Sound is a huge underrated element in games in general and a VERY delicate matter for us sound-invested people. It shouldn't be taken lightly!
That's why there are 200+- replies to threads about this matter. I hope Telltale acknowledges this, and lowers the compression for the DVD release.
How about every time a certain person speaks?
It's damned irritating, and crackling sibilants just aren't acceptable to most people these days. (Nor are masses of typographical errors, but that's another matter entirely)
We shouldn't have to wait until the end of the season before we can fully enjoy the game.
But I guess it's better to have it on the DVD than not at all.
Because they're probably deeply busy with developing the three remaining chapters which has a working deadline.
While I personally think that they can take all the time they need to fix the sound issue on the previous and future episodes, there are plenty of others who want their game on the promised monthly release dates.
Absolutely! They need to set a better standard from now on and I'll be deeply dissapointed if the same low-rate compressions persists on the DVD version.
Absolutely! They need to set a better standard from now on and I'll be deeply dissapointed if the same low-rate compressions persists on the DVD version.
Unfortunately, I'm not terribly optimistic about that either. When this issue was first brought up during Sam and Max Season 1, I'm pretty sure they assured us that they'd try to put higher-quality audio on the DVD release. And they didn't come through with that for either season 1 or 2.
It seems as though this is a problem that is destined to never be fixed. It's a shame, since it gives the otherwise polished games an unprofessional feel to them.
It's nearly impossible to find a provider that delivers under 5Mbit/s in a lot of parts of the world... A LOT of countries even are up to 20, 40 or even 120Mbit at very affordable prices.
All console manufacturers know it... so why doesn't telltale???
Also, telltale, please upgrade to a higher DX version please...
I would rather have them including more conversations in the game...
In Sam and Max, or the older monkey-games you could say the same thing 3 times until you get the same respons... in Tales there are almost no such occasions!
And why give 5 options to respond differently, while Guybrush will always say the same thing?? Like in the conversation with winslow, when he asks to come with you.... Very funny responses, but whatever you click, 'brush will always respond the same way.
OK, this was also done in some of the other games, but then it was logical, and funny... and done only once.
I have had allready 3 times when this occured in TOMI ch 1 and 2... and it's annoying.
And the hissing... I just thought it was the waterfall... lol
I agree about the audio being too compressed, but what really bugs me is the textures! How about some higher resolution textures to show off that beautiful artwork guys?!
thatdude, we get it. You don't hear it. But we do, and it bothers us. If you're not going to be constructive or voice an actual legitimate concern, kindly leave these threads alone.
It's nearly impossible to find a provider that delivers under 5Mbit/s in a lot of parts of the world... A LOT of countries even are up to 20, 40 or even 120Mbit at very affordable prices.
If all you hear is a little bit of hissing, then you must have some terrible speakers and/or go to too many death metal concerts.
On my 5.1 system and headphones, the audio compression is almost unbearable. The "s" sounds grate my ears and everything has that strange "underwater" effect you get from compressing files into the ground. Everything sounds like a super low quality mp3 from more than a decade ago. There's absolutely no reason a game from 2009 should sound like this. The Curse of Monkey Island had higher quality audio, and that came out in '97.
If people are concerned about bandwidth, then they should just release an optional high quality version of the game, or even just a high quality audio patch as a separate file. They could do the same for textures, though they admittedly don't bother me as much.
I love Monkey Island, and I especially appreciate the work and effort Telltale is putting in to the game, but it pains me deeply to have to flinch at certain sounds when I want to try my best to enjoy it. I can understand them wanting to keep the file size low to help those with bandwidth caps, but those of us without them shouldn't be forced to suffer as a result.
It's important to remember that this is the day and age of clients like Steam, where downloading a game can eat up 8gb+ of your bandwidth. Some patches are bigger than this game.
Because they're probably deeply busy with developing the three remaining chapters which has a working deadline.
While I personally think that they can take all the time they need to fix the sound issue on the previous and future episodes, there are plenty of others who want their game on the promised monthly release dates.
Considering that the audio is recorded in high quality in the first place, it actually just adds to the development time to have to compress all of the voices. Patching in high quality versions and using them from now on shouldn't be too much of a time burden, and would likely save them time in the future.
Considering that the audio is recorded in high quality in the first place, it actually just adds to the development time to have to compress all of the voices. Patching in high quality versions and using them from now on shouldn't be too much of a time burden, and would likely save them time in the future.
All enrollments to new standards take more time than usual.
The amount of compression is really silly. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the games, but it's just so unnecessary. Spare another 50 megs and let us hear it all crispy.
It's not like you're trying to fit it on disc. I understood this stuff back when I was playing Shenmue, but now it seems pointless.
As noted, especially with Elaine's voice. Nothing like hearing her "S's" to take you right out of the game.
Come on, Telltale. You have an A-list franchise here. Don't compress the audio so much -- we all have at least fast DSL connections and are willing to download another 100 meg for higher-quality audio. At least pay attention to anything that sounds like a snake might say it and make sure it doesn't sound so compressed.
What an unfortunate distraction to an otherwise great game.
but still... if companies start to consider the weakest link in downloading, than we would still have games @ 10MB, instead of the current batch of games.
I download lots of games (legally) that are much much bigger... heck, even MI;SE was bigger than this.
Jake replied to the audio concerns of the Strongbad forum quite a while ago (almost a year!) giving Telltale's reasons for not including a high bitrate option.
Seems reasonable to me, however this was a year ago and there doesn't appear to have been much progress, if anything a considerable decline in audio quality has happened since Strongbad, which has glorious audio compared to the ghastly W&G voice quality.
If two separate releases is too much work they should bite the bullet and just focus on one release with a slightly higher bitrate for the voices, an extra 15-30mb would make a world of difference to the vocals.
Jake replied to the audio concerns of the Strongbad forum quite a while ago (almost a year!) giving Telltale's reasons for not including a high bitrate option.
That would almost be an acceptable explanation if it weren't for one key point. No other developer releases games, in this price bracket, with this problem. Not a single one.
If the methods you're using flat out prohibit you from using anything other than poor audio quality, use other methods.
That would almost be an acceptable explanation if it weren't for one key point. No other developer releases games, in this price bracket, with this problem. Not a single one.[/I]
He has a point here. I hate to dump on TTG for any reason, because I really love TMI and what they've done to bring back a classic, but there's really no reason for low quality sound in a game these days. I've recently been playing some "indie" games on Steam, and even they have good sound quality. And those are basically games made by just a handful of people with no budget except their savings accounts.
Am I the only person that's bothered by the fact that the word petition is misspelled in the title of this thread? Maybe that's the reason we haven't gotten any serious attention.
But yes, I agree that the fact that indie games sound better than this professional series is more than a little disheartening.
What do you expect for $35, gold? Jeeze..... Thats so cheap...... and you still complain?!?!... The games work so just enjoy the series.
Well I've bought games that cost 5€ from Steam that have been made by lot smaller companies and have way better audio than TT games have... or that is somewhat false, since some of those games are basicly done by few guys in their spare time. Cost to produce or price of the game is not an issue when anyone with a microphone can make a better recording than a professional game studio.
That's it. I'm not buying any more Telltale games until this audio problem is fixed. I do not care about the size of the games at all. If each episode would be 2GB, that'd be fine by me. But I'm not going to tolerate this blatant disregard for our aural sensors.
My ears are maybe not the most sensitive, since I didn't notice this problem before, but a lot of the sound in TMI Ep 2 is really horrible. And I imagine it is even more horrible for those who were bothered earlier.
Yes I have DSL.. but we pay over $10 a gig here in SA and it took me 4.5 hours to download the second chapter. And that was in the middle of the night.. if I did it during the day it could of taken me 9 or 10 hours.
Am I the only person that's bothered by the fact that the word petition is misspelled in the title of this thread? Maybe that's the reason we haven't gotten any serious attention.
Yes, I'm sure that's why! ;P
I corrected the misspelling long ago, but the title remains unchanged on the main discussion board view for some odd reason.
Yes I have DSL.. but we pay over $10 a gig here in SA and it took me 4.5 hours to download the second chapter. And that was in the middle of the night.. if I did it during the day it could of taken me 9 or 10 hours.
The smaller the better for DLC games!
I wonder how many customers are put off by the games because they are 200 - 400 mb which take a long time on slow connections and how many are put off by the audio problems.
I have a 230kb/s broadband connection and it takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to download an episode.
If your connection is really that terrible, you have three options,
1. Wait a day for it to download
2. Wait for the DVD version to play
3. Don't play the game.
Guys, if you take a look into the game's folder after everything is installed, you'll notice the file size for the voices is a whopping 15 megs - they could put this on 3,5" discs and ship it like that. The voice file for Launch is twice the size, actually. But then I've seen people insisting on not even noticing the poor audio quality. None at all. Zada. Zilch. Which would suggest there is another thing at work, such as audio chips interfering, but with an audio file this small, phew.
I wonder how many customers are put off by the games because they are 200 - 400 mb which take a long time on slow connections and how many are put off by the audio problems.
I have a 230kb/s broadband connection and it takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to download an episode.
If your connection is really that terrible, you have three options,
1. Wait a day for it to download
2. Wait for the DVD version to play
3. Don't play the game.
Problem with 2 &3 is they can easily be switched to apply to those complaining about the sound. Those complaining could simply wait for the DVD to come out, where they will surely make use of the larger space of the DVD to include better sound. #3 is especially applicable to either side of the argument, which is why it's throughly worthless as a valid response. I mean, one could argue that those who hate the sound so much could simply not play the game...
For the record, I wouldn't have a huge problem with a slightly larger download, but I also haven't noticed any "horrible sound" myself (or at least, it's minor enough not to bother me).
Comments
TMI has been fantastic so far in almost every way. The music sounds fine, but the voices are painfully over-compressed.
Sound is a huge underrated element in games in general and a VERY delicate matter for us sound-invested people. It shouldn't be taken lightly!
That's why there are 200+- replies to threads about this matter. I hope Telltale acknowledges this, and lowers the compression for the DVD release.
My thoughts. 203 now ^.^
How about every time a certain person speaks?
It's damned irritating, and crackling sibilants just aren't acceptable to most people these days. (Nor are masses of typographical errors, but that's another matter entirely)
We shouldn't have to wait until the end of the season before we can fully enjoy the game.
But I guess it's better to have it on the DVD than not at all.
Because they're probably deeply busy with developing the three remaining chapters which has a working deadline.
While I personally think that they can take all the time they need to fix the sound issue on the previous and future episodes, there are plenty of others who want their game on the promised monthly release dates.
But the planing for the next game should include time to make HQ voice packages for each episode.
Unfortunately, I'm not terribly optimistic about that either. When this issue was first brought up during Sam and Max Season 1, I'm pretty sure they assured us that they'd try to put higher-quality audio on the DVD release. And they didn't come through with that for either season 1 or 2.
And in this old posting from nearly three years ago, Emily says they're toying with the idea of offering optional, higher-quality downloads:
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15002&postcount=7
It seems as though this is a problem that is destined to never be fixed. It's a shame, since it gives the otherwise polished games an unprofessional feel to them.
It's nearly impossible to find a provider that delivers under 5Mbit/s in a lot of parts of the world... A LOT of countries even are up to 20, 40 or even 120Mbit at very affordable prices.
All console manufacturers know it... so why doesn't telltale???
Also, telltale, please upgrade to a higher DX version please...
In Sam and Max, or the older monkey-games you could say the same thing 3 times until you get the same respons... in Tales there are almost no such occasions!
And why give 5 options to respond differently, while Guybrush will always say the same thing?? Like in the conversation with winslow, when he asks to come with you.... Very funny responses, but whatever you click, 'brush will always respond the same way.
OK, this was also done in some of the other games, but then it was logical, and funny... and done only once.
I have had allready 3 times when this occured in TOMI ch 1 and 2... and it's annoying.
And the hissing... I just thought it was the waterfall... lol
This.
Welcome to Australia. 5Mbit/s is rare here.
If all you hear is a little bit of hissing, then you must have some terrible speakers and/or go to too many death metal concerts.
On my 5.1 system and headphones, the audio compression is almost unbearable. The "s" sounds grate my ears and everything has that strange "underwater" effect you get from compressing files into the ground. Everything sounds like a super low quality mp3 from more than a decade ago. There's absolutely no reason a game from 2009 should sound like this. The Curse of Monkey Island had higher quality audio, and that came out in '97.
If people are concerned about bandwidth, then they should just release an optional high quality version of the game, or even just a high quality audio patch as a separate file. They could do the same for textures, though they admittedly don't bother me as much.
I love Monkey Island, and I especially appreciate the work and effort Telltale is putting in to the game, but it pains me deeply to have to flinch at certain sounds when I want to try my best to enjoy it. I can understand them wanting to keep the file size low to help those with bandwidth caps, but those of us without them shouldn't be forced to suffer as a result.
It's important to remember that this is the day and age of clients like Steam, where downloading a game can eat up 8gb+ of your bandwidth. Some patches are bigger than this game.
Considering that the audio is recorded in high quality in the first place, it actually just adds to the development time to have to compress all of the voices. Patching in high quality versions and using them from now on shouldn't be too much of a time burden, and would likely save them time in the future.
All enrollments to new standards take more time than usual.
It's not like you're trying to fit it on disc. I understood this stuff back when I was playing Shenmue, but now it seems pointless.
I would'nt mind downloading even 2GB.
Come on, Telltale. You have an A-list franchise here. Don't compress the audio so much -- we all have at least fast DSL connections and are willing to download another 100 meg for higher-quality audio. At least pay attention to anything that sounds like a snake might say it and make sure it doesn't sound so compressed.
What an unfortunate distraction to an otherwise great game.
Are you serious???? that is very unfortunate....
but still... if companies start to consider the weakest link in downloading, than we would still have games @ 10MB, instead of the current batch of games.
I download lots of games (legally) that are much much bigger... heck, even MI;SE was bigger than this.
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=90226&postcount=33
Seems reasonable to me, however this was a year ago and there doesn't appear to have been much progress, if anything a considerable decline in audio quality has happened since Strongbad, which has glorious audio compared to the ghastly W&G voice quality.
If two separate releases is too much work they should bite the bullet and just focus on one release with a slightly higher bitrate for the voices, an extra 15-30mb would make a world of difference to the vocals.
That would almost be an acceptable explanation if it weren't for one key point. No other developer releases games, in this price bracket, with this problem. Not a single one.
If the methods you're using flat out prohibit you from using anything other than poor audio quality, use other methods.
He has a point here. I hate to dump on TTG for any reason, because I really love TMI and what they've done to bring back a classic, but there's really no reason for low quality sound in a game these days. I've recently been playing some "indie" games on Steam, and even they have good sound quality. And those are basically games made by just a handful of people with no budget except their savings accounts.
But yes, I agree that the fact that indie games sound better than this professional series is more than a little disheartening.
Well I've bought games that cost 5€ from Steam that have been made by lot smaller companies and have way better audio than TT games have... or that is somewhat false, since some of those games are basicly done by few guys in their spare time. Cost to produce or price of the game is not an issue when anyone with a microphone can make a better recording than a professional game studio.
My ears are maybe not the most sensitive, since I didn't notice this problem before, but a lot of the sound in TMI Ep 2 is really horrible. And I imagine it is even more horrible for those who were bothered earlier.
Big deal, I used to download files that were about a gigabyte at 5kb/s and it took multiple days, I think you can handle an hour or two download.
On another note, can a mod please change the topic of this thread? It's driving me crazy. "doesn't has"? "petion"?
Yes I have DSL.. but we pay over $10 a gig here in SA and it took me 4.5 hours to download the second chapter. And that was in the middle of the night.. if I did it during the day it could of taken me 9 or 10 hours.
The smaller the better for DLC games!
I corrected the misspelling long ago, but the title remains unchanged on the main discussion board view for some odd reason.
I expect audio that sounds like it was recorded this century.
I wonder how many customers are put off by the games because they are 200 - 400 mb which take a long time on slow connections and how many are put off by the audio problems.
I have a 230kb/s broadband connection and it takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to download an episode.
If your connection is really that terrible, you have three options,
1. Wait a day for it to download
2. Wait for the DVD version to play
3. Don't play the game.
Problem with 2 &3 is they can easily be switched to apply to those complaining about the sound. Those complaining could simply wait for the DVD to come out, where they will surely make use of the larger space of the DVD to include better sound. #3 is especially applicable to either side of the argument, which is why it's throughly worthless as a valid response. I mean, one could argue that those who hate the sound so much could simply not play the game...
For the record, I wouldn't have a huge problem with a slightly larger download, but I also haven't noticed any "horrible sound" myself (or at least, it's minor enough not to bother me).
The team's just uploaded an updated version of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2.
Those that have experienced audio issues will find improvements here.
You can get it from the same location:
http://www.telltalegames.com/download/siegeofspinnercay
This is replacing the prior version and becomes the standard game download version going forward.
Best,
- Joel, Telltale