Guild Wars 2

I reallized after a week of play why I don’t feel that “epicness” most of the time during combat, adventuring, gathering.

There are literaly no sound around you when you play!

-Monsters got no sound (when they attack, when they get hurt, no aggro sound, etc.)
-Enviroment got no sound (when you move through bush, rocky road, dirt, grass, etc, except maybe when you enter water)
-I usualy play enviromental sound option turned up to max (in wow for instance) and here in GW2 almost no background sounds at all!

So we all agree that the graph and the enviroment looks amazing. I just think that from sound perspective you really missing a lot!

Like that big giant forest monsters in Caledon Forest? They just got no grunting sound, no “stomping sound” when they move, the ground doesn’t shake… its just painfully silent.

You really really need to add WAY MORE sound to this game, the “epic” feel comes when all of the senses have the “wow” feel to a game!

P.S.: Got SB X-Fi surround pro 5.1 external Soundcard, quiet top-notch, stuff (still), and Im using all high quality, maxed out “everything” so its not my sound system faulty. :P Every other game got really cinema quality effects.

I agree sooo much with this. Half of it is due to a bug which randomly makes lots of the sounds not work. But there is a huge lack of sound as you walk around, never noticed in other games but for some reason you can really tell here.

As i walk around irl, even if its in the middle of a field irl, you hear more sounds than this. You hear the birds, you hear the grass moving under your feet etc.. what you get on gw2 is a strange ambient sound which is kind of fitting but seems to miss out a lot

Would be cool if them big monsters made some scary moaning sounds while stomping around o.o

I totally agree

This is funny. I actually find the game has too much sound, and by default is balanced in a way where everything sounds like it’s at the same volume (like sound effects are WAY too upfront compared to music and the rest). I actually play the game on mute most of the time.

What game are you playing, OP? There’s a very large amount of sounds, both ambient and active, and even music.

Unpredictability.4086:

This is funny. I actually find the game has too much sound, and by default is balanced in a way where everything sounds like it’s at the same volume (like sound effects are WAY too upfront compared to music and the rest). I actually play the game on mute most of the time.

I recall GW had similar way of working with “enviromental sounds” and I’m sure people got used to it.
To me, sound is just as important as look and I got good ears for sounds, and sound in games need to give you feedback as well. For instance if you run in jungle and behind the bush there is an animal that you just agroed, should growl. In fact if there is a pack of anymals you could hear them by growling and you have the “ohh boy” feeling… when 2 leopards attacking you and you and you just hear them from behind the bush? Priceless IMHO.)

Or when you hear the combat from the distance between the animals in the forest, a forest leopard and a bee or something… it gives a LOT to the enviroment, you sink into it much more deeply.

Thig game -on the sound topic- feels like you play the game with “no sound” because you are on the phone, or your GF is talking and you need to be quiet…

Missing the epicness in my eardrums.

If you’re not hearing sounds try updating your audio drivers. Also, I find that when I set my speaker settings to stereo while using 5.1 speakers or have it set to 5.1 while I’m using headphones a lot of the sounds cut out. So make sure to configure your speakers correctly before running the client. Hope this helps.

Yes I confirm that the game sounds are cut off while speakers are set to 5.1.
Try setting in windows and your sound card driver to stereo, 2.1 or headphone.
You will hear a HUGE difference.

I have a similar bug sometimes, mostly just after a loading screen. For a few minutes, I have only music, then sounds effect appear little by little. It happened also randomly, rarely, but it did.

GrungePunk.3094:

If you’re not hearing sounds try updating your audio drivers. Also, I find that when I set my speaker settings to stereo while using 5.1 speakers or have it set to 5.1 while I’m using headphones a lot of the sounds cut out. So make sure to configure your speakers correctly before running the client. Hope this helps.

Here we go again, I love people with such comments. Do you believe if every other game and windows just fine… there must be something wrong with the “system” if ONE game has some issues? Really guys? Really? X.x

Liliana Moore.4237:

Yes I confirm that the game sounds are cut off while speakers are set to 5.1.
Try setting in windows and your sound card driver to stereo, 2.1 or headphone.
You will hear a HUGE difference.

Ok I look into this later on today, thanks!

I would like to see more advanced environment effects. Rain, hail, snow… make them random. Or wind blowing through leaves…

HOPE.1498:

GrungePunk.3094:

If you’re not hearing sounds try updating your audio drivers. Also, I find that when I set my speaker settings to stereo while using 5.1 speakers or have it set to 5.1 while I’m using headphones a lot of the sounds cut out. So make sure to configure your speakers correctly before running the client. Hope this helps.

Here we go again, I love people with such comments. Do you believe if every other game and windows just fine… there must be something wrong with the “system” if ONE game has some issues? Really guys? Really? X.x

The game has an issue with the state of your system. Just because other games don’t doesn’t mean it isn’t your system causing the error. Technically, YES, you can say it’s the game. But if changing a setting on your system fixes the problem with the game then so be it.

ALL games are not made with the same code and therefore should not all work the same with the state of a persons system.

There’s a reason that even though all my games worked fine with my Nvidia drivers that once I installed Guild Wars 2 the client warned me that the game had compatability issues with my current Nvidia drivers and that I should download an updated version. However Darksiders 2 and every other game on my system worked just fine with the drivers I currently had.

It’s all about how the game is coded that decides how it interacts with a persons computer configuration. Sometimes changing your computer configuration to a more common configuration is easier than trying to make a programmer write a bunch of code so that a game will run smoothly on a thousand different computer configurations. That’s a LOT of code and a lot of time they could be spending fixing game breaking issues that make it so people can’t play the game at all.

I hope I have opened some peoples eyes as far as to how these things work on the inside. It isn’t just a magic box and screen that does cool stuff. :P

So remember to update your systems to see if that fixes your problem before you go tell the developer that their game is broken and they need to fix it. If that doesn’t fix the problem though then by all means go ahead and tell them. It’s just that sometimes their game wasn’t made with old hardware and software drivers in mind. It’s not the developers fault that they didn’t write compatability code for every driver from 1995 to the present. There’s too many.

I think the game has lot’s of sounds…More than I am used to in MMO’s that’s for sure.