Quake Wars Sounds

(UberZerplatzer) #1

I have played the beta for quite a while now and need to talk about the sounds…

ET:QW is on the top of my most-wanted-list and will stay there. It has enormous potential and depth to motivate long time. Also the graphics are quake-like strong and even the intro music and GDF/Strogg voices are really well done BUT…

… many of the in-game-sounds for weapons, explosions, vehicles, impact are really “insufficient”. I feel that takes away a lot of the fun firing a weapon and atmosphere. You use the world’s heaviest weapons and they sound like using a stapler or hole puncher. A heavy tank or cyclops mech firing and explosion is nearly not audible. It reminds me a bit of the Doom3 machine gun which sounded like a sewing machine. Also I experienced the automatic weapons fire very uneven and stutter (at least on my pc: C2Duo, RadX1950Pro, 2GB). OK I know it is still BETA…

On the effects sounds part at least the Battlefield series succeed much better yet. But I’m sure if Splash Damage gets also this parts right until release ET:QW will rock.

What do you think?

(BondyBoy007) #2

as far as the sounds go, most past Id beta’s have had their sounds overhauled massivly for the retail release, hopefully this will be the same with ET:QW :wink:

(Dr_Tenma) #3

At first, the sound sort of bothered me too. After having played Company of Heroes, I sort of expected the same earth-shattering effects for 105mm howitzer artillery strikes (the craters, the huge dust clouds kicked up, and the deafening noise that drowns out all other sounds).

It stopped bothering me though. Of course the sounds could be better and guns could be more powerful sounding, but it doesn’t seem like a high priority at all. I’m also sort of glad that explosions are ludicrously loud since this game has a lot of them going off all the time. I don’t need to be deaf by the time I’m 30.

(General.Jung) #4

Hello Forum,

the sounds are mostly OK. But the quality of the sounds is really poor. I prefer some X-Fi optimisation. Only the High Comand voice are nearly perfect. Crows Incoming I love that. The v chat could be a little bit military.

(airon) #5

Maybe they cut the sound down in size or it’s getting polished right now and it wasn’t ready for the beta.

I couldn’t even look in to the pk4 files. No dev info yet either on the sound system, right ?

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #6

everyone is freaking out about the sounds. I don’t know how the sound files in Q4 work per say. People were talking about different file formats and crap. But from the looks of things, the beta is using MAINLY 22kHz .wav and OGG files. I guess I could google OGG but I’m not in the mood.

and before you accuse me of decrypting files, open your console and try “listsounds”. It’s all there. It always has been. So don’t sweat the sounds from what I can tell.


44kHz    137ms     4kB  OGG sounds/ui/main/cancel_02.wav
   44kHz     56ms     3kB  OGG sounds/ui/main/click_01.wav
   44kHz      2ms     3kB  OGG sounds/ui/main/highlight_01.wav
   44kHz    274ms     5kB  OGG sounds/ui/main/open_04.wav
   44kHz    308ms     5kB  OGG sounds/ui/main/close_04.wav
   22kHz     64ms     2kB  OGG sounds/guis/click.wav
   22kHz    100ms     2kB  OGG sounds/guis/boop.wav
   44kHz    186ms    16kB (null) video/intro_512x512.theora (DEFAULTED)
   22kHz    541ms    23kB  WAV sounds/_default.wav
   22kHz    675ms    29kB  WAV sounds/weapons/assaultrifle/m16_01.wav
   22kHz    697ms    29kB  WAV sounds/weapons/assaultrifle/m16_02.wav
   22kHz    681ms    29kB  WAV sounds/weapons/assaultrifle/m16_03.wav
ST 44kHz 503842ms  1776kB  OGG sounds/music/mainmenu.wav
ST 44kHz 174942ms   692kB  OGG sounds/music/load2.wav
ST 44kHz 248062ms   786kB  OGG sounds/music/load1.wav
ST 44kHz 178905ms   646kB  OGG sounds/music/load3.wav

...

  22kHz    929ms    39kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/dirt_03.wav
   22kHz     86ms     3kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/stone_08.wav
   22kHz     83ms     3kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/stone_09.wav
   22kHz     88ms     3kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/stone_10.wav
   22kHz    420ms    18kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/metal_01.wav
   22kHz    440ms    18kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/metal_02.wav
   22kHz    372ms    15kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/metal_03.wav
   22kHz    370ms    15kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/glass_01.wav
   22kHz    296ms    12kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/glass_02.wav
   22kHz    333ms    14kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/glass_03.wav
   22kHz    762ms    32kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/shield_01.wav
   22kHz    292ms    12kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/shield_02.wav
   22kHz    504ms    21kB  WAV sounds/weapons/impacts/shield_03.wav
   22kHz   1282ms    55kB  WAV sounds/weapons/lacerator/ximpact_01.wav
   22kHz   1002ms    43kB  WAV sounds/weapons/lacerator/ximpact_02.wav
   22kHz   1131ms    48kB  WAV sounds/weapons/lacerator/ximpact_03.wav
   22kHz   1052ms    45kB  WAV sounds/weapons/machinepistol/fire_01.wav
   22kHz    588ms    25kB  WAV sounds/weapons/machinepistol/fire_far.wav
ST 22kHz   1804ms    77kB  WAV sounds/weapons/machinepistol/fire_local_01.wav
ST 22kHz   1849ms    79kB  WAV sounds/weapons/machinepistol/fire_local_02.wav
ST 22kHz   1804ms    77kB  WAV sounds/weapons/machinepistol/fire_local_03.wav
   22kHz    472ms     4kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/mech.wav
   22kHz    388ms     4kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/cock.wav     <<heh heh.  Cock.  heh heh.  (couldn't resist)
   22kHz   1577ms     9kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/reload.wav
   22kHz    236ms     3kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/release.wav
   44kHz    425ms     6kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/raise.wav
   44kHz    402ms     6kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/sights_up.wav
   44kHz    385ms     5kB  OGG sounds/weapons/machinepistol/sights_down.wav

EDIT: hopefully it’s cool to post this. I’ve been resisting posting on the community forums for a long time just in case.

(Dr_Tenma) #7

OGG is the Ogg Vorbis format for video and sound. I don’t know the technical details, but they’re supposed to have superior quality and compression ratio to the more standard mp3 and avi formats. I remember getting the plug-ins to play ogg’s a while back, but it never seemed to get as popular as lossless FLAC for audio or h264 encoded mkv’s for video.

By the way, I just noticed that the assault rifle sounds in the X360 videos from E3 are different than what’s currently in the public beta. Probably many more sounds cut from the beta to reduce filesize. I’m sure a lot of the sounds have higher quality version in the newer builds of the game.

Hell, I didn’t even realize the beta didn’t have bloom effects available until I read comments off forums. I’m sure there are tons of features missing.

(Dr_Tenma) #8

Just thought I’d bump this thread in light of the new sounds in the ETQW public beta 2. Here’s a random video I found.

The GDF gun sounds are much improved - definitely “meatier” and more powerful sounding. I’m pretty sure they changed the sounds for almost every GDF gun, as well as engineer mines, grenades and the Hammer/DMC…

Which is insanely BADASS, in my opinion. The big Hammer or Dark Matter Cannon explosion now puts out a huge boom and a rumble effect. Couldn’t find an example video of it though.

(UberZerplatzer) #9

Yeah right… :wink:

Just played the BETA 2 and recognized that they are also working on the sounds. The GDF Guns sound better and I just noticed the Strogg Aggressor Hyperblaster now sounds really PHATT :smiley: (However, the Hyperblaster mounted on vehicles still has the old weak sound :o). Also I think lots of other sounds have been made better than in the first beta.

Finally… they are tweaking the sounds and the rest of the game - that’s good news… Greetz

(CyburK) #10

i just watched a few videos of qwet and i find it very annoying that everybody screams “grenade” when throwing one.

(Snoofer) #11

youll get used to it

its more annoying if you rush a door and your mate nades you cause you didnt knew bout the nade thrown in there a second ago

(CyburK) #12

never had any problems with that in wolf et.

(amazinglarry) #13

lol must not have played much ET then.

(kamikazee) #14

lol must not have played much ET then.[/quote]Well, there are people who pick their servers carefully. :look:

(SoulRebel) #15

hello!
edit: my question resolved itself…
greetings…

(BlackEyez) #16

i think that the quad for the GDF sounds so… wimpy

(Loffy) #17

Some significant sounds are low keyed, and in some cases even mundane, because we are going to play this game for years and years.

(Dr_Tenma) #18

I think the sound effects are generally good, I’m glad I’m not constantly deafened by the number of explosions that happen in this game. I love the hammer/DMC effects, they’re probably the best in the game; but would you like it to sound like this all the time? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lglL0_LpWok)

I think the sounds work as they should, for the most part. After playing Company of Heroes, I expected a bit more from the GDF howitzer artillery sounds but that’s an extremely minor complaint. Also, the sound of the tank cannon firing it actually louder than the sound of it’s shot exploding which is strange.