FSDev| General Un-Co wrote:

Finally and most importantly changing any file within a zip will cause punkbuster to kick you for modified content, due to your files being of a different size too those in the punkbuster checksums.

Well... while there may be ways to address your other concerns, if you are right on this account then that would certainly spell doom for the whole idea. Are you absolutely sure that this is the case?

Well, I've now verified this myself, and it is true. PunkBuster will not allow any kind of modification to a client-side ZIP and still let you connect. So unless it is possible to configure PunkBuster to exclude sound_client.zip from the MD5 checksum verifications it seems like this can't be done.

Really too bad. Adding music to the maps in old Galactic Conquest really added a lot to the atmosphere during play. It's a shame that BF2142 should turn out to be LESS customizable than BF1942 in this respect.

Finally and most importantly changing any file within a zip will cause punkbuster to kick you for modified content, due to your files being of a different size too those in the punkbuster checksums.

Well... while there may be ways to address your other concerns, if you are right on this account then that would certainly spell doom for the whole idea. Are you absolutely sure that this is the case?

Well, thanks for informing me, not to mention responding to me in non-patronizing manner this time.

Alright. I didn't really think that the developers were trying to hide how to use the editors with FS/BF2142 from the player base, but the concern seemed to have popped up once or twice before on the forums.

As for locking the thread, I hardly think it is necessary. If you are certain that punkbuster will not allow an ogg file in a client-side zip to be replaced, then I rest my case and this discussion can be more or less considered over.

  It is also important to note (that as someone else pointed out) 90% of players aren't going to edit files to play music if they even bothered to read the manual to find that such a 'feature' existed. Not to mention most people simply run a music player in the background... So there is really no point including it.

Finally and most importantly changing any file within a zip will cause punkbuster to kick you for modified content, due to your files being of a different size too those in the punkbuster checksums.

Where does this leave us? Exactly what Flippy, Ty, Ulph, Markus and my self said before if you want music, open Media Player. THIS THREAD NEEDS TO BE LOCKED imo.

  Don't waste Blitz's time with such matters, Talon is the stand in PR guy while xERo is away, please direct PR issues towarrds him.

Btw check the times on your post and Tys he posted 2 hours before you . Both Ty and I were in the process of typing up tutorials to help the mappers, in the custom mapping section (Ty finished his first).

Guys, you must understand that alot of us devs have been working our nails through to the bone for the past few weeks (some of us have been havingl ess than 5 hours sleep a day for a long time). So don't blast us if we seem a bit... 'negative'.

(Excellent job BTW)

I don't even listen to the music in games.  I usually turn the sound effects up so I can hear them over my own music playing and turn off the game music... (for any game I'm playing).  Besides if you're not sacrificing performance to get the music.. you're sacrificing resources.  That is unless your computer can handle the resource or performance drain... and if it can... why not listen to your own music.. I recommend "Static X" for playing the First Strike Mod..

Carbon wrote:

should have little to no performance cost.

heh you've not got alot of experience modding bf2142 have you

Are you suggesting that adding an extra background looping ambient OGG backdrop for each map - even a silent one - would actually give a performance hit?

I fully understand if you are all tired, and I don't have a problem with people being negative in general in response to my suggestions. I don't even have a problem with people not even bothering to read and understand what it actually is I am suggesting before they post their criticism. It's the ironizing I have a problem with (which has been demonstrated so far by General Un-Co and Markus). I *do* have a problem with someone - even developers... particularly developers, who should know better than to insult the player base - ridiculing me for suggesting it in the first place, though.

Fair enough... I just want to make sure you actually understand what it is that I'm proposing here.

I'm glad to hear at least someone else understands me, dev team member or not. Thanks for the support, and the attempt to clarify what I'm really saying.

True, but the player in question could always fix this by remastering his OGG files to a different volume level. A hassle, for sure, for just changing the volume of the music, but at least a way to do it.

should have little to no performance cost.

heh you've not got alot of experience modding bf2142 have you

Guys, you must understand that alot of us devs have been working our nails through to the bone for the past few weeks (some of us have been havingl ess than 5 hours sleep a day for a long time). So don't blast us if we seem a bit... 'negative'.

All issues raised in our forums will be looked at and discussed through the development process of R2.

I have as of yet not had anyone seriously comment on this specific suggestion with the empty OGGs, and I would appreciate if someone did.

Well, I'm not a dev, but I understand exactly what you're proposing, and unlike some of the rather negative responses in this thread, it seems like a good option that would take minimal implementation and be rather fun to play with (adding all sorts of custom music, or just the basic Star Wars ones if you've got 'em) assuming PB doesn't check hashes.

The only thing I worry about is that the ambient sound would be played (I assume) with the settings for volume for "general", rather than the separate music slider, making the end-user have to play with volume quite a bit if their track is too loud or too quiet without the benefit of a quick esc -> options -> audio.

But yeah, I don't understand the hostility. Not everyone has a $100 keyboard, and BF2142 does *not* like alt-tab. It's not a ten-hour sorta deal, my (educated) assumption (having a background in level design, though not BF2's editor) is that it would be relatively easy to do and should have little to no performance cost.

EDIT: Since a few people seem to not really understand the process (though I may be overestimating here), I'll explain it like this. Let's say you wanted some space in your little side "who posted this" thing on the forums, where the avatar would go, and you didn't want an avatar. So, you matched the background of the forums color, and made a small jpg file, uploaded it to your website, and pointed the forums to it. Ta-da, now you have a "blank" avatar that spaces out the text. Now let's say you wanted to change it to a new avatar.

Well, you don't have to upload a new file or anything - you could simply just change the back-end jpg you just made to the image you wanted. While this might seem like a stupid pointless thing for an avatar (why not just point the forum to your new one), you can't do that in a map for obvious reasons.

So what you do is make a small silent file that is looped, makes absolutely zero sound, but is played globally. The average user won't get anything, because, well, it's silent. But a user that wanted some sort of music could replace that silent file with the one he wanted, and get "music" on that level that obviously only played for him (because he's the only one with the clientside replacement).

*possible means in this insance, making it something else than a looping song in the background that's not optional.

I think you skipped past what I wrote a bit higher up, Ulversial. I just presented a way to make it possible and optional. Let me repeat it:

This IS possible. The same technique is used to give ambient background SFX to the maps in the current version of the mod, and by delivering the mod by default with empty placeholder OGGs instead of actual music files, the dev team will make this feature completely optional to the player - and disabled by default. It would also be ridiculously easy for the mappers to put in. The only possible drawback of doing this would be in case playing an empty/silent OGG file during play would have a negative impact on game performance.

Vader and Preacher so far seem to be the only ones who have understood fully exactly what I am suggesting here, although Preacher seemed to miss the point that doing it would make the music entirely optional, and disabled by default, so most players wouldn't even notice a difference. I have as of yet not had anyone seriously comment on this specific suggestion with the empty OGGs, and I would appreciate if someone did. Thank you for at least responding to me in a non-condescending fashion, Ulversial, unlike General Un-Co. I frankly do not feel like I should have to be ironized over and ridiculed by any member of the FSDev team just for making an earnest suggestion, and I have made this clear to Blitz (because to my knowledge the team doesn't have a formal public relations person - perhaps it's time to assign one?).

sorry.

*possible means in this insance, making it something else than a looping song in the background that's not optional.

so the best option is actually winamp/foobar2000/wmp/cd in the background. I hope u still like us anyway

We have:
http://www.fsmod.com/fsforums/viewtopic.php?id=5931

That had not been posted at the time of my writing the previous to which you commented, and it's quite possible that TY2D2 made the post in direct response to my request.

What I am asking for is not detailed instructions on how to run an external mp3 player, nor on how to listen to the song I want to hear for a special map in general, but thanks for assuming I'm a complete idiot and providing me with them anyway.

What I'm after is a technical solution to the mod that would provide the players (NOT just me) with a simple, integrated, and above all OPTIONAL way to AUTOMIZE this process. If you have no answer to that question then kindly feel free to refrain from ridiculing me.

And the same goes for you, Markus.

get yourself on of those nice keyboard with a LCD screen. (logitech g15)
install winamp.
install the lcd plugin for winamp
and you can now even scroll in your playlist

Why won't the FSDevs give us the basics of how to get the editor to work with BF2142/FS?

We have:
http://www.fsmod.com/fsforums/viewtopic.php?id=5931

The following is a tut on how to listen to music in a map:
1. Buy a 'multimedia keyboard'.  (You can tell these keyboards from a regular keyboard by the (|<<) (>)  ([]) (>>|) buttons)
2. Open 'Windows media player'.
3. Create a playlist called 'FS' with all your desired songs in it.
4. Start up FS.
5. Hit play (>).
6. If the song isn't appropriate hit 'next' (>>|).
7. Repeat step 6 until satisfied.

Has never failed me before.

What about what I suggested before, though, to simply add an empty OGG for each map, which is basically just a client-side placeholder meant to be replaced by the player? It is a very simple client-side tweak to replace an OGG file in a zip archive, and it would make the ambient music completely optional to the player (and disabled by default).

Not to mention there is a licensing advantage to this. As you know, you are not allowed to distribute Star Wars soundtrack with the mod. However, those players who own a legitimate copy of the soundtrack are perfectly allowed to "plug it in" as soundtrack to the mod client-side.

A comment on this, Preacher? Don't you think this is a simple and effective enough way to allow the players to plug in their own custom soundtrack?

we can easily implement music into a map (the basic way as in just playing in teh background without being triggered by certain events) however the issue boils down to thus. if we add it to teh map no one has a choice wether they want to hear teh music or not, EVERYONE must listen to teh music including those that hate teh music.

I don't think you will see/hear constant in-game music unless we can find a way to make it an option.

we will be looking at it for R2/R3

Sounds great.

What about what I suggested before, though, to simply add an empty OGG for each map, which is basically just a client-side placeholder meant to be replaced by the player? It is a very simple client-side tweak to replace an OGG file in a zip archive, and it would make the ambient music completely optional to the player (and disabled by default).

Not to mention there is a licensing advantage to this. As you know, you are not allowed to distribute Star Wars soundtrack with the mod. However, those players who own a legitimate copy of the soundtrack are perfectly allowed to "plug it in" as soundtrack to the mod client-side.

Well at least then all any dev or more experienced player would need to tell someone who drops such questions in the forum would be "RTFM". The operation is not exactly rocket science.

Why won't the FSDevs give us the basics of how to get the editor to work with BF2142/FS?