Test Server Feedback

That's a good idea ! Well hopefully we will see this line again in Rubicon 1.0.1, for good this time :p

I'm disappointed to say an old audio bug first introduced in Odyssey still isn't fixed. Under certain circumstances, all audio coming from the EVE client sounds like complete garbage. When I say certain circumstances, do not confuse these for rare circumstances. With my setup, either I purposefully avoid it or am greeting with this god-awful speaker crackling noise.

I've submitted multiple bug reports, including a recording of the corrupt audio (also: why can you not upload "audio" files through the web bug reporting tool?). If so desired I'm happy to upload that same recording to soundcloud or somewhere and post it here.

This bug is very repeatable. Here's how:

My setup:
Sound card: HTO Striker 7.1, + some standard (analog) speakers
Headset: Logitech G930 (USB).

1. Set default audio device to speakers.
2. Start EVE client. Wait for client to load.
3. Switch default audio device to headset. While in headset mode, every sound output is trash.

With this bug EVE is basically unplayable for me. Very, very disappointed.

That's strange.

When switching default devices, every other program I use will respond in one of two ways:
1). Switch output to the new device and everything's fine.
2). Keep playing on the old device like the default never switched.

The good ones manage to do the first (and so did EVE, up until Odyssey was released).

Of course, this problem would never occur if I started EVE on one mode and kept it that way. But often I find myself wanting to switch back and forth. Consider this use case: chilling, listening to music on speakers. Decide to load up EVE, follow up on eve-mails, update market orders, whatever. Still chilling. Maybe run a few missions or other solo activities in-game. And then a fleet goes up! So I put on my headset, get on comms and switch devices. Now I need to either deal with this audio bug, or restart my client. Is it reasonable to ask that I can switch back and forth?

With an analog headset, of course I could just plug it into my front audio panel, my sound card would switch output, but as far as windows is concerned it's still the same device. But with my USB headset, of course they're two different devices so I need to get Windows sound stuff involved. The Windows interface is a little clunky so I have a small utility that switches devices when I press a particular hotkey. So I can switch devices at the push of a button, it's just a matter of getting EVE to play nice when I do.

If you listen to the theme long enough, you'll hear a little bit of "Below the Asteroids".

the same notes ;)

I love the music as well.

Sorry to hear that.
but what did you expect? the ship has some mechanical movement, it's not like it's "magic" or anything, with the sound of plasma waves and fireballs coming out, while screaming Hadouken ?

They are all kind of similar to this one, the one that differs though is the Vargur.

The mechanical sound effects sound like they're from something much smaller. Maybe slow them down a little, making them sound a little large and deeper?

Edit: It could also be the high pitched click at the end of the start up sound effect. Maybe that being lower toned would help. The sounds don't sound like they would be coming from a ship the size of a small city... Someone's garage maybe..

On a side note, I don't know why the audio team seems to generally dislike bass in their sound effects..

I've been traveling around the outer edges of the galaxy on a sightseeing tour with my Bastion Paladin on SiSi. Along the way I've been stopping to blast the local pirates. I started in Syndicate and have worked my way around the outside edge of things and now I'm in Detorid. As you can imagine, I've heard the Bastion activation/deactivation noises quite a lot. They're good! I like them. However, I think they sound more like a frigate entering/exiting Bastion mode than a great big heavily armored battleship.

Let me give a detailed review since I'm in space right now all alone and can play this sound as much as I want.

Activating bastion mode gives us a semi-grindy mechanical buzz-whirring followed by the sound of the deployed pieces locking into place. The semi-grindy buzz-whirr sounds good. It seems just fine as-is, I have no feedback other than a +1 for this. At the end of the sound, when the animation stops and there's the heavy mechanical sound.. no. It's not heavy enough IMO. "Thin metal" is an impression that comes to mind, you're very right. It's as if someone put down a tray of flatware a bit too harshly. These pieces weigh what, maybe five thousand metric tons? Less kachink and more heavy deep KACHUNK.

So we spin our cycle timer around for a minute or two or five while I write this post and I've got 75% of the cycle to wait before I can hear the exiting sound.

*waiting*

*still waiting*

This feels a lot shorter when I'm killing things... okay, there we go.

As you exit Bastion mode, your armor retracting is announced with a higher-pitched, standard-sounding mechanical whirring that is free of the grinding and buzzing heard previously. A pretty straightforward and common sort of noise where machinery is involved. It seems slightly high-pitched though. During the bastion deployment phase there's a whirring noise mixed in with all that grinding and buzzing I noted. If that same whirring were used (at the same pitch) with all the grinding and buzzing cleaned away then that might be perfect.

At the end, when the now-retracted armor is locking into place, we have that frigate-sized kachink sound again. Same thing I said before applies here. This ship weighs over 92,000 metric tons and these moving parts are measurable pieces of that weight. Less kachink, more kachunk.

I want to clarify that I'm not saying the end of each sound should be entirely bass. There are high-end frequencies involved too. Right now though, it sounds smaller that it looks. Does this make sense?

Also, the noise of the armor covering the Vargur's solar sails. During the deployment phase it seems about right but when you're retracting the armor it seems slightly out of sync.

Syncing to animation is done on eye to ear handy work, I don't have anything to sync up with and animation may start or end slightly sooner or later every time it's activated, so this gives me quite a bit of headache, when it comes to making sure that this is in sync. It's a minor detail though, compared to that you guys think the sound is too small.

Like I said, I can't fix it for Rubicon 1.0 on tuesdays DT - I'll have to go over it to see if I can be allowed to change it or if the guy looking over my shoulder and making decisions says stay.
as you understand, of course, I do listen, but I can't always just go completely rogue and change stuff because I want to or that someone said they wanted something different.

The out of sync thing, is a technical issue, and that I can go over as much as I want and try to tweak, but it won't necessarily make it any better right now.

But tomorrow when I'm back at the office, I will try and get rid of the thin metal and put in some large chunks of tritanium alloy being ripped apart and put in place instead.