Choose desired BG(1)EE Spell casting sound

Anton

According to Nathan from Beamdog it is not very likely that we will be able to set desired spell-casting sounds in Game Options. Currently default spell chanting in BGEE is BG2-one, as they use Engine from ToB. He also mentioned that if community prefer it can be changed. What do you think?

AndreaColombo

BG1 spellcasting sounds, for reasons I mentioned in the other thread. Mainly, nostalgia. This is going to be a BG1 remake: Anything that could be made consistent with BG1, should.

When the time for BG2:EE comes, I'll be fine with either option: consistency with BG2 (i.e. BG2 casting sounds), or consistency between BG:EE and BG2:EE (i.e. BG1 casting sounds).

Tanthalas

Casting sounds shouldn't change between BG1 and BG2 and I'm personally annoyed that most things BG2 are considered to be crap.

Phælin

Mixup would be the best solution in my opinion, but it probably also is a llittle more complicated to do.

Anton

For those who have not seen yet - check out great comment by @Mortianna
with BG2's spell chanting explanation: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/98178/#Comment_98178

Unlike BG1's spell sounds chanting in BG2 actually means something. However spell-casting sounds in BG1 still sound more interesting and "mysterious" for me and I would prefer to have them in BG1:EE.

Shin

I like the BG2 casting sounds. In lieu of a text line for casts, listening to the Latin words will let an experienced player make a reasonable guess as to what spell is incoming. Like if you hear "incertus", brace for likely fireball.

Dragonspear

My preference would be the IWD/IWD2 casts (simply because then my burning hands and color spray would be AOE among other things), then BG2, then BG1 in that order.

Tanthalas

I'd just like to point out that not only does BG1 spell chanting use gibberish, in some cases, they actually re-use the same gibberish for different spell schools.

Kamigoroshi

AD&D has many fictional languages which would have all been a better choice and more immersive for the spell chanting than Latin.

For example:
* Draconic or elemental languages (i.e. terran, aquan, auran, ignan) for wizard and sorcerer spells.
* Celestial or Infernal/Abyssal for cleric (depending on the alignment), paladin and blackguard spells.
* Elven or Common for bard spells.
* Druidic for druid and ranger spells.

But since flawlessly including all these languages into Baldur's Gate would be a pain in the ass, I'm okay with the spell chanting gibberish from BG 1.

Quartz

AndreaColombo said:

This is going to be a BG1 remake: Anything that could be made consistent with BG1, should.

This. I'm not even gonna sugar coat it, when people say BG:EE should be more like BGII I kind of want to scream. Stop mucking with the original product. Changing all the character models to BGII just for dual-wielding is already bad enough.

elminster

I regret my vote now. Solely because of the existence of low level BG2 spells in BG1EE that did not exist in the original game. It probably makes more sense to go with the latin because of them.

Moomintroll

This is one of those things that I only notice when I start playing, i'm quite happy that the games are different.

Naur an edraith ammen, Naur dan i ngaurhoth!

AndreaColombo

@Tanthalas - I don't recall anyone saying that BG2 casting sounds are crap. Indeed, BG2-related complaints are mostly about graphical elements. Personally, I like BG2 casting sounds—I would just want BG:EE to be consistent with the game it is a remake of.

Tanthalas

@AndreaColombo

Arguments should be made based on which option is better.

After all, a truly consistent BG1 experience would be to remove every single enhancement from BGEE and just have vanilla BG1.

AndreaColombo

@Tanthalas - In this case, I happen to like both options. Hence, I made my choice based on nostalgia and consistency. I'm all for enhnacement, but the feel I'm looking for in BG:EE is that of BG1—the BG2 feel will be BG2:EE's job.

Zeckul

The BG1 casting sounds suffer from serious clipping and I simply cannot stand them. The BG2 spell sounds and effects are a massive improvement over the originals.

AndreaColombo

@Zeckul - I don't recall hearing clipping in them, but then again I had no idea what clipping was when I played BG in 1998. I'll have to check those sounds out again—if they are indeed clipping, I will root for BG2 sounds. Clipping is the single most hideous plague ever to benight sound in its every form.

Anton

@Nathan is it possible to place some samples of both BG1 and BG2 male\female casting sounds?

salieri

Can we have Paul Daniels saying "amabis hoc, nun multus, sed amabis eam"?

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud

AndreaColombo said:

BG1 spellcasting sounds, for reasons I mentioned in the other thread. Mainly, nostalgia. This is going to be a BG1 remake: Anything that could be made consistent with BG1, should.

^ This.

AndreaColombo

@Zeckul - I have finally got to check BG1 casting sounds in NI. As far as I can tell, the following files suffer from mild to severe clipping: PM2F, PM2M, PM8F, PM8M, PP2F, PP2M, PP3F, PP3M, PP8F, PP8M (I have omitted the "CAS_" prefix and ".WAV" extension, both of which apply to all the files I mentioned). Clipping is especially brutal in PP8F and PP8M.

@Nathan - can you confirm clipping in those files, and its absence in the others (still limited to BG1 casting sounds)? When you have the time, of course

For those who have no idea what we're talking about, here's a short summary of audio clipping for dummies:

In digital audio there's an inherent limit to how loud things can be, and that limit is 0dBFS (FS stands for Full Scale). If your audio files peak at 0dBFS and you want them to sound louder, you must push the quieter parts toward that limit, effectively crushing the file's dynamic range (and that is bad; also something that's been ruining our music for over two decades now; for reference, see Loudness War). When you do so through compressors (as opposed to limiters), peaks also get pushed beyond the 0dBFS limit, and are subsequently cut. This results in actual content being lost (all cut content will not be reproduced); punch being lost due to the reduced dynamic range; and audible distortion in the form of crackle.

Zeckul

I think there is some amount of clipping in the BG2 casting sounds as well, but it's much less frequent and severe. In BG1 it's just cringe-inducing. My NI gives me access denied when I try to play WAVs for some reason so I can't check myself right now though

Zeckul

Ok updated NI to 1.1.0, it works now. In BG2, the culprits are:
- CAS_P06N: noticeable clipping.

... and that's about it!

Anton

@Nathan @TrentOster
Any official word regarding the spellcasting-sound we will have in BG1EE?
(Taking into account poll's results)
Perhaps it will be better Bg1EE to have spellcasting from BG1, and BG2EE to have the one from BG2?
That's seems logical..

Quartz

Tanthalas said:

@AndreaColombo

Arguments should be made based on which option is better.

After all, a truly consistent BG1 experience would be to remove every single enhancement from BGEE and just have vanilla BG1.

This logic is painful. It's like you're *trying* to make everyone who wants a BG1-feeling experience for BG:EE into some sort of nazi.

Nay, from what I've seen all of my kind want to see BG1 graphics/sound stay in BG:EE and BG2 graphics/sound to stay in BG2:EE. I see a lot of people accusing us of saying that we "hate" BG2 stuff, and that's simply not the case. But we don't like the two games being blended because it kills immersion and, in the case of how this project works, is just plain sloppy and lazy.

AndreaColombo

In light of my findings on clipping, I would only want BG1 casting sounds if Nathan got the source files from Charles Deenen and remastered them. In their current state, those sounds have too much compression and clipping for me to advocate their use in BG:EE.

Tanthalas

Quartz said:

This logic is painful.

@Quartz
Sorry, but for me, the painful logic is when people want BG1 stuff over BG2 stuff in BGEE regardless of the individual quality of said stuff. I constantly see this argument being used to shut down discussions to justify the wholesale inclusion of BG1 assets in the game.

And yes, most of the time that I see people advocating this they do come off as hating BG2.

The circumstances surrounding the development of BG1 and BG2 are a lot different than what we currently have in BGEE and BG2EE. BG1 and BG2 were entirely separate games, and stuff was changed from BG1 to BG2 back then for a reason. Some things were improved, others weren't.

I value consistency between BGEE and BG2EE a lot more than trying to keep BG1 and BG2's individuality intact. Its not surprising that BGT is such a popular mega-mod modification. Stuff changing between both games, for absolutely no good reason, is something that I do not want to see. That's what kills immersion for me.

Nathan

Still waiting to hear from Deenen. No lie: it may not happen in time for ship. Or at all, really, totally depends on him.

Quartz

Tanthalas said:

And yes, most of the time that I see people advocating this they do come off as hating BG2.

"Come off" as hating ... Congrats, you try to get offended and you do. I have yet to meet these folks who "hate BGII" on here.

Tanthalas said:

I value consistency between BGEE and BG2EE a lot more than trying to keep BG1 and BG2's individuality intact. Its not surprising that BGT is such a popular mega-mod modification. Stuff changing between both games, for absolutely no good reason, is something that I do not want to see. That's what kills immersion for me.

I can't argue with you here. We have entirely different preferences, and that's that. I'm not going to be able to convince you that TuTu/BGT is the spawn of Satan, and you can't convince me that my vanilla BG1 is crap.

Because ...

Tanthalas said:

I value consistency between BGEE and BG2EE a lot more than trying to keep BG1 and BG2's individuality intact.

On the contrary, I value individuality between BGEE and BG2EE a lot more than trying to keep BG1 and BG2's consistency intact.
We're polar opposites there. No point in arguing.

lordkim

@Nathan said:

Still waiting to hear from Deenen. No lie: it may not happen in time for ship. Or at all, really, totally depends on him.

So Nathan, are you the only one who finished with your jobs/stuff on BG:EE , since youre the only one who makes comments in here :P
Seems the others are busy being silence or working

Love your work btw

MatteoTurini

I simply prefer the BG1 sounds. Not because BG2 sounds are crap, but I liked BG!'s better, they sounded more misterious and arcane (may be because I'm italian and BG2 chants are latin, I don't know).