Hey everybody! There are going to be some big changes coming up for the sound in Grimoire: Manastorm. For a while we had a very simple system setup in regards to sound as the game was still in pretty early development. However, we have now begun to implement new audio systems into the game to increase immersion.
The Weight of Spells
As many of you have probably noticed, the spells don’t feel quite as impactful as you might expect. This is one thing we are primarily looking to fix in regards to the audio in the game. If a weapon feels “weak” then it is almost always due to the sound attached. The sound gives weight. The sound gives the art life. Many of the sounds in Grimoire: Manastorm over the course of the past year have been temporary just to have something in game for the sake of testing. The other side of this is just that we hadn’t figured out what we were going to do yet to give that sense of weight to spells. We are removing the temporary high pitched ping noise (aka the dreaded fax machine sound) that signifies when you have successfully hit a player and will be replacing it with sounds much more complimentary to the game. The type of hit register sound/impact will usually be adjusted depending on the type of spell you are using. Stereo sound will also be added (finally!) for spells while in first person mode.
Voice Command System
First off, I think I can say with confidence that most of the team has always enjoyed voice commands in multiplayer games. It adds a lot of player interactivity (and can be freaking hilarious) which is always a good thing.
We will be taking the approach of having a single voice actor per class. Each class will have a wide range of options they can choose from after accessing a voice menu. For now we have chosen to separate the menu into general voice commands (Yes, No, Taunt, Laugh, etc) and tactical voice commands (Follow Me, Hold This Position, etc). Which commands are available will be subject to change in the future after a good amount of testing. Once the dialogue system is in place I will begin recording my own temp voicings for each class. Hopefully for all of our sakes the temp dialogue does not make it into a live early access build :P.
Thanks for taking the time to read our devblogs. In Sound Design - Part III, you will get to listen to samples of many of the things I have spoken about in the first two blogs. Look for it sometime in July.
-Daniel