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Particularly pertaining to the sound effects of unit attacks such as the Hydralisk and the Zealot vs the SC1 sound effects for these units.
Seasoned Starcraft veterans have taken for granted the distinguishability and genius that the sound director from the first Starcraft had for the unit attacks. A player could literally play the game with his monitor off and tell you what is going on just by hearing the sounds. The sounds of hydralisks attacking vs zerglings attacking is very very different. The clatter of zealot blades swiping, very apparent. Oh, and the extremely alarming sound of the DT slash, telling the player to immediately comsat.
I feel like whoever directed the sound effects in SC2 didn't really think about how important sounds are. Zealot attack sound effect is really "soft" and weak sounding. Hydralisk spitting sounds nothing like spitting. There are many other sounds that simply sound weaker than before (can anything compare to the thunderous shockwave that the old siege tank made?). The result is a blended mess of sounds, none really discerning enough for even a seasoned player to recognize.
Perhaps I am assuming too much... maybe we will learn to love the sounds of these new zealots... but so far, I'm not very impressed with it and I can't see it catching on. The sad thing is, I dont think these things are really looked at closely by Blizzard right now.
thoughts?
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Sound is by far the worst feature of SC2.
Too much bass, too few trebles. Everything sounds somewhat 'muted' and every single sound blends into the other one. That's not really a coincidence, the game doesn't utilize even half of the sound spectrum. Some sounds are just plain bad - compared to SC1, marine death in SC2 is just laughable.
Yeah, I kinda agree that everything is very soft - in fact, the secret of SC sounds was that every single one had an 'impact' point percussive sound at high frequency, be it ling attack, zealot blade swipe or a tank blast. SC2 lacks that, sound are there, but they don't have distinct impact points and thus blend into a cacophony.
Needs remake, almost everything, to be honest.
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I agree the sounds are real weak. I may just import my SC1 sounds into SC2 if they don't improve them.
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It's still beta, and I'm sure many of the sounds aren't done or final.
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On February 21 2010 18:34 Vedic wrote:
It's still beta, and I'm sure many of the sounds aren't done or final.
I would say that most if not all of them are final. This is not the sort of thing they are looking to change afaik.
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I really dislike the Terran music thus far. 
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+ Show Spoiler [op's post] +On February 21 2010 17:40 TSL-Lore wrote:
Particularly pertaining to the sound effects of unit attacks such as the Hydralisk and the Zealot vs the SC1 sound effects for these units.
Seasoned Starcraft veterans have taken for granted the distinguishability and genius that the sound director from the first Starcraft had for the unit attacks. A player could literally play the game with his monitor off and tell you what is going on just by hearing the sounds. The sounds of hydralisks attacking vs zerglings attacking is very very different. The clatter of zealot blades swiping, very apparent. Oh, and the extremely alarming sound of the DT slash, telling the player to immediately comsat.
I feel like whoever directed the sound effects in SC2 didn't really think about how important sounds are. Zealot attack sound effect is really "soft" and weak sounding. Hydralisk spitting sounds nothing like spitting. There are many other sounds that simply sound weaker than before (can anything compare to the thunderous shockwave that the old siege tank made?). The result is a blended mess of sounds, none really discerning enough for even a seasoned player to recognize.
Perhaps I am assuming too much... maybe we will learn to love the sounds of these new zealots... but so far, I'm not very impressed with it and I can't see it catching on. The sad thing is, I dont think these things are really looked at closely by Blizzard right now.
thoughts?
I didn't think the sounds were too bad, but the way you put it in this post is just dead-on. I know it's a lot of work, but I do hope they basically from the ground-up review all sounds in the game.
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I also dislike new unit sounds - maybe it is because we got used to old ones. I really think that old units should not be completely changed like now but simply just improved. I fear however that it may be too late to change seeing that non-english sounds are already done.
Also not having music while watching replay drives me nuts.
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Agree they are bad
The marine death HAS to be a placeholder
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if I made the game, tbh making the sounds would be my last priority
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On February 21 2010 18:27 BluzMan wrote:
Sound is by far the worst feature of SC2.
Too much bass, too few trebles. Everything sounds somewhat 'muted' and every single sound blends into the other one. That's not really a coincidence, the game doesn't utilize even half of the sound spectrum. Some sounds are just plain bad - compared to SC1, marine death in SC2 is just laughable.
Yeah, I kinda agree that everything is very soft - in fact, the secret of SC sounds was that every single one had an 'impact' point percussive sound at high frequency, be it ling attack, zealot blade swipe or a tank blast. SC2 lacks that, sound are there, but they don't have distinct impact points and thus blend into a cacophony.
Needs remake, almost everything, to be honest. Totally my thoughts on SC2 sounds. Hearing Tanks siege in SC always gives me chills as the inevitable roar of blazing arcitle shock cannons blasting everything into oblivion would come second later, it's awesome. So are also sounds of dying units like goon or hydra.
There are almost none characteristic sounds in SC2, like tanks sounds while having decent quality and sci-fi feel, does not have this hammering feeling. (muta sound are imho good thou)
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I thought the sound of the Dark Templars attack was very bad sounding, I think it should sound like a light saber, not like someone is swinging a stick, pretty bad.
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I disagree, the zerg sound great. I reckon they will get just as recognizable once we get used to it.
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i think maby its just to many sounds or not enough customization of sounds.. i know it saying your units are under attack is nice but even when its your teammates scout it gets annoying and arent able to customize it.
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On February 21 2010 18:27 BluzMan wrote:
Sound is by far the worst feature of SC2..
Sound is very bad.
But battlenet 2.0 is the worst feature of Starcraft 2 so far:
- No chat rooms
- No online replays
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On February 21 2010 18:39 So no fek wrote:I really dislike the Terran music thus far.
I like it ^^
they went a bit far making it sound like blizzard was a company from texas but it still sorta fits I think.
I agree with pretty much everything people said about the sounds though. Ultra unit attack sound also needs to change imo, not powerful enough.
But there already was a thread about SC2 Unit Noises sounding weak.
On February 21 2010 19:53 Highways wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2010 18:27 BluzMan wrote:
Sound is by far the worst feature of SC2.. Sound is very bad. But battlenet 2.0 is the worst feature of Starcraft 2 so far: - No chat rooms - No online replays
Yeah no chat rooms is still such a travesty but I already knew they wouldnt implement these things at release. They better do it in a patch real fast though :/
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On February 21 2010 19:01 freelander wrote:
if I made the game, tbh making the sounds would be my last priority
That attitude is really dated. Clever sound design has made (and destroyed) many games. The original Half-Life was a huge success due to not only playability, but the feel of the game. The graphics were nice, but the sound there was brilliant (from a sound engineering point on the FX work, nearly non-existent music and the huge emphasis on atmospheric sounds to give it that creepy horror-film type immersion) and set it apart from the Unreal series for instance. I can go even earlier (Star Control 2, Street Fighter 2, Super Mario Brothers) to show where sound complimenting the gameplay had a huge role.
Blizzard have always been acutely aware of this. I have only watched the beta streamed - but I think that the sounds are overall OK, while not quite as distinct as the SC1 sounds (which is a huge point for SC1's brilliance), I have to wonder how much of that is our ears being tuned to SC1's sounds. There is such a thing as learned listening, which no doubt plays a massive part in the average player's conceptions. We all learned to notice the details of audio in SC1 for years now. I think that (from what I heard) SC2's sound scheme is a more modern take (doesn't allow the FX to clash to extremely with the background music, etc), but the engineering work on it is also very well done. If you notice the finer details of the audio, each attack has a very distinct feel. And with experience, it will become just as clear for the average gamer what does what when each sound is heard.
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On February 21 2010 20:09 Kazius wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2010 19:01 freelander wrote:
if I made the game, tbh making the sounds would be my last priority That attitude is really dated. Clever sound design has made (and destroyed) many games. The original Half-Life was a huge success due to not only playability, but the feel of the game. The graphics were nice, but the sound there was brilliant (from a sound engineering point on the FX work, nearly non-existent music and the huge emphasis on atmospheric sounds to give it that creepy horror-film type immersion) and set it apart from the Unreal series for instance. I can go even earlier
Except that unreal had way better sounds lol.
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Yes, definitely, the sound is by far the worst feature of SC2 at this point.
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EPT
