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Sound Effects for Speech


John_Bigless

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Posted (edited)

There have probably been suggestions about bringing Text to Speech into SS13. I got something different.

Let's make it so that characters make 'instrument' sounds when they talk. Let me explain.

In the character customization menu, you would get to pick your 'voice' in the form of musical instruments. Think Don't Starve, except instead of continuous 'music', only one or two notes are played.
Short sentences would play one or two notes. Longer sentences would play more notes. Up to a limit of 6 notes. (Examples of 'multiple notes' include Captain Von Kroner yelling at Hendercon and Mann they already had a Director.)

Here's an example.

Spoiler

 

 

This would allow players to recognize more easily as to who is talking. When there is a large amount of players in an area, the chatbox itself can get kinda cluttered.
For those who, however, dislike this feature, the speech sounds would be toggle-able simmilar to turning off AI VOX or footsteps.

For reasons obvious, chatter over the radio would not make speech sounds.
Once again, emotes (Director Moon shaking his head) would also not make speech sounds.

Whispering would either not make speech noise, or be very silent.

Speech sounds would be audible trough walls, albeit muffled. (Allowing you to for example hear the Chief Medical Officer give the yelling of the century to a Pharmacist next-door.)

If you are deaf, (flashbang or otherwise), all voice sounds will be heavily muffled, and next-door voice sounds will be nearly inaudible.

Edited by John_Bigless
Forgot a thing.
Posted

I tend to alt tab a lot, so being able to hear when someone is talking would be super useful. 

I'm cool with this, as long as the soundfonts arent super annoying/loud.

Posted

while i think this is a cute idea, i'm not sure if it would be a good idea because all i can think about is the cacophony that would be crew transfer on highpop. 

Posted
44 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

How does having 5-40 overlapping sound effects at any time in the round contribute to gameplay, atmosphere or roleplay.

 

1 minute ago, Natiform said:

while i think this is a cute idea, i'm not sure if it would be a good idea because all i can think about is the cacophony that would be crew transfer on highpop. 

There hopefully would be the toggle if you dislike it.

Posted
10 minutes ago, Natiform said:

while i think this is a cute idea, i'm not sure if it would be a good idea because all i can think about is the cacophony that would be crew transfer on highpop. 

I resonate with this. How about the sound has a very limited range? Like, 1-2 tiles.

Guest BoxWulf
Posted

Unironically, I would love the Animal Crossing speech, or Simlish. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

I resonate with this. How about the sound has a very limited range? Like, 1-2 tiles.

Idea. Make it so that the less players are on the screen, the more range the speech has.

It would fix the whole 'places too crowded causing sound spam' issue, but it might (or might not i dunno) be a pain to code.

Posted

I love the Don't Starve allusion, as I really enjoy that game!

1 hour ago, AmoryBlaine said:

How does having 5-40 overlapping sound effects at any time in the round contribute to gameplay, atmosphere or roleplay.

I think this is a pretty good succinct way of putting how I feel about it though. While it might be cool on a personal level for me, how do you think it contributes to the game and changes how it would feel for most players in general? What do you think of this quandary?

I'll also +1 the toggle option as that'd be pretty good for people who don't want too many sounds.

Posted
24 minutes ago, DaTimeSmog said:

Can we optionally mute this tho?

Yes. You would be able to toggle hearing voice sounds the same way you could toggle hearing footsteps or AI VOX. As said in the original post.

Posted

Unfortunately this would probably be abused to find antags who are talking a lot either because of kidnapping situations or just talking with someone else in a secluded room.

 

Example:

Quote

 

Security officer is patrolling maintenance and doesn't know about any kidnappings.

Traitor is in a fire closet with their hostage already restrained and is just about to make their demands

Traitor or hostage say something while the officer is walking in tunnels nearby.

Officer who might have forgotten to check said fire closet hears 2 people talking nearby in that maintenance section and now wants to check said fire closet

Antag's plan is ruined prematurely because speech sound somehow goes through space-proof radiation-absorbing metallic material.

 

Example 2

Quote

Cultists gather at the library's adult section after round start to discuss their plan.

Librarian or random visitor who never visits the adult section hears speech coming from that side of the library where they can't see anyone

Cultists are found prematurely gathered in a strange room and are mocked over the radio by whoever found them, placing all cultists already under suspicion

Doesn't mean it will happen these exact same ways but you get the idea. This already happens with the handcuff SFX which is way too loud for anyone's benefit. You can muzzle those types of sounds with your own body and the environment around but I doubt that will be changed any time soon.

Posted

You didn't answer my question, you just told me to disable the feature. How does having 5-40 overlapping sound effects at any time in the round contribute to gameplay, atmosphere or roleplay. What purpose does this serve? Games that use sound effect voices do so for reasons. It helps differentiate characters, adds to atmosphere, provides a unique audio key in your head for things. But how does that work here, where there's 50 players a round and every one of them is using this, at the same time.That doesn't help differentiate characters. All other sound effects are 'IC', so this is sort of an OOC thing? I'd compare it to the old slip sound effect, which breaks character. Again, the fact that there are so many people makes it impossible to link the sound effect to any specific person.

 

2 hours ago, John_Bigless said:

This would allow players to recognize more easily as to who is talking. When there is a large amount of players in an area, the chatbox itself can get kinda cluttered.

How does, in a full room of people chatting, the constant beeping and booping of notes, help tell who is talking. How are we to correlate 1 of X number of sound effect types with a character, when Y amount players use it? This system doesn't make sense.

Posted
11 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

You didn't answer my question, you just told me to disable the feature. How does having 5-40 overlapping sound effects at any time in the round contribute to gameplay, atmosphere or roleplay.

Yeah, i don't have any valid arguments against this one. I give up.

Posted

I still think that this could be a neat feature as long as the radius is 1-2 tiles away.

Different species or different genders could have a different sound to them, as well.

Posted

I am often tabbed out. Id say make it off by default, and make it something you can turn on if you choose. It doesn't hurt to have an option people can use if they want, like, say, you're often tabbed out while in game. 

Posted

As long as you can mute it, I don't see a problem. I think it would actually be useful, since I have a tendency to stare at the game window and ignore the text window or just be alt tabbed.

Posted

I do think this could contribute to the game by adding a little extra bit of personalization, and to echo what others said it would be a boon for people who like to tab out when things are quiet. Overload when in an area with a lot of people could definitely be a problem but if it's limited to only within a few tiles and can be switched off you get around that problem pretty easily. Honestly I just think it's a cute feature idea, too. 

Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

I resonate with this. How about the sound has a very limited range? Like, 1-2 tiles.

Disagree. An interesting feature of this might be hearing a muffled 'voice' through the walls and recognizing that 'voice'. Whispering would be a better 1-2 tile option, with the aforementioned toggle if someone hates the sounds overall.

Slight addendum: Using an exclamation point (John Doe shouts/exclaims/etc.) might even increase the range.

Edited by Carver
An additional thought.
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