PlanetSide 2 Audio & Music

[Lorgarn]

In these recent months SOE has risen up to be one of my favourite game developer. Mostly thanks to the team behind the awesomesauce that we all know as PS2.

The community/players enjoy developers that are interacting with them, it doesn't have to be everyday, tens of pages of text and/or conversation. At least in my opinion, these little tidbits of talk/conversation/information and comes from the PS2 team are sweet. I like it and I hope they continue to come.

And yes, I've also enjoyed the sound/audio we've heard so far. I was much impressed by the sounds of the Liberator(jet/engine) we heard from TB's "loverator" vid.

Keep it coming, keep loving us and we will keep loving you. Promise!

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Lorgarn

In these recent months SOE has risen up to be one of my favourite game developer. Mostly thanks to the team behind the awesomesauce that we all know as PS2.

The community/players enjoy developers that are interacting with them, it doesn't have to be everyday, tens of pages of text and/or conversation. At least in my opinion, these little tidbits of talk/conversation/information and comes from the PS2 team are sweet. I like it and I hope they continue to come.

that´s so true! one year ago, i was a soe hater, because i couldn´t forgive them that they killed two of my most favorite games of all times.(starwars galaxies and planetside)
now i love soe or at least everybody on the planetside 2 devteam, because they took this new route of game developement. all the other developers out there should watch closely and learn! interaction with the community - even in early alpha - is the key to success! it may be hard sometimes, and it certainly is a pain to filter the unfounded ranting from the constructive comments, but i am sure it´s worth the hassle!

and yes, the ps2 team has conquered my heart as well! keep up the great work, and don´t dump the game after release, and soe will own my heart and my wallet again!

[Rodney Gates]

You won't be disappointed! :-)

[Rodney Gates]

Hmm, that didn't work - I was replying to kertvon about the PlanetSide theme, but it stuck my post at the end of the thread.

[duomaxwl]

Originally Posted by Rodney Gates

"Live Free In The NC!".

- Rodney

Somebody get this man a beer.
Thanks for doing such a quality job. Everything is sounding phenomenal. One of my favorite things about games is the audio, and you guys are doing just a stand up job. Keep it up.

[Rodney Gates]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Ok now I have a reason to buy a good sound card and some bad assed surround sound speakers.

Sledge, indeed you should! The game runs surround natively if you hook up all of those mini-jack speaker outputs you find on most computers nowadays, or if you use one of the sound cards out there that has Dolby Live or DTS encoding enabled.

We use Auzentech sound cards for our PCs running through Pioneer receivers that decode whatever signals we send it from the sound card's control panel (we often flip between Dolby / DTS / and PCM stereo to check fold-down).

- Rodney

[onwee]

Like many others, I just wanted to say thanks for paying attention to detail and doing a very good job. I LOVE the idea of distinct sounds between factions.

It seems like every aspect of this game is getting a lot of attention from some of the best people in the industry. That makes me feel good as a player, and makes me realize that the team really cares about the game just as much as many of the players.

I think you all know you're about to finish something that is groundbreaking. You're not cutting any corners, especially sound development.

Again, thanks and good job. Going to go change my diaper now.

[Pozidriv]

Originally Posted by Rodney Gates

Thank you all,

The big thing we are focusing on now is faction distinction - from the weaponry, bullet flybys, vehicles, etc. We want to you to know who is firing at you on the battlefield without having to even see them.

The game is in 5.1 surround and depending on your hardware, will also decode in Dolby Surround and DTS.

We've taken care to ensure that you as the player will be treated like any of the major shooters out there that we can be compared to. Your weapons are powerful 2D stereo with some subwoofer kick thrown in for good measure. Your first-person vehicle cockpits are in 4.0 quad that you can snap out to third-person exterior with the audio following suit. From the ground as a soldier on foot, the vehicles sound even more different still; more aggressive, with doppler and engine distance treatment.

We're just starting to make use of some DSP in game, such as low and high pass filtering, different reverb settings based on distance, etc.

There is a lot of crossfading of 3D audio files you'll hear in the world, with close and distant treatments that will differentiate how far the sounds play from you. I can tell you the play tests are starting to sound fantastic as we get things tuned up! :-)

A lot of this tech didn't exist in our game engine before PlanetSide 2, so we're excited to be bringing this level of attention and quality to SOE's players.

We will be planning an official announcement on the music for the game soon enough - but I can tell you this: You will be treated to three soundtracks in the game, depending on what faction you play, with very distinct music styles for each.

Exciting stuff - stay tuned!

- Rodney

The bolded part is something i am really liking! (among all the other goodies ofcourse)

How the battlefield sounds is something that can make or break a whole level of immersion IMO. The only games that have had a high attention to audio detail (that i know of) have been the Battlefield series from BC1 - BC2 and BF3.

I can still remember the crazy firefights i had in BC1 and BC2, with good quality headphones and wartapes on (an audio setting) it was just pure eargasm .


Personally im hoping for something like this for the audio and feel for TR, if you can't fire 900 rpm then you are doing it wrong!


Also, words cannot describe how i feel about all the detail you are adding to the sound department, so i will let this express my feelings.

[SniperSteve]

Fantastic on all accounts! Thanks for dropping by! The sounds that we have heard this far certainly make me want to brag about the sound effects to all my friends that think BF3 is the shooter with the best sound effects.

[Rainfur]

My $1K sound system is finally going to get some good use!

[Vancha]

Damn, I meant to ask this months ago and completely forgot about it.

Holophonic sound (or at least, holophonic sound emulation) in PS2...Do-able?

Originally Posted by Shogun

can anyone recommend a good 5.1 gamers headset that is comfortable to wear for extended playtimes and not too expensive?

Don't waste your money on a 5.1 headset, they sound terrible. Leave surround sound to the software side if you're using headphones.

[Gonefshn]

I want the title screen to have a remix of the old theme!!!

Nothing will make me smile more than the soft familiar bed of the Planetside theme as I log in!!

[Johari]

Unsung heros sometimes in game development. Great sound fx and music can make or break game scenes and I'm glad to see such passion coming from your side of the game. Can't wait to see and hear more. Thank you so much for making PS2 sounds AMAZING.

[QuantumMechanic]

I am real excited about 3 seperate soundtracks! If I put nearly as much time into PS2 as I did PS1, I will no doubt eventually give each empire a lot of dedicated time. And I know that empire-specific soundtracks will make each faction feel like a seperate game!

[SurgeonX]

Originally Posted by Rodney Gates

Thank you all,

The big thing we are focusing on now is faction distinction - from the weaponry, bullet flybys, vehicles, etc. We want to you to know who is firing at you on the battlefield without having to even see them.

That's great to hear Rodney, the attention to detail sounds pretty astonishing.

Even from the canon clip that Gary posted up the other month, you can tell that faction distinction is something you are all working towards.
So I'm really pleased that this is being extended across the board.

For anyone who missed it.
Can you work it out?

http://soundcloud.com/injectedsenses/cannon-comparisons