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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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 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 :/
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.
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
generally i agree that the sound pack in sc2 is worse than in sc1. overall, alleviated by being used to the old sonds, i have the impression that sc2 sounds have to get tweaked here and there. Allthough, there are not only bad changes. anyways, i prefere blizzard geting sc2 ready first and resolving the sound issue later.
in terms of zerg audio, i think the job has been done decently. the only thing i mind is the voice of the swarm you hear when your drones are under attack. representling a monsterous hive conscious the voice sould be more powerfull. rgarding the story i understand is has to be a female one but the voice could still have more pressure and maybe sond more determined or dominating.
i cannot say much about terran in this regard as i disliked the terran audio style in sc1 as well. therefor i lack the aproptiate reference to tell wether its worse or equally good.
for protoss,what is my home in the game, i really dislike the "voice" and the wording of the new zealots or that of the high templers. the already mentioned weak attack sounds are a shortfall as well but somewhat accetable. the probe sound is quiet nice. its steady and, as it was in sc1, not annoying at all. also the sounds of the colossus and immortals are quiet good. allthough i will miss the wired sound of goons dying, i really like what they did to the stalkers. the wording is sweet and the voice suits the way i imagine a protoss spirit. This is an example for the direction i would like the ptotoss sounds to go to.
imo it's part of the whole make-the-game-more-realistic-thing while in SC1 we just didn't have needed to do sth like this. It's the same with graphics and pathfinding. They seem to be striving to make the game more sci-fi-ish.
The thing here is that in sc1 we were used to those crisp, sharp sounds and it was part of the whole feel of the game. Even though they may not have been as realistic as their sc2 counterparts are, sc1 sounds are very characteristic and lovable. It all comes down to the question - do we really want everything to be realistic? As a die hard gamer, I'm very willing to sacrifice a lot of the realism in order to get better gaming experience. But as this product is going to be broadcasted and hopefully reach a very larger audience than the current RTS gaming world, it would make sense for Blizzard to want to make it more believable.
Hopefully, Blizzard would find a solution that suits everybody.
One thing that imo would at least do no harm may be making the game's visual and audio experience as customizable as possible. I'm not sure what the options are as I don't have a beta key, but hopefully we would have a fair amount of control over what we see and hear during the game.
dint worry guys, its new its unknown, its frighting, you are like the goup of people, who starte complaining of the train noises next to the village and sued the railway company when they found out that they had changed their train signals 6 month ago...... what this got to do with SC2??? ...... the company proved that in fact, they made the noise 10 Dezibell quieter, but they also changed it by an Octave, and all the people who got used to it for 60 years suddenly couldnt get a good night sleep!!
when SC3 comes out in 15 Years we will have this discussion all over again
siege tanks shots sound doesn't pack the punch and intensity as they did in SC1, thor shot sounds pansy, u'd expect it to be epic with some one like Arnold shooting it. actually most of the attacking sound effects are pansy, hydralisk, phoenix, stalkers, zealots, queen etc etc, not as dramatic and lack the intensity and pitch as it did from SC1 imo... marine death scream isn't gory enough too lol.
the first track was epic, if they had redone that epic terran soundtrack from SC1 and put them into the terran theme i'd be happy... protoss music isn't done yet i think, its been looping the same stuff forever, zerg musics are pretty awesome, but could be better imo...
The music is fine, the voices are fine, but there are a few sound effects that are lackluster. I say a few because I just went back into the game just to listen to the sounds and found that a lot of them are actually pretty sharp. The few sound effects that feel muffled or indistinct probably sound so because their BW counterparts were so poignant.
Of course that shouldn't be an excuse. Lacking sound effects should be revised. My personal priorities would be on the zergling, zealot, and marine sounds, but there are definitely others that could be improved.
Hydras shouldn't be made to sound like spitting, because they aren't spitting. The SC1 hydra sound, while distinctive, is objectively pretty dumb if you think about it without the ten years of nostalgia that have burned it into your head. The new one has more of a "knives in the air" kind of sound which I actually quite like.
And the old zergling "thump" didn't make a lot of sense either, the new sound is more appropriate. Remember that zerg is a swarming race. Think of horror movies with swarms of insects, even though the individual sound is non-threatening, compounding it makes it quite scary. I think it's fine for a small weak zergling to have a mild individual sound that intensifies as more of them team up, producing the more chilling effect of sheer numbers.
Overall I think it's probably mostly just a nostalgia thing and I think the new sounds will be fine, especially a year or two (or five, or ten) down the road when you've gotten used to them.
They NEED to fix some of the music, because it has 'explosions' or 'booms' mixed into some of the songs, and it can really throw you off when you're playing.
The sound mauraders make when their rockets hit a target is really akward and loud.. I dunno but the sounds in SC1 sounded far more balanced and didn't make you cringe when hearing them.
Im worried about certain sound effects. Feels like the zerg units are far too subtle while Protoss unit attacksounds are overwhelming and over-the-top "pew pew!".
I do agree that the terran sound track is too much "cowboys in space" rather than metal-type music like in sc1.
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.
Yes, I can agree with that, but my point is that Miley Cyrus's music sounds much better than Pink Floyd. "Sounds better" goes only so far in sound design. The sounds in Half-Life fit what the game was trying to accomplish much better than any game that came out two years before and after it (immersive, somewhat spooky gameplay design), while Unreal just went with the standard formula. It's a design choice, that coincided with the rest of the game. The original Unreal Tournament was also a game where the sound engineering was spot on, but in sequels they tried going for a more "classy" route and lost a lot of the energy that made UT special, despite the sound quality being far better. There is a massive difference between the "quality" of specific sounds (in which SC1 stinks by modern standards) and the overall design goals.
Examples of the shifts in SC2 sound choices over SC1: Terran music: from generic (yet awesome) high energy hype music into a Fireflyesque "cowboys in space" theme, to accent the race as a colonial, on the frontier, gritty and rough around the edges. Protoss music: less serene, more epic, to help accent the design of the race as being an advanced warrior race, with a very "large" feeling to accent their connection to space/void/whatever spacey thing. Zerg music: still creepy and trying to accent the organic feel. More refined this time around, less down-to-earth sound selection in order to help dehumanize them.
All the themes have been chosen to accommodate the racial typecasting from the earlier game, yet refine it further alongside with the graphical choices. The same is true with the unit voices. All these are done in a much more planned way than SC1.
As to the FX themselves and how they fit in... well, I haven't played the game, and therefor can't really comment about that in depth. But I have trust in the Blizzard audio crew as they are top notch pros, and I believe many of the qualms people have now will be solved by playing the game more and one day realizing that once you get used to it, it is in many ways superior to SC1 in this arena.
Most of the sounds are great. You guys have mentioned several shortcomings that I agree with, but what of the ones you didn't mention? A lot of the sounds are quite nice, and you need to realize that some of your hesitation is just being stuck in your ways for twelve years.
On February 21 2010 21:41 Shizuru~ wrote: siege tanks shots sound doesn't pack the punch and intensity as they did in SC1, thor shot sounds pansy, u'd expect it to be epic with some one like Arnold shooting it. actually most of the attacking sound effects are pansy, hydralisk, phoenix, stalkers, zealots, queen etc etc, not as dramatic and lack the intensity and pitch as it did from SC1 imo... marine death scream isn't gory enough too lol.
the first track was epic, if they had redone that epic terran soundtrack from SC1 and put them into the terran theme i'd be happy... protoss music isn't done yet i think, its been looping the same stuff forever, zerg musics are pretty awesome, but could be better imo...
Damn dude, thanks for the video, I wanted to listen to the musics and see if they're good.. As you said, Terran's and Zerg's musics are pretty good, and I think Protoss' is very soft right know, but protoss = gay so I think it's fine.
I agree about the sound effects, in SC1 the zerg units all sounded zerg-ish but you still could tell them apart. But not in SC2.
I was thinking about importing the SC1 sounds to SC2 too <_<
imho the worst job is on the melee and zerg units overall.
zealots sound like wussies. hydras attack is pretty much nonexistant both in visualeffect and sound.zerglings dont sound as aggressive and btw look gay with the wings.
there some good ones in already but overall they are MUCH MUCH worse then sc1 sounds. they just lack a real punch most of the time.
the voices (sounds units make when you click them) are great, but the attack/death sounds are pretty awful, especially when comparing to sc1. mutalisks no longer scream when attacking, all you hear is a weird explosion sound like they were armed with cannons
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?
exactly my thoughts. maybe i'll get used to some of the sounds, but that fuzzy *woosh* *woosh* of the zealot attack for example will always sound a lot weaker to me than the original one.
Zerglings sound like rubber bands when they attack now. Tanks don't sound like they pack a punch at all. Zealots blade went from hard impact to soft impact.
I do agree that the terran sound track is too much "cowboys in space" rather than metal-type music like in sc1.
Oh man, watching the 'Firefly' series has made me fall completely in love with this kind of music. I think the cowboy-ish feel totally fits in with the whole lost-in-space theme for Terran.
wow I'm really surprised so many people don't like the sound effects. I can't get enough of the terran theme/effects. I thought the marine fire sound was iconic the second I heard it! Love hearing that when the first marine tries to take out the first overlord. And the entire race IS cowboys in space! Music fits perfectly in my eyes. Love the radio "crackling" every time the marauders pipe up too. Other sounds I thought were great were the baneling morph^^ really makes you think something nasty's about to hatch
yeah gotta agree, the sound is very underwhelming. Everything sounds muffled and boring, lings hitting on buildings sounds like they punch in a sand bag and not like claws hacking away at solid material which would make a 'hard' sound like in sc1. Sounds definitely need major rework imo.
Almost all of the others aren't distinctive enough. The worst ones are probably the ultras, hydras, stalkers, and zealots. I can deal with the siege mode attack, but the sieging itself is just terrible compared to the heavy mechanized sound it had in sc1. I really don't know what the sound designers could be doing at this stage in development, so I think they should work on revamping the lackluster sounds.
Honestly I think the muffled part has to do with the fact that they account for large battles where all the sounds overlap. As swooshy as the new zealot sound is, go listen to 8 zealots in sc1 beating on a building.. it's far from pleasant sounding^^; I agree it sounds manlier, but I think that if the old sound wasn't so engrained in you you'd probably go "wtf this is deafening!" I agree with the hydralisk sounds though.. you can barely hear OR see whether those guys are attacking.. I like the zergling sound when there's a ton of them. Overall I think sc2 sounds are just made to scale better in the big battles. I mean.. 8 lurkers attacking in SC1 sounds terrible to my ears. Yes a loud "scratch fingernails on this chalkboard" gets the point across that something bad is happening, but that doesn't make it a good sound.
OK please guys address these 2 point... I need to know what you think.
1- Obviously the Zerg's 'you need more mineralesss' is terrible. Can you even play with that? It annoys me so much. Luckily I don't play zerg cause I'm horrible at it.
2- SIEGE TANKS. HOLY MOTHER OF F. Remember in SC1 when you'd send stuff in tanks and omg explosions everywhere, it was great... Now siege tanks sound like a joke.... =(
The music reminds me of the Firefly series with all the violins and stuff, actually, the whole terran race is a bunch of space cowboys. I don't think the music is bad, but I always thought of terran as less hillbilly and more dangerous like the marine in the first trailer. But I can live with that, its blizzard and they have always had a piece of humor added to their games. And I don't remember which one, but one terran unit in SC2 sounds like Arnold Swarchenegger.
Yeah I would definitely agree that a lot of the units don't make a very loud or distinctive sound. I really have to agree with you about the zealot and the dt. That's my biggest complaint with SC2. The sounds suck.
I feel like with enough community feedback we could get some unit sounds changed. For those of you complaining about the music, you're SOL...you can tell a TON of work went into those Terran tracks and that those are going to be in the game. I quite like them, particularly the ones that aren't as honky tonk country, but I like the acoustic bits too. The violin is kinda o.O though. I've never seen firefly so I can't comment.
I'm also not thrilled about the sound of the siege tank. This is such an important unit for them to get right. The sound of siege tanks in the first game put the fear of god into opponents. The raising of the cannon was like the Siege Tank's "voice," a terrifying scream, and for that distinct sound to be gone is pretty upsetting. New siege tank just has too many kinks and parts going on, and its certainly not scary.
WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALEZ <- that HAS to be changed.
Agreed, the sound is a bit of a trouble spot in Starcraft 2. I love some sounds like the Time Warp ability and the warp-in (I've watched mainly Protoss players), but the zerg voice and the zealot blades sound awful.
Screw realism, I don't care if the Zealot or Zergling attack sounds weren't realistic. They were fucking awesome and iconic. I think Zealots attacking are too swish swish and Zergling sounds are too splat splat, it doesn't get me excited at all like BW sounds did.
i miss the roar of the ultralisk and the growl of the zealot when it attacks or the fear that you get in your heart when you hear tanks sieging outside your base, or a DT swipe in your nat. if they don't fix it, you can be damn sure i'm going to find a way to plop SC1 sounds into SC2.
edit: to be honest, it seems more and more to me like blizzard kind of overlooked the sound effect aspect of the game and essentially what they did was 'okay we have a theme, flavor, some cool lines from starcraft brood war (think HONOR GUIDE ME), and some recording equipment. let's make some sound effects!' ...and completely overlooked the factors that i describe above, or that are all over this thread
when I hear the protoss guy say YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL PYLONS i'm think to myself 'psh you sound like some 18 year old kid who somehow landed a supervisor job' when i hear aldaris say it i think 'FUCK! FINE!'
tl;dr version: the starcraft 2 sounds don't have the timeless awesomeness that bw sounds did. edit 2: the music is baller though.
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.
On February 23 2010 06:37 Zexion wrote: It's beta...
I'm sick of these people. Prior to the beta release, every time someone whined, these ``beta polices" showed up in no time and bashed the crap out of them. Now beta is out, they're still posting shits like this.
On February 23 2010 06:37 Zexion wrote: It's beta...
I'm sick of these people. Prior to the beta release, every time someone whined, these ``beta polices" showed up in no time and bashed the crap out of them. Now beta is out, they're still posting shits like this.
This is very true. So many people just respond with "it's beta" ... but what is the point of a beta anyways? For players to discover and point out what they don't like about the game so that when the game is released, it will be polished. Anyways, this beta is one of the most complete and playable betas ever released, and Blizzard boasts this. Thus, talking about these finer aspects, such as sound, is totally valid.
But actually, I'm concerned because sound effects are tremendously important to whether a game will live through the test of time (ie: starcraft 1, X-Com UFO defense) or die out soon after its release (X-Com Apocalypse, lol). I'm sure all of us here want SC2 to live through the test of time.
I also think the music sounds a bit too weak. They don't necessarily sound awful, but they aren't as powerful as the old themes. When you listen to protoss themed music in sc1, you would get pumped up by it. I don't get this strong feeling when I listen to any of the new songs.
The sound is easily the weakest part of SC2 right now. I'm not too worried because a lot of the sounds are so bad that they seem like obvious placeholders, but I'll still give feedback since it's more important than ever to do so.
The most common complaints, and ones that I agree with, are a lot of the attacking sounds. The main thing that SC1 had was that every unit attacking sound was completely distinct. The difference between a Dark Templar swipe and a Zealot swipe was clear as night and day. Both sounds were very loud with a nice "booming" quality, whereas in SC2 the sounds are still distinct, but are much more softer than before. In fact pretty much every unit sounds a lot more subdued than they were in SC1. SC1 siege tanks had much more impressive explosion sounds than the new one does, and while the zealot attack sound made no sense whatsoever, I certainly prefer their *CLASH CLASH* sound compared to the SC2 zealot's *foom foom* sound.
I think BluzMan's post explained quite well what SC2 is missing in the sound department.
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.
yep, the attack sounds are easy to mix up. no matter how long you will 'get in touch' with SC2 - its sound is just not that easy-to-dstinguish like it was in SC:BW
To be completely honest, the sounds are very disappointing. The sounds are WAY too ambient. Almost every zerg unit sounds the same.
The reaction time for sounds is also a lot wider than in sc1. What I mean by that is in SC1 units made their sound AS SOON as they possibly could after already making the sound previously. In sc2 there is a huge silent gap between the sounds they make and it is driving me crazy.
I really hope they revamp the sounds and give all the units distinct sounds again, because seriously they all sound alike, especially zerg.
I definitely miss some of the old sounds for units carried over from SC1 The new sounds just don't have near the punch the old did as most of you guys have been saying.
One example that irritates me is, say you drop a good number of zealots / stalkers on someones base with a few dark templar. It may take you a second to see the blur of a cloaked dark templar among all the zealots as that distinct loud swipe is no longer present. Not saying you can't get accustomed to the new quick swoosh sound they make but it just sounds off to me *shrug*...
i'm confused every time i click the hotkey buttons in a replay and it does that chat sound beep thingie. i always look for a message that isnt there 8(
Terran theme 1 was really first showcased on some ancient Blizzcon where they first showed us the single-player content. Some kind of mission with an artifact recovery where Browder ended up cheating. Since then, it has been remastered with the addition of more overdriven guitar in the beginning, I don't think it was a good choice, I liked the old one with it's focus on violins and acoustics better.
But the worse problem is that terran music is indeed, too gentle. SC is about people dying all over the place, and the music almost sounds like country. Yeah, it fits terran in one of their aspects, but I'm somewhat disappointed that all themes without exception are 'space cowboy'. You could leave 1 or 2 of them and nothing would change. Needs more drive and more militaristic themes, perhaps some techno as well.
Protoss music is not done, not much to speak about here, we've got only one theme and it's 'okay' (will probably be remastered since for now it's just a mix of loops without any coherent mindset).
Zerg is meh. Really meh. I see it as a huge mix of outworldish sounds, but it grossly lacks identity. Should be okay in game, but not even close to the music of the original. It also lacks any drive. For fuck's sake, zerg is the fastest race in the game, why the hell doesn't their music even have a distinct beat? Not at a single moment?
what i have heard/seen so far from streams is that the background music seems to be great, but the unit sounds, especially the zerg overall voice is terrible..need more minerrrraaallllzzzz,..what shit is this? the terran unit sounds seem to be okay, maybe a bit "muted" compared to effect sounds. but then again it is maybe cause people have music too loud, since at the end most people are going to play without music theme anyways i guess..at least i will. protoss sounds seem to be decent aswell, mothership for example sounds great...i just dislike this pseudo creepy zerg sounds a lot...a reason more to kill every zerg fast then, i guess^^
On February 24 2010 09:41 prodiG wrote: when I hear the protoss guy say YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL PYLONS i'm think to myself 'psh you sound like some 18 year old kid who somehow landed a supervisor job' when i hear aldaris say it i think 'FUCK! FINE!'
What? It IS Aldaris now - if anything, the Protoss multiplayer commander from SC1 wasn't, he didn't sound the same as Aldaris in single player. I always thought it was kinda off, maybe a slightly different effect. Aldaris is voiced by Paul Eiding, known for a myriad of voicework (including Colonel Campbell from MGS series), but now it is clearly him in SC2, its pretty distinct.
On February 24 2010 09:41 prodiG wrote: when I hear the protoss guy say YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL PYLONS i'm think to myself 'psh you sound like some 18 year old kid who somehow landed a supervisor job' when i hear aldaris say it i think 'FUCK! FINE!'
What? It IS Aldaris now - if anything, the Protoss multiplayer commander from SC1 wasn't, he didn't sound the same as Aldaris in single player. I always thought it was kinda off, maybe a slightly different effect. Aldaris is voiced by Paul Eiding, known for a myriad of voicework (including Colonel Campbell from MGS series), but now it is clearly him in SC2, its pretty distinct.
One think to consider is that it isn't 1998 anymore, and what they were able to do back then may just sound childish\premature now. I do like the sc1 sounds more, but how do you guys think people (the newschoold crowd) would accept sounds as strong as they were back then? I can't really say without hearing them first, but it's hard to be sure if it's entirely possible to make them sound both high quality and as strong.
In addition to most of the sounds that need to be redone, Blizzard should really fix the player colors because it is getting pretty hard to differentiate between the similar bright and dark colors.
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.
On February 24 2010 09:41 prodiG wrote: when I hear the protoss guy say YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL PYLONS i'm think to myself 'psh you sound like some 18 year old kid who somehow landed a supervisor job' when i hear aldaris say it i think 'FUCK! FINE!'
Agree completely, and i also heavily dislike the zerg "voice" (minerals, moar overlords etc).
Music is meh, but I'll let that slide because i turn off music at day 2 and just listen to my own shit (like most people). I do miss the fucking awesomeness that was the Terran themes in SC1 though - watch this for NOSTALGIA!
To all the people saying "BUT LOL ITS BETA, NP!" Sound isn't usually re-done after such a long time in development. I'm 100% sure they will be exactly the same at launch.
Hmm, would it be far-fetched/crazy to simply use the same sounds from SC 1 for pre-existing units? From watching some streams, the sound of siege tanks, shooting, was really pathetic in comparison to SC 1.
Sound effect is now the weakest aspect of SC2. When the marines are shooting, the sound make me feel that, instead of firing bullets, they are cooking chinese dishes.
Even though the sounds in SC2 are fucking disgusting compared to the epic and strong sounds from SC1, the music for all 3 races isn't terrible at all. I absolutely love every sound in SC1. I even made my AIM play a Hydralisk being born whenever I receive a message. Yeah that's right, a fucking Hydralisk being born when someone is like "SUP"
At the moment Zerglings sound like they throw wet slimey cotton balls at the enemies... wich is kind of a gay thing to do. If you do not know that the zergling is a meelee attacker with big hard claws then you would never have guessed that from the current SC2 sound... Please Blizzard: Take a recording device and record the sound that comes from beating the shit out of your front door with a medium sized elefant tooth or something like that...
Yeah, I don't know what's going on at Blizzard in that department, but sounds are clearly the worst part of SC2. I hope they read this and do a comparison.
Many attack sounds are very NOT aggressive and just generally detract from the feel of the game. As someone pointed out, the advisor sounds, be it zerg or even the pylon warning for toss are just not nearly as well done as SC1.
WTF Zealots? Swoosh swoosh? Zerglings? Even the Muta bounce sounds like meh.
If the sounds remain as they are, there will be a SC1 sound pack ready to be injected into the game by release. And that would be kind of sad, tbh.
EDIT: It's NOT nostalgia we're talking about here. The SC2 sounds are just uninspired at best and sometimes flat out BAD.
Hate the sound. Especially hate the new Zerg sound when its like "Spawn more overlords". What was it about SC1 that made everything so fucking perfecT? Sound, look, units, matchups, interface, and w/e. It seems like Sc2 is falling short in so many aspects
EPT
