The Drunken Lizard Pub

I like to listen to the radio on my computer, but this game is very loud even with the volume options all set to zero.

Sorry, almostnorth...there are the "base" sounds that we assumed the user could control by the computer speaker volume, and then the "extra" sounds that are layered which the game gives you control over. It really is a design flaw on our part because we never considered that the user may want to turn all sounds off while still having the computer speak volume up.

That has been corrected in Book II; probably will not be patched in Book I since it is a big change in code and only a small handful of people have asked about it.

I know this is an independent game, developed on a shoestring, but we did pay for it and there are basic standards that need to be met. I've been playing computer games since about 1990, and I don't remember the last time I couldn't control the volume in a game. It is sad because I have enjoyed the game so far, with the exception of the long time I spent doing nothing waiting for cure lesser disease potions to show up in the vendor's selection. I'm probably not going to finish the game now, since the time I have to play the game I need the use of my speakers un-hijacked by loud sound effects. I appreciate your quick and courteous response to the question, but to me it basically reads, "we have your money now, its not worth our time, please buy our next product."

Jedi_Learner wrote:

almostnorth wrote:I'm probably not going to finish the game now, since the time I have to play the game I need the use of my speakers un-hijacked by loud sound effects.

Why do you need to listen to the radio while you play Eschalon: Book I?

Is that really important? Thats when I have time to play and that is my situation. I don't want to get sidetracked, because that isn't the topic of this thread. The topic is lack of volume control. Thank you

almostnorth wrote:to me it basically reads, "we have your money now, its not worth our time, please buy our next product."

That is not it at all. Because we are a small indie developer we kiss a LOT of ass to keep customers happy. We work more hours than you can possibly imagine to follow up on each and every tech support issue that comes our way.

What I am saying is that only a few (perhaps 4-5) people including yourself have had a real problem with the volume settings in the past 8 months that Book I has been available. Adding additional volume function means some fairly major changes to the sound engine (and GUI adjustments for the controls) and it just isn't something we can do to appease a few people. And yet we took the opinions of 4 or 5 people seriously enough to rewrite the sound engine in Book II to support "complete volume and sound driver control" (about 3 weeks of development time).

I am very sorry you are dissatisfied, and if you want a refund, I will be happy to process that for you.

Alternately, there are programs (like AudioHijack for the Mac) that allow you to grab the audio from one application and reroute it for recording, but even without recording it, you can set the hijacked sound to mute. That would allow you to play a silent version of Eschalon while listening to your internet radio.

I want to preface all this by saying that I really don't mean to sound angry or confrontational, I'm just curious about a few things and want to make a couple points. Unfortunately, this being a forum post, there is probably no way for me to prevent it coming off not quite how I mean it .

Kreador Freeaxe wrote:Alternately, there are programs (like AudioHijack for the Mac) that allow you to grab the audio from one application and reroute it for recording, but even without recording it, you can set the hijacked sound to mute. That would allow you to play a silent version of Eschalon while listening to your internet radio.

Cool - I wonder if anyone knows of such a program for linux?

Jedi_Learner wrote:If listening to the radio is so important to you, why don't you just turn off the speakers for your computer and buy yourself a radio or something?

Perhaps he wants to listen to internet radio? Personally I just want to listen to my MP3s, and it's a little frustrating that I can't. Leisure time is limited and it would be best if I could do both at once.

BasiliskWrangler wrote: That is not it at all. Because we are a small indie developer we kiss a LOT of ass to keep customers happy. We work more hours than you can possibly imagine to follow up on each and every tech support issue that comes our way.

What I am saying is that only a few (perhaps 4-5) people including yourself have had a real problem with the volume settings in the past 8 months that Book I has been available.

Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that you guys have the best intentions. And I know that putting out anything like this as an indie developer is extremely tough - you guys have done great. But, it's not quite right to characterize how many people are bothered by this problem in this way. Most people probably see that one post has been made and don't bother replying. I would have done the same, if I hadn't seen this reply (and if not for the fact that I'm a huge tool )

BasiliskWrangler wrote:And yet we took the opinions of 4 or 5 people seriously enough to rewrite the sound engine in Book II to support "complete volume and sound driver control" (about 3 weeks of development time).

This seems a little off. I can imagine that completely overhauling your sound system and adding all kinds of user-adjustable control is a lot of work. But all that is being asked for here is a single checkbox to disable all sound output. I imagine your internal sound module has several functions which other parts of the game call when they want to play a sound - is it really three weeks worth of work to change these to check the "disable all sound" setting before proceeding with the system level sound calls?

It's certainly possible that you've done the internal sound stuff in a different way, and this would explain a 3 weeks overhead for this one checkbox. But, if things are structured in a reasonable modular way, it seems like this is just adding an "if" around the bodies of a few functions. Even if many parts of your code are out to external sound functions directly, a text search-and-replace could probably change these to calls to an internal function which does the right thing.


Well, as I said, there was no way to prevent this post from sounding like I'm accusing a bunch of people of incompetence. Really, I am just curious.

millhouse wrote:This seems a little off. I can imagine that completely overhauling your sound system and adding all kinds of user-adjustable control is a lot of work. But all that is being asked for here is a single checkbox to disable all sound output. I imagine your internal sound module has several functions which other parts of the game call when they want to play a sound - is it really three weeks worth of work to change these to check the "disable all sound" setting before proceeding with the system level sound calls?

It's certainly possible that you've done the internal sound stuff in a different way, and this would explain a 3 weeks overhead for this one checkbox. But, if things are structured in a reasonable modular way, it seems like this is just adding an "if" around the bodies of a few functions. Even if many parts of your code are out to external sound functions directly, a text search-and-replace could probably change these to calls to an internal function which does the right thing.

Well, as I said, there was no way to prevent this post from sounding like I'm accusing a bunch of people of incompetence. Really, I am just curious.

I don't think you appear accusatory...you are asking a valid question.

I won't get into the details about all the work that has gone into the next game except to say that Book II's sound engine is significantly more flexible in terms of audio driver selection and volume control. Most of this added flexibility in response to the complaints of a few people, and the length of time needed to incorporate these changes comes from the fact that Basilisk Games is a tiny studio with limited resources. For example, I am the sole programmer here and rather than work on the game right now I am doing this.

Now here is where I admit you are actually correct: it wouldn't be too hard to put a option line in Book Is .cfg file to disable all sound completely. We can shut sound off at the driver level pretty easily, and this method would not require any GUI alteration or significant code adjustment. I think the reason this issue wasn't previously addressed in this manner is that the few who complained about it seemed to want more control over the volume levels of all sound channels (which we addressed with the updates to the next game). And again, given the fractionally insignificant number of people complaining in addition to the fact that this is not a bug but a feature request is why we didn't pursuit it any further.

If this option (disabling game audio at launch via a statement that must be manually added to the .cfg file) is a satisfactory option to the people who want it, I will see to it that it is added to the next Book I patch.

Thanks for the detailed response! I would love to see this feature in the next patch, but I wouldn't describe it as critical for me - mostly I was just curious.

BasiliskWrangler wrote:If this option (disabling game audio at launch via a statement that must be manually added to the .cfg file) is a satisfactory option to the people who want it, I will see to it that it is added to the next Book I patch.

I would love to have this option. I also prefer to listen to my own music via Internet radio or iTunes, and barring the ability to control the game's sound level, I at least like to disable it completely.

I tried deleting the sound files, but the game won't load without them. I also replaced and renamed the .wav files and found that you can replace them all with files of your choice. I experimented with making funny battle sounds (like "Boinnnnng!" for a sword strike, or "Yeowch!" for getting hit) and it worked fine, so you could replace all files with a file of silence, but it would be laborious.

So I vote for adding it to the patch.

I would like to add my vote for a mute option. Actually, I'd love to mute only specific sounds that I find really annoying, but I know that's way too much trouble.

The bit about "we have your money" seems not to take into account that this is not one of $60-$80 games that offer many more features. I feel that the game, as it is, was well worth what I paid.

Thlain wrote: I tried deleting the sound files, but the game won't load without them. I also replaced and renamed the .wav files and found that you can replace them all with files of your choice. I experimented with making funny battle sounds (like "Boinnnnng!" for a sword strike, or "Yeowch!" for getting hit) and it worked fine, so you could replace all files with a file of silence, but it would be laborious.

Cool! How do you do that? I mean, I don't see any .wav files: just the icon that starts the game, the .pdf Players' Manual and the stupid "Buy the full version" thing that Macgamestore adds in (despite the fact that this IS the full version, stupids), oh, and I found a Saved games file in Documents. Where can I find the sounds files? I'd love to get rid of some of the annoying ones.

I know this is a MASSIVE necropost, but I was having this issue as well and thought I'd give people a very simple fix for it (takes about 5 seconds): Volume mixer.
http://prntscr.com/lthdo

*Never uses Raise Dead on Topic*

It's super effective.

Never wrote:I know this is a MASSIVE necropost, but I was having this issue as well and thought I'd give people a very simple fix for it (takes about 5 seconds): Volume mixer.
http://prntscr.com/lthdo

'Never', you saved my bacon. I quit playing Eschalon shortly after buying it, despite liking the game, due to the annoyance of very loud dripping sounds, etc. It even prevented me from buying Book 2 & 3 (since I never got anywhere in Book 1). Now I can finally play the game without turning off my music, podcasts, and documentaries I must constantly absorb, else I will die of mental starvation. So while I am fairly certain, you'll never see this, thank you.