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Despite MUD codebases having sounds on offer - look at CofeeMUD - why do so many MUDs not bother with sound?

At least there could be atmosphere like wind etc.

The ideal, probably beyond the capacity of most MUD makers - would be for a player behind you to make footsteps when he or she is chasing you etc.

Is it more complex than I appreciate, as someone who doesn't code, to code sound in a MUD?



(Comment added by coolpaint on Thu Jul 17 18:10:47 2008)

Makers should have had a comma after it.

Can write. Can't type.

At a more advanced level would it be possible to code sound such that someone could "tap" at a wall in a wall and "feel" for secret exits. Then it is getting interesting. Sound is used as a bridge to create "touch". You are making a genuinely multi-sensory MUD.



(Comment added by coolpaint on Thu Jul 17 18:36:37 2008)

That should have been "tap" at a wall in a MUD.

Ideas - they come flying so fast that my fingers can't keep up.

Because players can make their own sound triggers. I used to do that all the time. Then instead of being stuck with sounds the MUD uses, I can use any sound I want for anything.

It shouldn't actually be that hard to make there be sound played when a player enters the same room as another player and/or enters a room near them, etc.

I think the reason is that firstly it's quite a bit of effort (even if it's just for the builder to include a sound when someone enters the room), and secondly because there's really not that much demand for it.

I hardly ever hear "sound" being suggested by any player to make a game better. And personally, that's not a surprise. Even something fairly complicated - hearing footsteps when someone walks near you - sounds like a great idea, but in reality it's probably neat the first few times and then after that it's annoying so you turn it off. Kind of like one of those old games with sounds that are so repetitive and primitive that they're so cheesy they're funny at first - definitely not "immersive" or "exploring the senses". Add that to the players who can't hear sounds (client doesn't support it, playing from work/school/library etc), and you don't have much support for sounds. Plus, for those who really like sounds, it's a lot easier just to post a tutorial and some sample sounds for them to add them on their own, with triggers.

I hardly ever hear "sound" being suggested by any player to make a game better.

I doubt that. You do on console/pc games, just not on muds, and the reason is probably that most mudders don't even know of the MSP protocol or that sound in muds is even possible.

but in reality it's probably neat the first few times and then after that it's annoying so you turn it off.

Not in a pkill mud where hearing it is a huge advantage and whether you hear it depends on the other player's skill in stealth you wouldn't.

it's a lot easier just to post a tutorial and some sample sounds for them to add them on their own, with triggers.

No client-side trigger in existence can be made to make you hear footsteps when a player enters a room near you or enters the same room as you but sends no text message to the mud.

Not in a pkill mud where hearing it is a huge advantage and whether you hear it depends on the other player's skill in stealth you wouldn't.

No client-side trigger in existence can be made to make you hear footsteps when a player enters a room near you or enters the same room as you but sends no text message to the mud.

Agreed with both, but that's getting into the realm of sounds telling you things that you can't figure out another way. If you're saying that you can't tell if someone's near you without listening to sounds, or they give you some kind of clear advantage over a player who has sounds off, then you're essentially forcing players to have their sounds on and to pay attention to them.

In addition to players who are hearing impaired or who are unable to have sounds on due to circumstances beyond their control (such as playing from a non-private location), it also means that other sounds are interrupted. For example, if a player wishes to listen to music on their computer at the same time, or watch a video clip or dvd, or just listen to TV in the background, or even surf the Internet or do other things without wanting their MUD to bleep at them all the time.

I'm not saying that adding sound to a MUD is impossible. I'm just saying that there are a lot more things to think about that simply your coding capabilities and time. If you make sound have no effect in terms of gameplay, most people are likely to turn it off. If you make it have a real effect, such as what Drizzt suggests, just realise that it's changing a very substantial part of your game, and essentially forcing people to pay attention to your game all the time, to the exclusion of potentially many other things. One of the reasons for not "involving all of the senses" is that many players will not wish that all of their senses be involved, as that may not be what they want from a MUD.

One of the reasons sound isn't as well-suited for MUDs as graphical games is that MUDs with the 'room' concept aren't able to deal well with fading sounds in and out naturally.

For instance, using the footsteps behind you example: When do you hear the footsteps? If you just turn them on when someone enters a room you'll have a very jarring experience. Unlike in a 3d game where you can be moving smoothly forward with a heading, in a typical text MUD you move between one place and the next, and then are still (even if for a moment), move from one place to the next and are still, etc. There's no continuous movement, which makes fading in and out very difficult both in terms of things moving towards/away from you and you moving towards/away from other things.

Further, the speed at which you can typically move around text MUDs is a hinderance to smooth fading in and out and to effectively using sound at all. Imagine blazing through 10 rooms in 2 seconds, each of which has a different thing creating a sound effect. That's just an audible mess.

Further, the speed at which you can typically move around text MUDs is a hinderance to smooth fading in and out and to effectively using sound at all. Imagine blazing through 10 rooms in 2 seconds, each of which has a different thing creating a sound effect. That's just an audible mess.

Now that is a solid point and one I admittedly hadn't thought of, but then again I'd bet there's ways to work around that like checking if the player is in the room 2 seconds after they entered it and if they are the sound is played.

I personally just wouldn't like to hear noises playing a MUD. I play it to escape all of the commercial offerings and must haves of todays games. When I read a book, I don't queue up a sound board with different noises to play when I read a particular passage. No, I use my imagination, much like when I MUD.

Having some random midi files that have footsteps when someone is chasing me would take away from the visceral imagined world that is created by the nature of a strictly text based game. I just find it unpleasant and a distraction.

Also, I agree with what Sarapis wrote, that is a very sound technical argument.

-Syn, just my opinion.

I think if you use sounds sparingly they can add somewhat to the atmospheres of MUDS. I first heard sounds on MUDS when I played SWR back about '99 or so. I had already written a client and proceeded to add support for MSP right away. I also added sounds into my MUD. The usage of sounds in the SWR mud I played were limited to certain types of doors (lift doors I believe, which were completely scripted), space combat, fighting sounds, a cool sound played when you typed /help (it was leia saying "help me obi won, you're my only hope" :D), and a midi of john williams score when you entered the game. None of the sounds were used in a place that could easily be spammed, i.e. combat is based on the tick frequency for combat and I think the code only played the sound every couple of ticks, space combat the same. They were very unobtrusive and meshed well with the game and gave that game some very deep immersion. If done right, sounds can increase immersion in a game, IMO. If done wrong though, as someone pointed out with a enter room trigger example and a run command, it can be a big mess.

(Comment added by sandog on Sat Jul 19 13:33:51 2008)

Just wanted to add that there are probably purists out there who don't even like color in MUDS. I'm just the opposite, the more to help me differentiate what is important I can then catorgize that in my mind better, i.e. coloring room titles different than descriptions. Again, used sparingly, it helps me personally to become immersed. I'm extremely old school though, and have a really hard time learning on the computer. I need a book to read and a keyboard next to me to learn properly. I grew up in the age before dogpile, google, and yahoo (there were dial up bbs and hacker rags you could find *CENSORED*, but it wasn't all that easy). You kids have it easy today ;).

I like color, but sparingly, differentiation is fine, coloring every letter differently on the other hand is not. Also I generally prefer the muted ASCII colors over their brighter equivalents because they're easier on the eyes.

sarapis wrote:
One of the reasons sound isn't as well-suited for MUDs as graphical games is that MUDs with the 'room' concept aren't able to deal well with fading sounds in and out naturally.

For instance, using the footsteps behind you example: When do you hear the footsteps? If you just turn them on when someone enters a room you'll have a very jarring experience. Unlike in a 3d game where you can be moving smoothly forward with a heading, in a typical text MUD you move between one place and the next, and then are still (even if for a moment), move from one place to the next and are still, etc. There's no continuous movement, which makes fading in and out very difficult both in terms of things moving towards/away from you and you moving towards/away from other things.

Further, the speed at which you can typically move around text MUDs is a hinderance to smooth fading in and out and to effectively using sound at all. Imagine blazing through 10 rooms in 2 seconds, each of which has a different thing creating a sound effect. That's just an audible mess.

The footstep issue and directional sounds are problems. (In my own game, I show a 360-degree image, so I can do directional - to an extent.)

As far as ambient sounds, most rooms in an area have the same set of ambient sounds (bird sounds, etc). Thus, walking from one room to the next wouldn't change them.

In the case of a waterfall, walking closer to it would make it louder, but a gradual fade (2-10 sec) solves that problem.

The real reason why there are no sounds in MUDs is: (a) some players (how many?) don't want sounds, (b) without on-demand downloads it's a pain for players to download sounds for a specific mud, and (c) it's a lot of work for the authors, especially considering that many players (how many?) don't have a client that can play sounds.

(b) and part of (c) are both client issues.

Mike Rozak wrote:

As far as ambient sounds, most rooms in an area have the same set of ambient sounds (bird sounds, etc). Thus, walking from one room to the next wouldn't change them.

But you can often cross areas in seconds, so those changes would need to happen very frequently.



In the case of a waterfall, walking closer to it would make it louder, but a gradual fade (2-10 sec) solves that problem.


The problem is that 2-10 seconds is an eternity in many text MUDs in terms of movement. I could literally be two zones away from where the waterfall was triggered by the time it fades away. That'd just be annoying, especially if you're passing by other sound-fx-creating locations in the meantime.

Aye, either by using speedwalks, or even by using things like:

c portal owl
enter portal
<still hearing waterfall yet am on the other side of the game>

I see two concepts at hand, even though most are going towards user-audible sound as opposed to user-read sound.

I would say that first you should drive a user-read sound interface... you know, "You hear a large crumbling explosion in the distance to the north."

I have spent some time and have an ok coordinate system that applies sound (obviously need a lot more work on it, dampening effects, hallways, through material such as walls, etc).

Realistically, in my opinion, you'd implement a readable sound interface in the game where actual sounds by the ear are not required - you read them. You then offer expansive features such as compressions protocols that send sound information, or more appropriately, trigger-intensive data to the client so that the client can play custom sound (and the Mud would have a website you can download a sound pack, either effects, ambiences for wind, deserts, forests, etc, as well as perhaps even music, character voices, etc).

It is an intriguing concept to find players and have them willingly submit their voice as a character's dialogue. Say you wish to make it easy on the user? Have an install package like any other game. Program the installer to load all the sound files and a working setup of, say, MushClient (whatever you want, really) with pre-existing triggers and the works for making it all come together.

------>>>>>>
So when you install, you get a new player pressing the app button, loading up a client, the sounds already installed, and when the user starts going through the tutorial you may even have actual audio through the speakers explaining or just reading some newbie information, driven by triggers cued from the Mud server.


Most of us have played Diablo 2. The lines such as, "I sense.... death." Users could select the character sound they wish to have. When users enter an area, a script can be played, "I feel at peace, here." Etc. Granted this is taking way more time in to the development process, with voice acting, but it could feasibly be done through volunteers.

Music, well, very few people have good music for games available for free and without copyright issues.

Sound effects, similar, but availability issue. But of course users can find their own sounds through time, and share with 'friends'.

Most muds though with any amount of an aim at roleplay do have and have had for numerous years user-read sound, that'sreallynot something new to many muds.

Ok, if it's not new (in my view), show me this:

You cast a destructive spell on a castle wall.

Every single part of that castle and the outlying areas are displayed with an appropriate sound notification of crumbling castle exterior.

Immediately after, the crowd inside the walls start to panic, resulting in a notification of a 'mob screaming' sound from that same direction.

You then are prompted with the appropriate sound of the castle guard above you (you are on the ground inside the castle) calling for arms and positioning at a specific point.

You then hear the fleeing voices and screams of the crowd running away from the attack, towards your position, until the screams envelope your position.


I will play this Mud for at least 4 hours tonight, if you can show me one that exists ;-)

I'm quite sure that wasn't what was initially described.

sounds like spam to me.

You hear a castle wall begin to crumble, you hear 367 birds take off, you hear 367 birds flying around you, you hear a woman scream in the distance, you hear a man order a tankard of beer, you hear a man ask for a roll of bread, you hear a cat in the alley, you hear a group of dock workers harassing the local population, you hear the crowd bustling about you, you hear....

thats all just whats currently going on. get the idea? to have a description as intense as your making it, it wouldnt just be from what you trigger, but what everone and everything triggers. It would be word vomit.

-Syn

(Comment added by synorel on Mon Jul 21 2:58:37 2008)

should be everyone* and also, the point is this is not a single player medium, so unless you specifically create it so sound echoes are for the people who trigger them or some such your getting word spam. that was all :)

"You cast a destructive spell on a castle wall.

Every single part of that castle and the outlying areas are displayed with an appropriate sound notification of crumbling castle exterior.

Immediately after, the crowd inside the walls start to panic, resulting in a notification of a 'mob screaming' sound from that same direction.

You then are prompted with the appropriate sound of the castle guard above you (you are on the ground inside the castle) calling for arms and positioning at a specific point.

You then hear the fleeing voices and screams of the crowd running away from the attack, towards your position, until the screams envelope your position."


Your descriptions were sufficiently evocative.

Text is not a limitation.

If you find it limiting, then you are simply expressing
yourself in the wrong medium.

It's said that all art aspires to the condition of
music. I nod in sympathy and understanding of this
sentiment. But I do not agree that attempting to
approach the visceral punch of other media by aping
it with limited reproductions is of great merit as
a general rule.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

sounds like spam to me.

Yep, same to me. I meant that sound has been incorporated in muds for
several years, never did I mention that it had been to the extent he then tried
having me point out to him. And as you stated I'm really not sure it 'should'
be, seeing as too much text is just that, spam. Also there's the issue of some
character's being deaf (not player's, actual characters) as well as some hearing
better or worse than others and the amount of code it would require to add
sound all over and to add checks to decide who hears what just isn't cost
effective.

An example of sound incorporated in muds: Many of the quests in 4
Dimensions require typing 'listen' in rooms to hear what is going on nearby to
complete them.

(Comment added by Drizzt1216 on Mon Jul 21 16:27:35 2008)

In 4 Dimensions I was speaking of user-read sound if that wasn't clear, not audible sound.

Some muds have sounds for various things. One that comes to my mind is the Smaug mud, Unicorn Valley. You can go to the website and download the sound files in a zip file. If you have a client that can trigger .wav files (I use RoA client so it works but I know a lot of other clients can do that also) the mud triggers the sounds at various times.

For instance, if you're building an area, you can trigger a sound at repop. Having a forest area trigger birds twittering at repop can sometimes be quite convenient, especially when you're not really watching your screen but want to know anyway.

This provides no disadvantage to those who don't use it. Its easy to turn on or off if you sometimes like it and sometimes don't want it. There are also sounds for such things as a missed attack or another for a successful one.

Generally speaking, its fun at first but you may decide, after a while, that you'd rather have music playing. However, providing it doesn't hurt and its a nice addition for those who like such things.

Another Smaug mud, Amitoune also has sounds but a different treatment. Amitoune also has an interesting use of images. I'm sure that many other muds use sounds in various ways.