Spell casting sound (spell chant) in BG:EE?

Anton

It would be great to be able to set desired casting sound: BG1 spell chant or BG2.

P.S. @PhillipDaigle @TrentOster


UPDATE. As we now know that option to set desired spell casting in Game Options will not be possible please make your choice in new poll: BG1 or BG2

Wiggles

The more choices a you can get to customize your playing expierence is always a good thing in my opinion.

DJKajuru

Is it possible for it to be random - sometimes 'aqua emma' ,sometimes 'vita mortis" ?

elminster

Have I noticed a difference between casting noises? sure. But I can't say I really care either way with which one they go with.

Mortianna

I was disappointed when they changed the casting sounds from BG1 (many of which are just made up words) to the ones in BG2, even though the BG2 sounds were in Latin. The fact that most of the BG1 words were gibberish made it seem more "magical" to me.

Here are the Latin verbal components (with English translations) of the BG2 spell schools:

Abjuration: "Manus, Potentis, Paro" = "A hand, powerful, I prepare"

Alteration: "Praeses, Alia, Fero" = "Protecting, another, I bring this forth"

Conjuration: "Facio, Voco, Ferre" = "This I do, I call, to bring you forth"

Divination: "Scio, Didici, Pecto" = "I know, for I have studied, with my mind"

Enchantment: "Cupio, Virtus, Licet" = "I want, excellence, allowed to me"

Evocation: "Incertus, Pulcher, Imperio" = "Uncertain, beautiful things, I command"

Illusion: "Veritas, Credo, Oculos" = "The truth, I believe, with my eyes"

Necromancy: "Vita, Mortis, Careo" = "Life, and death, I am without" (or "Life, death, decay" if "Careo" was mistakenly used instead of "Caries," which means decay or rotten. I like the latter, myself)

Dee

I was a little sad that the casting voices weren't based on your chosen sound set.

aldain

I prefer the BG2 ones. The priest alteration, illusion (only used for 2 spells) and divination chants still give me goosebumps...

If it's something as simple as just including all relevant sound files and flicking a switch to determine which files get read when loading the game though, I'm all for being able to set it. But I know from experience things are rarely as simple as they seem at first.

Ken

WHAT! I have been playing this game for like.. 11 years, and I had NO IDEA that it actually meant something! Might get a tattoo of that shit!

I think it would be nice if the sound would be either BG1/BG2 or a mix of both, selectable of course.

ajwz

Mortianna said:

I was disappointed when they changed the casting sounds from BG1 (many of which are just made up words) to BG2, even though the BG2 sounds were in Latin. The fact that most the BG1 words were gibberish made it seem more "magical" to me.

Here are the Latin verbal components (with English translations) of the BG2 spell schools:

Abjuration: "Manus, Potentis, Paro" = "A hand, powerful, I prepare"

Alteration: "Praeses, Alia, Fero" = "Protecting, another, I bring this forth"

Conjuration: "Facio, Voco, Ferre" = "This I do, I call, to bring you forth"

Divination: "Scio, Didici, Pecto" = "I know, for I have studied, with my mind"

Enchantment: "Cupio, Virtus, Licet" = "I want, excellence, allowed to me"

Evocation: "Incertus, Pulcher, Imperio" = "Uncertain, beautiful things, I command"

Illusion: "Veritas, Credo, Oculos" = "The truth, I believe, with my eyes"

Necromancy: "Vita, Mortis, Careo" = "Life, and death, I am without"

This was an amazing post, Thank you.
If nothing else, I now know how to spell what I though was made up drivel durin the casting chants. Also, how could I havebeen playing for so long without realising that different chants correspond to different schools of magic -.-

Mortianna

@ajwz @Ken @aldain Knowing the chants is also a great way to recognize the school of a spell an enemy is casting at you. Think of this as getting free ranks in Spellcraft! (^.~)

Roller12

Even though i dont care, i do agree. Choice is good.

Senash

I prefer the BG2 sounds tbh, but it would be nice if people could choose. And it would be even nicer if the casting sounds would depend on your chosen character voice set...

Dee

It wouldn't take much, honestly. It's just adding eight more sound files for each voice set you create. I'd want one for each caster NPC, too; non-caster NPCs could have their own, or they could use the default for simplicity's sake.

Although it might also have issues with how the spell chants work (if they're inextricably tied to gender and spell school, you might not be able to tie them to voice set).

Mortianna

aldain said:

I prefer the BG2 ones. The priest alteration, illusion (only used for 2 spells) and divination chants still give me goosebumps...

My favorite ones in BG1 are the male Conjuration chant, the female Divination chant, and the Illusion chant for both sexes. It always felt like the BG1 chants had more intensity than the BG2 ones, even though the developers actually took the time to create a coherent set of Latin chants that more or less corresponded to the spell school.

g314

Not just casting sounds, I even liked BG1 spells effects. Protection from Normal Missiles sound is my favorite. Choosing which one in-game would be a win-win situation I guess.

Brude

Call me crazy but I'd jst like BG1 sounds in BG1 and BG2 sounds in BG2. It was okay that they were different back then & it's okay they're different now.

More options is great for old timers and super users, but it represents needless complexity for newbies and additional dev time for Beamdog. I don't think that tradeoff is worth it.

Ken

Beamdog just got two months worth of extra time.. Better use it!

AndreaColombo

Being a BG1 remake, BG:EE should use BG1 casting sounds. Likewise, BG2:EE should make use of BG2 casting sounds. This is why I cast my vote for BG1 casting sounds.

... However, I also agree that customization is a wonderful thing and making casting sounds selectable would subsequently be a great idea/feature. I'll flag our resident audio guru @Nathan for him to see this thread, and possibly to comment on the possibility of making casting sounds selectable.

Nathan

Ahoy - making the casting sounds selectable would be a super-awkward endeavour. The problem being that the existing soundset setup has no room for customizable casting sounds in the first place, so, going in and creating a system there for toggling between the two wouldn't be super feasible for something that's (sorry!) basically only cosmetic.

Changing the existing casting sounds from the BG2 to BG1 ones should be possible if people are into that - it's something I can look into.

Tanthalas

AndreaColombo said:

Being a BG1 remake, BG:EE should use BG1 casting sounds. Likewise, BG2:EE should make use of BG2 casting sounds. This is why I cast my vote for BG1 casting sounds.

I really disagree with this argument. Spell casting sounds shouldn't change between BG1 and BG2.

AndreaColombo

@Nathan - Thanks for chiming in on this.

As stated, I personally advocate for maximum consistency with vBG1, being this a BG1 remake. I'm fine with some things being kept consistent with vBG1 in BG2:EE as well (I'm saying this in relation to @Tanthalas' post), but when it comes to casting sounds I'm neutral 'cause I like both versions. My desire for BG1 casting sounds in BG:EE is mostly nostalgia-driven.

Edvin

I miss option " BG1 and BG2 combine spell casting sounds ".
We have soo many spells and only soo little casting formules...
( And many different spells have same formules )
Why we can´t use best from BG1 and BG2 ?

Anton

As we now know that option to set desired spell casting in Game Options will not be possible please make your choice in new poll: BG1 or BG2

lunarhalo

At least BG2 allowed you to customize a soundset where you could assign a sound for when your casting was disrupted. I always rocked a Bruce Campbell soundset, and hearing "Klatu Verata Nrmnphnfhr..." made such moments a great deal more bearable.

Mortianna

@lunarhalo LOL, that's brilliant!

Atum

Mortianna said:

I was disappointed when they changed the casting sounds from BG1 (many of which are just made up words) to BG2, even though the BG2 sounds were in Latin. The fact that most the BG1 words were gibberish made it seem more "magical" to me.

Here are the Latin verbal components (with English translations) of the BG2 spell schools:

Abjuration: "Manus, Potentis, Paro" = "A hand, powerful, I prepare"

Alteration: "Praeses, Alia, Fero" = "Protecting, another, I bring this forth"

Conjuration: "Facio, Voco, Ferre" = "This I do, I call, to bring you forth"

Divination: "Scio, Didici, Pecto" = "I know, for I have studied, with my mind"

Enchantment: "Cupio, Virtus, Licet" = "I want, excellence, allowed to me"

Evocation: "Incertus, Pulcher, Imperio" = "Uncertain, beautiful things, I command"

Illusion: "Veritas, Credo, Oculos" = "The truth, I believe, with my eyes"

Necromancy: "Vita, Mortis, Careo" = "Life, and death, I am without"

Hello! im a big fan of BG and i wanted to know, whether is it possible to download the spell chant voices/sound ?

so i dont need the original soundtrack themes, im interested in these 8 voices/sounds when a male and a female character is saying that.
(f.e. in warcraft3-folder, you had many voice sounds too).

Kirkor

To be honest, I don't really remember BG1 chants. But having a feature of choosing sounds in game is good. So I voted for that.

Mortianna

@Atum If you're looking for BG spell chants rendered in a format that will play on a standard media player, there aren't any to my knowledge. You already have the files on your computer if you have BG/BG2 installed, but you have to have a browser/sound editor that is compatible with the Infinity Engine in order to access them. I suggest trying Near Infinity, which is specially for Bioware's Infinity Engine.

Dunhart

There's a mod for restoring the BG1 chants to BG2 that was on the Tutu site (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=143&Itemid=98 , look to the right), but I have no idea how it might be installed on BG:EE. If someone has figured that out, I'd love to hear how it may be done.

The BG1 spell chants were one of my favorite things in the game, I used to pause during every spell cast because I wanted to hear them all the way through each time. I was extremely disappointed in Icewind Dale and BG2 for dropping them out. They sounded more urgent and magical and flowed better than random latin words strung together. Enchantment and Illusion chants were the best.