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Voice/Sound Notifications

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5 years ago
I want sound notifications in-game because other RTS games have them.
Like this

"Worker has completed a build queue."

"Factory has completed construction queue."

"Your units are under attack."

"Your <building> is under attack."

"Strategic nuclear warhead stocked."

"Anti-nuclear warhead online."

The only thing that gets sound alerts in-game is the Commander getting attacked and "Warzone paused".

How much money should I throw at the developers to have this happen?
+2 / -0

5 years ago
I think your best bet would be to arrange the sounds on your own and submit them.
+0 / -0
Here's the ticket for this issue. Our problem so far was largely the lack of available voice talent*, so the best thing to contribute is work.

If you have no ability to do this kind of work, but you have excess money to throw at the problem, you could spend them directly on a voice artist or artists of your choosing who you think would fit with the ZK theme. This also involves some manager work of finding and communicating with that artist, of course.

The linked github issue is supposed to help with that, as it provides a list of messages in order of importance, and at least some requirements and guidelines.
+2 / -0
5 years ago
what about the text to speech on "Warzone paused"
+0 / -0

5 years ago
i like the nuke and anti notication idea. but for unit and building attacks i think it would be too much as it generally happens all the time, possible a unique sound triggered, but not a voice\sentence.

+0 / -0

5 years ago
unknownrankHydris The Warzone sounds are, unsurprisingly, from Warzone 2100: http://wz2100.net/ They are free to use.
+1 / -0

5 years ago
i think alarms about stalling and excessing on eco would be helpful for people, its common, but when its stupid waste they need an audio. esp when its extreme.
+2 / -0

5 years ago
quote:
How much money should I throw at the developers to have this happen?

How much you can offer? :D
+0 / -0
5 years ago
We don't need "voices". We can get voices if we want, but I would literally much prefer just techy alert tones like the commander to a sentence alert. Age of Empires 2 never had voice alerts: just a trumpet for units under attack, and trumpet+bell for buildings/workers under attack. Not having alert tones for under attack is one of the most glaring remaining issues I have with this game. Somehow though, I can't remember losing more than a small section of the map without being aware, though. And maybe that's because of the easy zoom functionality, or because of the global weapon sounds. Thinking about this gives me nightmares of hearing the scythes' weapons.

I assumed it was just that no one has taught me the setting, yet. Is there no setting to enable "under-attack" tones?
+1 / -0


5 years ago
quote:
i think alarms about stalling and excessing on eco would be helpful for people

"You've too many minerals!"
+1 / -0
5 years ago
"Reinforcements have arrived."

TBH, the noise the commander makes while being attacked doesn't even sound all that important, I sometimes ignore it until it's too late. Something that can convey more urgency would be welcome. But not always. Which brings me to my next point.

It seems like options are not popular around here. Why can't we have a choice of whether we want sounds/voices/tts/silence/burps/whatever and just be locked into one sound scheme? I'm not talking about implementing those things (and how hard it would be), just that it sounds like in such discussions it's always assumed that we must have one thing and not some other as a choice, so if something is changed, it had better appeal to everyone... or else. Is there a reason for this?
+0 / -0

5 years ago
I want such notifications.

"Firepluk resigned!" - The sound effect has the highest sound priority in the game and it plays for every player in game (for specs also). This means it heavily tones down other game sounds for every player, making it basically the only sound they can hear during the silence.
"Antis stunned!!!" - screaming voice when your antis gots stunned by silo missile or infiltrator.
"Lobsters in pot cooked!" - successful nuke strike who obliterated more enemy in metal cost then its own cost.
"Cooking unsuccessful!" - when nuke strike is successful but it didn't make cost.
"Lobster afk!" - when ally player is afk. Second largest sound priority in game. Plays only for ally. Plays 200 times in afk player computer.
"Trollcom destroyed" - when trollcom is killed by any method (except skittle). Every player can hear. Third largest sound priority in game.
"Cooking failed." - nuke gets intercepted by antis.
"Instagib!" when your com got skittle in its face and its blown up to debris.
"Denied!" - when your own troll teammate reclaims your building (while player is afk) or nanoframe while he is building useless unit.
+2 / -0


5 years ago
There was some widget (by UArankIvica I think) with voice notifications like that, if you can find the forum thread.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
I suggested this one year ago: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/172756#172756
quote:
A sound warning in these situations:
· Strider completed
· Nuke ready
· Storage at 75% and metal excessing


IMO, adding this are a good idea:

"Factory has completed construction queue."

And these are bad idea because will happen constantly:

"Your units are under attack."
"Your <building> is under attack."

This one I'm not sure:

"Worker has completed a build queue."

Anyways, if this were configurable, everyone could enable the ones he want.
+0 / -0


5 years ago
quote:
It seems like options are not popular around here. Why can't we have a choice of whether we want sounds/voices/tts/silence/burps/whatever and just be locked into one sound scheme? I'm not talking about implementing those things (and how hard it would be), just that it sounds like in such discussions it's always assumed that we must have one thing and not some other as a choice, so if something is changed, it had better appeal to everyone... or else. Is there a reason for this?

Options are extremely popular around here. Zero-K is insanely customizable and is overflowing with things you can tweak, adjust, and outright overhaul. If you can code, you can write a widget to change pretty much anything; if you can't code, chances are good that someone has already written a widget to do what you want and all you have to do is enable it and configure it.

What the dev team is rightly cautious about is presenting too many options to the typical user and overwhelming them with choices. It's particularly bad to add options that the user has to be aware of and deal with. The devs have been working hard for the last few years to make the default user experience as good as it can be so that most users will be well-served without even knowing that options exist, let alone how to change them.

If you'd like something changed, like, say, having voice notifications, there are three approaches:
  • Persuade the devs to work on it
  • Persuade a non-dev coder to work on it
  • Write it yourself

Developer time is always limited, and in general they work on things based on what they perceive the priority is to the game overall, combined with whatever catches their interest at the time (remember, everyone is doing this purely as a hobby). So the more people who ask for some new feature, the more likely it is that the dev team will work on it. But if they don't, someone else can. I've done this a few times myself, and so have a lot of other people.

Any new thing that anyone adds becomes an option. Unless the devs think that it improves the user experience for the typical new user, it's going to default to being off. And the option itself will be buried deep in the advanced options menu, which itself is hidden by default. But it'll be there, and you can turn it on if you want it.
+3 / -0
quote:
Options are extremely popular around here. Zero-K is...


+1000000000

I was gonna make this post but didn't wanna come down too hard with it.
+1 / -0


5 years ago
quote:
chances are good that someone has already written a widget to do what you want

Case in point:
https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/blob/master/LuaUI/Widgets/gui_news_ticker.lua

And I swear I saw someone make custom voice packs that yelled "BRUTALITY!!" for attrition over 200% and shit. Maybe even had a firepluk joke. Should be in a forum thread somewhere.
+1 / -0
5 years ago
There was an announcer widget from 2014 by tom fyuri and kmar, which was capable of calling out commander and strider kills, spotting air units so you know to build AA, and it had options too.

It was a work in progress when I downloaded it, but I successfully got it to call out striders and air units as they entered LOS.
+2 / -0

5 years ago
if someone gives me a rough spec of what's needed I can look into recording

Things I'd like to know would be
1. File format
2. Single track or seperate for each clip
3. any prefered voice style (eg, gender or trying to make it more robot sounding)

starting quality will be poor but if the general idea is good I can put more effort/equipment into doing it properly
+1 / -0
5 years ago
#3

Text to speech is ok as a start - it probably easy to determine if a spoken line needs to be shortened with just that.

For voice style, I like voice in the starting section here, but with removed echo.


The clash is the audio/vocal style often complements the "refined, clean metal" space station aesthetic that Zero-K doesn't have.


#2

I don't know in what world would a single track containing every line be preferable.
+0 / -0
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