let's say, just for the sake of argument and illustration purposes ...
PC-A is friendly/trusted with the Wyrd Sisters (for whatever reason).
In Wyrd Sisters neighborhoods, the dogs [i]do [b]not[/b] bark at PC-A[/i] because PC-A is "known to them" (the dogs of the neighborhood) as a "friend" to the Wyrd Sisters.
PC-B is hated/at war with the Wyrd Sisters (for whatever reason).
In Wyrd Sisters neighborhoods, the dogs [i][b]do[/b] bark at PB-B[/i] because PC-B is "known to them" (the dogs of the neighborhood) as being "hostile" to the Wyrd Sisters.
You can even take this one step further by setting up the sound trigger to require that the PC [b]NOT[/b] have line of sight on the sound source location (of all things) ... that way, you don't have to create visual art assets for all of these dogs in their yards barking at PCs passing by (because when you look for them, the dog isn't there). The in-game excuse for this kind of behavior is that the dogs aren't stupid. The dogs will bark at PCs who are not friendly to the controlling local neighborhood faction (looking at you [url=https://cityoftitans.com/content/citizens%E2%80%99-alliance-protection][b]Citizens' Alliance for Protection[/b][/url]!) so as to "challenge" PCs who are not "friendly" to that neighborhood faction, but the dogs aren't going to CONFRONT superpowered PCs.
Bark, sure.
Attack, oh hell no.
So if a PC gets "too close" to the source of a barking dog, and/or maneuvers themselves into a position where the PC can view where the sound of the barking is coming from, then the barking stops (because there's nothing there in terms of dog avatar to be seen).
That way, you basically wind up with a situation in which dog barking can be HEARD ... but the dogs actually doing the barking are never SEEN ... so you have a sound only cue and do not need a visible asset.
Extra bonus points for having a dog barking soundtrack playing from a specific location "abort" to a dog's "yelp and flee" sound if the PC gets too close or enters line of sight, so it sounds like the dog runs away if the PC "moves to confront" the barking dog in any way (or should otherwise SEE a dog there barking at them).
Again, there aren't any visual or avatar assets necessary to pull off this trick.
You just need to key the sound of dogs barking to only be activated by PCs who are "not friends" of the local NPC Faction and rig things in such a way that the barking dogs are HEARD but never SEEN.
Offer only good for some suburban residential neighborhoods with fenced yards (ie. appropriate terrain) ... but hopefully you get the idea.
This kind of thing, where you key the trigger to the NPC Faction reputation the PC has can mean that the city's neighborhoods "sound different" to different PCs (who have different reputations with different NPC Factions).
Being able to change the ambient soundscape of the city like that increases replay value as well as rewarding the altaholics, since it means the "character" of the city changes depending on who YOU (the PC) are.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I like this idea, but the concept of the dogs just disappearing seems a little off to me. I understand WHY you would do this, to minimize develop effort.
But I think removing the dogs eliminates a potential game element that could be interesting.
Lets say that dogs really do exist as mobs that will bark or not when they get line of sight with your character, causing other dogs in the vicinity to bark as well, of course. You could place these not just randomly, but also at key locations that might give your character away while trying to infiltrate. Your character has basically four ways to shut them up:[list]
[*]Kill the puppy (so evil! adjust alignment scores and faction reputations as appropriate)
[*]give Cujo a scooby snack (requires having treats in your inventory, maybe a cash shop purchase?) Only lasts for 15 seconds, since it takes 30 seconds for the guards exit alert status, you would need to give the dog several treats to keep it quiet until they do as well as one more to cover the time it takes you to get past the pooch.
[*]increase your relationship with the mutt beforehand (maybe all mutts in an area are their own faction and share their reputation with you?) by giving them scooby snacks __[u]X[/u]__ times with a cooldown timer between eligible snackos. You will be awarded with "You have achieved FRIENDLY status with the dogs of this neighborhood", or "... with the guard dogs of this facility."
[*]put Fido to sleep with control powers before it can bark
[/list]
In order to really make this a [i]game[/i] mechanic, the dogs will have to show their hackles raised and maybe growl for a few seconds before they start barking. This gives the player an opportunity to choose a silencing tactic.
I'm always looking for ways to turn something into a gameplay mechanic. The more [i]game[/i] we put into it, I feel, the more fun it becomes. So, nothing against your original idea, Red.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Exactly.
However ... the art assets needed to accomplish that aren't available "now" and won't be available "for a long time from now" ... so ...
The decision becomes one of "do what you can NOW and leave room for further developments later to build upon and expand" ... or ... do you just throw up your hands and say "can't be done NOW so don't bother, never trying doing anything" and leave it at that.
And I agree with you.
[i]Ideally speaking[/i] ... if ALL of the assets were there (and debugged and ready to rock 'n' roll), I would be right there with you in wanting to make use of "barking dogs" in a residential neighborhood as a gameplay mechanic.
However ... actually doing all of that requires a LOT of assets.
LOTS.
A quadruped skeleton for 3D rigging and animation would be one of the first things needed (and spoiler alert, we don't have one, last time I checked, for City of Titans).
So if we're talking Blue Sky Wishlist™ type stuff, I'm in agreement with you, Huckleberry.
However, the (sad) reality is that we don't "have everything" (and won't for a long time even after launch day) ... so I'm looking at what might be practical NOW with the tools that are currently available, rather than reaching for the moon because I'm hungry for cheese (ala Wallace and Grommit).
Hence why I "scaled back my ambitions" in this regard so as to create a stepping stone "now" for something better to come along later to expand upon or replace it with later.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]