Anybody noticed this from the Stream? (In-Game Voiceover)

[GreatMazinkaise]

Originally Posted by SnipeGrzywa

Ya, there was random radio chatter when he was in the reaver, don't remember about the Vanguard. Thought it was a nice touch on realism. Wonder if it's staying

As long as it doesn't start randomly swearing at me it should be fine... I'd rather that all chatter be from players though.

[QuantumMechanic]

I'm not sure how I feel about the radio chatter inside the reaver cockpit.

I look at it like I look at explosions and firearms sounds - those are all "real" (generated by other players). There is no fake soundtrack of explosions ever.

So why the fake soundtrack of radio chatter? It would be cool if they actually came up with a way to transmit VOIP from other pilots to you in a low volume and added some distortion to it. That way it would sound like random radio chatter but would also be real.

Personally I think I might prefer no chatter at all to fake chatter (just because I know it's fake, it's no longer interesting to me).

[CheeseGuardian]

Originally Posted by QuantumMechanic

I'm not sure how I feel about the radio chatter inside the reaver cockpit.

I look at it like I look at explosions and firearms sounds - those are all "real" (generated by other players). There is no fake soundtrack of explosions ever.

So why the fake soundtrack of radio chatter? It would be cool if they actually came up with a way to transmit VOIP from other pilots to you in a low volume and added some distortion to it. That way it would sound like random radio chatter but would also be real.

Personally I think I might prefer no chatter at all to fake chatter (just because I know it's fake, it's no longer interesting to me).

The radio chatter struck me as extremely odd, even though I had to think about it for a while before I realized why.
I was going to make a thread about it but I figured it would be a little absurd to start giving feedback before I've even played the game. After all, it could end up being removed for the beta build.

Anyway, assuming it's staying the way it is, let me explain why this type of ambient audio works well in other games but detracts from Planetside:

(sorry for tl;dr but here it goes)


Why it works in other games:
This type of audio works well if it has context. The Battlefield games have always used this audio effect (since BF2 afaik), and it's cool. Nobody complains about it because it works well. It has context. A driver/pilot never has to ask "Why is there someone babbling on this radio?" because it's implied by the scope of the gameplay, even without any backstory; there's a bigger war going on and the 32v32 arena is just a tiny part of it. The players are fighting small skirmishes on behalf of their respective military organizations, and the tactical babble serves to reinforce that atmosphere. When the player hears a pre-recorded voiceover in a Battlefield game, there's never a "woah, who is even talking?" response, because it's implied that the disembodied voices are the ones sending artillery, supplies, and UAVs. It reinforces and explains the gameplay. The Americans sound like Americans, the Chinese sound like Chinese. The NPCs on each side want to win just as much as the players do.

The Battlefield series is just one example, but this type of audio is applied universally for one purpose: To create an illusion of scope. It works particularly well in Battlefield because players can associate each faction with their respective VOs; The Americans and Russians sound distinct from one another, and you can't mix them up. Battlefield is pretty big, but it's implied there is more going on behind the scenes in each military.

(Thanks for reading "Battlefield: A Brief History of the Artistic Application of Tactical Babble." Now, on to the important part...)

So how could this detract from planetside? Why do the ambient VOs sound so out of place to people who played PS1? How does this feature that works well in other titles manage to take away from Planetside?

Why it DOESN'T work in Planetside:
Short answer:
First of all, the audio has no context. The players are the factions, so who could possibly be talking?
Second of all, it causes dissonance in the mind of the player due to the actual scope of the game being much greater than what the prerecorded tac-chat implies. There's an overlap. It doesn't fit.

Long answer:
It's illogical for any ambient tactical chat to exist when players comprise the entire continent-wide fighting force. At no point do we see or hear NPCs in support roles (since the computer and nanite systems are largely self-maintaining) so vehicle tac-chat implies there are NPCs in some hidden support roles or in vehicles in the vicinity of the player.
So for anyone thinking about this from a logical perspective, it comes across as extremely tacky and accomplishes the exact opposite of what it's intended to do. The illusion of scope is already present. Any player, at any point, can open their map and see the size of the battle. The scope of the game hits the player full force every time they log in. It shouldn't be artificially reinforced because it detracts from the overall experience.

What do you guys think? Anyone read the whole thing? Should I start a thread or forward this to a dev?

[CaptainRon]

@CheeseGuardian

When I play BF3, I noticed that all of the radio chatter came from the players themselves automatically based on the context of their vicinity that took place, I never noticed any of the support roles taking place or anything like that. (But for BF3, I do noticed the invisible support roles in BF2 and BFBC2).

So I'm assuming SoE are trying to replicate what BF3 is doing and not any of the predecessors are doing in order to give some kind of situation awareness?

I mean I can't count how many times another player sees a grenade being lobbed and that toon "automatically" yells out grenade! while leaving the player no time to say/type as he's trying to run away but I manage to get away too because of that automatic radio chatter.

[CheeseGuardian]

Originally Posted by CaptainRon

@CheeseGuardian

So I'm assuming SoE are trying to replicate what BF3 is doing and not any of the predecessors are doing in order to give some kind of situation awareness?

BC/BF3 style automatic VOs won't be in the game (thank jesus). This game will have integrated vivox functionality so you can just say "grenade," your soldier doesn't spontaneously say it while giving away your position to the enemy.

I'm talking about the distorted sounding non-player chatter that you hear in vehicles. AFAIK it's the only NPC voiceover in the game.
Listen at the beginning of Higby's stream if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can hear it right away when he's in the tank.

[CaptainRon]

I'm hard-of-hearing so I wouldn't been able to understand it in the steam so I just went on the assumption of what everyone was talking about.

I honestly didn't mind BF3's style because I could get used to the sound and understand what they say, plus I'm not gonna participate in the VOIP beyond my squad/platoon because no doubt there's gonna be some moron out there playing loud ass crappy music in the background on purpose just to ruin everybody's day - although no doubt the devs will be able to put a "mute this person" in place. (but at least his toon can yell GRENADE! which can still be somewhat useful )

To the giving away your/enemy position part, yea you may hear them, but there's no telling exactly how many is in there, since only 1 person says it.

I guess one quick fix to make everybody happy as far as BF3's style is concern is give that option to the players on whether or not they want to hear it. That way you can turn it off and I can turn it on.

[QuantumMechanic]

Either create a new thread now, or just wait until beta and then be vocal about this on the beta forums.

Either way, I think this NPC cockpit voice soundtrack needs to go the way of the dodo bird... It just doesn't fit with the ambience of 100% massive PVP only.

[GreatMazinkaise]

There's a reason there's voice macros in a game like this... automated warnings (and in the case of BC2 random swearing) shouldn't feature.

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Originally Posted by QuantumMechanic

It would be cool if they actually came up with a way to transmit VOIP from other pilots to you in a low volume and added some distortion to it. That way it would sound like random radio chatter but would also be real.

This is a cool idea, and would be (relatively) easy to do. Just have VOIP from nearby units play (very softly and distorted) in the background. The artificial fake chatter is unnecessary. There's plenty of real action going around. "faking some" is just silly.

[Nemises]

wouldn't be too surprised if there was an "ambient sounds" sound slider...
if there is you can turn it down or up depending on your preference..

[tythefox]

What if the game had a relatively proximity-based voice activated radio chatter system? Say, have the game detect microphone activity, and transmit audio based the audio level. So, if someone is on Teamspeak/Skype/Mumble/Vent and they say "Enemy Galaxy attacking Hvar from the south" and there are pilots in proximity, they can assist if they hear it (perhaps it could be put through a sound filter so it wouldn't be loud or conflict with tac-chat). This would require some tweaking, obviously, but it would be a neat little bit of information to utilize if it were done correctly. And, of course, customization reigning supreme, it should be an option users can turn off, both transmitting and receiving.

[Oryon22]

The ambient radio chatter is a really nice touch!