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That's right

That is right

[MaDeR Levap]

I rather like seeing cheerful little countryside Fortresses, filled with cartoonish, colorful graphics of dwarves... coupled with endless wars, unknowable horrors from the deeps, mining accidents, medical malpractice, and the stench of rotting dwarf-corpse wafting in from the mass graves right next to the stone stockpiles, which slowly drive the residents into a madness to rival that of the Elder Gods.

It's a beautiful little irony.

It would be much, much better if stonesense could draw all these stones, equipment, blood, vomit, corpses etc.

[forsaken1111]

I rather like seeing cheerful little countryside Fortresses, filled with cartoonish, colorful graphics of dwarves... coupled with endless wars, unknowable horrors from the deeps, mining accidents, medical malpractice, and the stench of rotting dwarf-corpse wafting in from the mass graves right next to the stone stockpiles, which slowly drive the residents into a madness to rival that of the Elder Gods.

It's a beautiful little irony.

It would be much, much better slower if stonesense could draw all these stones, equipment, blood, vomit, corpses etc.

[Solifuge]

Both of you are equally true.

Also, Thoughts on Sounds/Music in Stonesense. Go!

[forsaken1111]

Both of you are equally true.

Also, Thoughts on Sounds/Music in Stonesense. Go!

Thoughts on sounds/music:

I don't care if the game ever includes sounds/music, much less a visualizer.

[jonask84]

Evening y'all. Just for your information I updated the RC2 release with the .06 memory file. nothing else changed. We're still looking at some bugs, but it seems most of the crash bugs can be fixed by switching render mode, and most of the can't connect bugs are actuality legacy versions of DF or OS access issues.


On music: I don't think I have the technical skills to merge music into the visualizer in a way that is pleasing. For now I think Winamp will have to do

On ambient sounds: More do-able. But a few questions arise: we can't pick up on events (like baby born, cow slaughtered, axe strikes goblin neck, etc) so it would have to be more like the sounds of a stream, or snoring from a sleeping dwarf (IM RAMBLING HERE PEOPLE). Also, the goal must be to make it sound nice, and even if we could play sounds based on stuff like this; where would we get them, and i a quality and from that is pleasing.

[Cruxador]

Both of you are equally true.

Also, Thoughts on Sounds/Music in Stonesense. Go!

I think that sounds and music don't belong in stonesense. There's no reason for them. You don't need auditory feedback, and for music, people will like there own iTunes list better anyway.

[Haspen]

Both of you are equally true.

Also, Thoughts on Sounds/Music in Stonesense. Go!

I think that sounds and music don't belong in stonesense. There's no reason for them. You don't need auditory feedback, and for music, people will like there own iTunes list better anyway.

I highly second those wise words.

[Solifuge]

The primary thing that would make built-in sound worthwhile would be making the ambience react to certain aspects of the game. You canquickly convey global information with sound, with ambience tied to the current Z-Level (Above vs. Underground), predominant tile features (Rivers, Sand, Coast, Mountains), etc. By tying sounds to announcement messages ("dog/cat/cow has been struck down" or "Horrors! [redacted] in the deep!"), you can call attention to events that a player might want to react to, and help set the mood for impending Fun.

We often don't notice how it impacts us, since we are so steeped in it these days, but musiic and sound play a huge role in immersion, as large as the visual elements of a game.

The biggest thing against it would be difficulty in coding, the performance hit, and whether it would promise enough interesting sound-related features to make it worth the cost in time and processing.

[forsaken1111]

That may be your opinion Soli, and how the sounds affect you, but I actually play most games with either the music or all sounds off. In general I find video game sounds and music to be repetitive and grating with a very few exceptions.

[Cult of the Raven]

I would vote no sound, because Stonesense is a visualizing utility, and there's no reason for a visualizer to have sound. I think if you were to have sounds from DF that reacted to the game, you might want to take it up with toady.

[jonask84]

I think you're absolutely right Solifuge, in games (and other media of course) sounds help us immerse ourselves, and if we were making a game I would certainly agree we need to look at it. I'm sure you agree it'd have to be done right, and I think there are too many pitfalls right now to do it without writing it into the game itself. Stonesense is a visualizer, and will be limited by this. It could be an interesting fork/side project if anyone wants to dabble with it tho

[kaypy]

It could be an interesting fork/side project if anyone wants to dabble with it tho

Been there, done that (although not as part of stonesense).

Read gamelog.txt. Match by regex. Play appropriate sound. About an evenings hacking.

[Solifuge]

TL;DR - Stonesense, as far as my involvement has been concerned, is about experimenting with, testing, and providing interface features for players that would help the general gaming public get into and enjoy DF, without causing additional work or stress to Tarn. Do you think you, or the general public, would get more enjoyment out of DF with limited sound, and why? If so, in what way do you think it'd be best to implement sound, and what would you like it to do? What would you like it NOT to do?

I would vote no sound, because Stonesense is a visualizing utility, and there's no reason for a visualizer to have sound. I think if you were to have sounds from DF that reacted to the game, you might want to take it up with toady.

Stonesense is like a patch to fill in the gaps in DF's current user-end functionality. Tarn is very busy on the features and gameplay of his project, but many people are kept away from supporting and enjoying it by the seeming crudeness of it. This is the reason people use external utilities, like Stonesense. The question I am posing is this: what other features (in this case, related to sound and music) would people like to see implemented in DF?

If people are opposed to sound because they think it would cheapen their DF experience, that's a great thing to take into consideration. If Japa, Jonask, Peterix, or any other contributors think that the difficulty and/or the limited scope of implementing it would outweigh the benefits, that's a good thing to think twice about. To oppose it because Stonesense is referred to as a Visualizer, or because Tarn hasn't implemented sound, is entirely silly... most everything Stonesense does hasn't been implemented yet.

The point of the Stonesense project, as far as my involvement has been, is to design something that can run paralell to DF, and add generic user-end features that Tarn presently doesn't have the time to play around with or consider. This may include reporting and logging information, viewing multiple layers of construction, or things not capable of being displayed by ASCII characters, and adding other elements that further the enjoyment people get out of the program. In the end, I hope we can provide an example of a display/interface for DF for him to consider when he gets to that step in his design process, and in the meantime improve my own digital art and interface design knowledge.

So yeah, in summary what features (specifically related to sound) do you think would help or harm the enjoyment you get out of DF? Would you benefit from a randomized song playlist, or perhaps one that played music based on what's happening in the game? Would a simple ambient sounds of running water while viewing a river, or a hollow dripping echo as you explored caves in adventure mode make you happy? Would endless "YOU HAVE STRUCK MICROCLINE!" fanfares drive you into a fell mood?

[Cruxador]

So yeah, in summary what features (specifically related to sound) do you think would help or harm the enjoyment you get out of DF?

Any of the sound would harm enjoyment. But if you want to put in the time to make appropriate sounds and add them, that's your own prerogative. Just as long as we can turn them off.

[Khalan]

I think ambient sounds would be great, as an option of course.