Sound Bites
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh takes a look at what sound means to the MMO experience in an editorial today.
Turn off the sound in a movie and what have you got? A bunch of moving heads and not much else. Turn off the sound in an MMOG and you dont know that an Orc has come up behind you and is beating on your head like a drum, or that a pesky trooper has dropped down under you and is trying to take your BFR out with a popgun that seems to be the challenge in Planetside currently soloing a BFR.
As our senses go, sight seems to be primary. We smell something nasty we hear the tigers roar. But we dont start running until we actually see the danger. Perhaps it is the nature of most MMORPGs but sound often seemed to be added on as an afterthought. The annoying repetitiveness of Rivervales music was enough for many EQ players to turn sound off, but I sure kept it on in zones where there were giants! My character couldnt track so I listened for their footsteps.
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