Aw come on!

[dugalm]

I can't believe that this game has release version 1.0 and yet there is no control for the music! As much as the music might be beautiful, even my most favourite songs I would turn off after a while! And this music of greenleaves really really falls on my nerves! Furthermore, in a dungeon, I want to hear the silence, the water drops, the steps and groans of monsters, not music. Even when creating a new character, when you are ask to choose a voice, I can't hear the voice because the music is louder! So please, PLEASE, give us the option to turn it off!! All games have this option so why not this one! After five years, come on!

[FullAutoAttack]

It is a strange decision just from a business standpoint.

Why alienate potential customers with not giving them the choice to play the way they prefer and forcing them to play the way you prefer.

I think an option to turn it off is a reasonable request and one that 99% of games (art) offers.

[burdfishdemon]

Can't you just delete the songs in the "AUDIO" (it is in caps) folder?

[FullAutoAttack]

Possible - someone with the game should try.

[Stefacle]

Well, as much as I agree that there should be volume control for the music, I don't know at this point if there will be or not. Dev said he will consider this for a coming patch.

Dev have also said that he is happy to allow people to mod the game as they see fit, and have structured the game files so that they are easy to access for modders.

[lonetrav]

Originally posted by dugalm:

Direct quotes from the dev here :-
... I do still consider a video game to be a piece of art, and the music is a part of that experience. It's like going to the movies and asking them to mute just the music tracks of a film and leaving the sound effects. ...

I agree with the point. Either you do what YOU like, or you try to displease as few people as possible, or you give the people who shout loudest what they want. Big companies tend to follow the second path, and the result is nice and boring in most cases - like a good-looking fruit or vegetable with no taste. The third route is probably the easiest to follow - it's purely reactive. Question is how good the shouters represent the potential customers ...
This developer has a clear vision and tries to implement it. I sympathise with this approach, as it has the highest probability to produce something interesting, original, not the 1000th copy of something else. The downside of the approach is the high risk of failing in a business sense. Just like a developer has the freedom to develop what he wants, it's my freedom to buy it or not.

This is not a comment on how I feel about the quality of the game or its music.

[Hippyshake]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

Question is how good the shouters represent the potential customers ...

I'm not a shouter, but I am someone who owns the game (backed on KS) and who has turned off the music since it entered my library several years ago. I have 79 hours put into the game (which is terrific, btw), but 78 hours and 55 minutes of that is with the sound completely off. So am I experiencing this as the developer intended? No; because I can't turn down the music, I'm forced to turn all sound off, making it just another game I'm playing. It seems to me that introducing music and sound faders would allow the player to experience the game closer to the dev's vision of art (which i understand, btw, being a fan of RailSlave Games).

It's not a deal breaker, nor should it be; the game relies on visual clues as much as sound cues and is completely playable without sound. It's a fun game, and this excuse shouldn't be used as the basis for hurting the reputation of a great game. It makes no sense to me merely from a business point but I'm not the dev, and I respect his right to release the game he wants.

That said, yes, movies and books are other forms of art. But: Many times I watch movies and television with the sound off and subtitles on. And if I want to read Stephen king's "The Stand" I can read it as:

• the original 1978 version
  
• the 1990 unabridged version that adds nearly 400 pages
  
• the graphic novel

It's still the same story and, thus, still the same art.

Adding the capability for someone to turn music off doesn't destroy your vision; it allows a greater number of people to embrace and enjoy it. Also, this:

Originally posted by lonetrav:

you give the people who shout loudest what they want. Big companies tend to follow the second path, and the result is nice and boring in most cases - like a good-looking fruit or vegetable with no taste.

This argument doesn't really apply, as the game would still be completely playable as intended by those who wish to listen to the music.

[sdshadow]

I tried and i found a way to mute the music only.

You only need a "blank mp3" file with no sound.
Google it, i have found this link with a free 1 minute one:

https://bigsoundbank.com/detail-0917-one-minute-of-silence.html

All music of the game is at the folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Malevolence - The Sword of Ahkranox\AUDIO

The sound files are "wav", the music tracks are "mp3".
You only have to overwrite each mp3 file with a blank mp3 track.
If you delete them, you get error messages. You have to give them the exact name of the original mp3 file. So you have to switch each of the 42 tracks manually. Not much work, at a few minutes this is done.

I have done this with a few tracks (TitleMusic.mp3 and CountryLoadMusic.mp3) and there was no error message and there was no music anymore at the title or the country load screen.

Myself i like the music of the game, so i will not test if every mp3 can be changed without failure. But i think it will work. I doubt that the music system of the game is different for different music tracks.

[matsrats]

This is an interesting discussion. I think this matter has to be regarded differentiated. Music is art like a game too. Art = artificial = created by someone. It can be enhancing or enforcing certain moments/ situations. I think to reach that goal while creating a harmonic symbiosis with the core game the music should only be placed at certain (somehow fitting) moments.

Problem I see is when music is playing all the time for the musics sake it´s getting deleted by itsself due to constant repeats very soon and when a player is aware of that the music is just playing on and on and is not interactively responding to his situations all the time...the player will get:

a)
to the point he will feel that the music is not in harmony with the game and will probably be annoyed by it soon.

b)
to the point where he/she is so used to the music he knows in and out at a certain moment so his/her brain will blend it out totally while concentrating on actually playing the game that he won´t even recognice the music any more.

c)
to the point where he/she is actually listening to the music and can´t blend it out in the mind and will be very distracted and will propably have a hard time concentrating on other things like reading lore books or listening to other things like environmental stuff.

d)
to the point where he/she will recognice that the music has another reason why its there. Maybe the actual sound-design and the effects and environmental sounds aren´t really so good and the music tries it´s best to hide that with it´s loudness.


There are many more options but in all positions the result is the same. The music is or will become obsolete if not annoying or distracting later.

Such elements work in a movie theatre because of the inactivity of the audience. But striving virtually through a gaming world and it´s dungeons, emulating an actively played adventure that doesn´t work over a long period. As said and enough prooved by scientic research...the human brain is only and exclusively capable of concentrating (and I mean really to be aware of everything in that moment) solely on one single thing at one time.

It´s commonly thought about as a very good thing to have options. And every person has a different awareness for certain things or for certain things in certain situations. I do not think it is a good idea to put over such a thing like music per force in a video game. By what I heard from YT videos the music doesn´t make the game any better. It just ads another thing not fitting harmonically to make everything a senseful unit.

If I would be a game designer and I knew of only one single person who would like to play my game but can´t enjoy it because of forced music, I would for sure fit in the off buttom just because of the appreciation toward that person who like to play my game and bought it. But as witnessed not only one person has a problem with the music, there seem to be a lot in relation to the number of how many bought the game. I can´t imagine that there are too much people who own the game. As said I would do anything that this will change. Give the people the option. So everybody can listen to the art (music) whenever they want and then lower it or shut it off completely while they want to experience other aspects of the game more intensively or just be more concentrated on other things and far more relaxed when the finish ther gaming session due to the lack of a stimulus satiation.

It´s like the problem with color codes because some people have big problems in games because they are some kind of color blind or have red/green seeing weaknesses. Those things should not be ignored by coders and game designers or tool-designers.

I am a music concrete sound-designer and synthesizer freak and I am playing the piano. As a sound making person I know it´s hard to cut off some things some times. But the music in your game will not be gone. It will still be there even when switched to off :) Come on, have a heart.

Regards

[burdfishdemon]

Originally posted by sdshadow:

I tried and i found a way to mute the music only.

You only need a "blank mp3" file with no sound.
Google it, i have found this link with a free 1 minute one:

https://bigsoundbank.com/detail-0917-one-minute-of-silence.html

All music of the game is at the folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Malevolence - The Sword of Ahkranox\AUDIO

The sound files are "wav", the music tracks are "mp3".
You only have to overwrite each mp3 file with a blank mp3 track.
If you delete them, you get error messages. You have to give them the exact name of the original mp3 file. So you have to switch each of the 42 tracks manually. Not much work, at a few minutes this is done.

I have done this with a few tracks (TitleMusic.mp3 and CountryLoadMusic.mp3) and there was no error message and there was no music anymore at the title or the country load screen.

Myself i like the music of the game, so i will not test if every mp3 can be changed without failure. But i think it will work. I doubt that the music system of the game is different for different music tracks.

You did the work while everyone else is content to merely debate. Props.

[FullAutoAttack]

Not everyone has the game.

I don't like music in games, it is the first thing I turn off.

Not like the ask is unheard of but honestly there are plenty of rpg games out there that allow me to do this so I'll just be on the fence watching with interest.

[dugalm]

Today I played a dungeon where there was no music in the background, just interesting spooky sounds and dungeon cries, monster shouts, etc... This was so much better for the immersion in the game!! There was a small patch before a played.... I wonder.... ?

[FullAutoAttack]

Yes, ambient sound is much more effective at mood setting than music.

There have been a few games when I get spooked out. I remember the version of doom (doom 2?) that came out like 10 years ago...the creaking of the ship, the screams in the background and the dark corridor I was carefully walking though all lent to the creepiness.

A door slid open to a very dark room and a raspy voice whispered for me to enter.
Man did the hairs on the back of my head stand up and I thought to myself "F*ck that!".

I did eventually did enter but not before throwing a dozen grenades into the room.

No music was playing.

[lonetrav]

Originally posted by Hippyshake:

... I have 79 hours put into the game (which is terrific, btw), but 78 hours and 55 minutes of that is with the sound completely off. So am I experiencing this as the developer intended? No; because I can't turn down the music, I'm forced to turn all sound off, ...

I agree. I play without sound / music most of the time myself (with a few rare exceptions, where I think sounds or music enhance my gaming experience).
My earlier post was written from the perspective of a developer / designer (with the exception of the last sentence). You publish something, you read all the comments, you watch the sales figures, you compare this information with your goals and priorities, and then you have to decide what to do. Not an easy decision, and I sympathise with the people who go their own way (not least because some of them have given me original and interesting games). You know exactly that, whatever you do, you will displease some of your customers, and you will only later (or never) find out how many.
What I said about "shouters" was an attempt to point out that forum contributions are not necessarily representative for the whole customer basis.
Nor are my contributions, by the way. I don't listen to sound and music, so this discussion is not really relevant for me. I simply had the feeling that a few posters were, in my eyes, a bit unfair, and wanted to say that there are people who understand the developer (up to some degree).
My own biggest problem with the game are the long loading times when entering or leaving towns, dungeons, etc. More than 30 seconds are simply a fun killer, and I'd much rather the developer invested time in fixing this than in adding an option to switch off sound and music separately. I noticed a certain improvement recently, but it's not enough by far.

[FullAutoAttack]

Adding an *option* to turn off music does not take away from anyone or displease customers.

Were talking about a simple on/off switch - not going to take a crippling amount of time to implement.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by FullAutoAttack:

Adding an *option* to turn off music does not take away from anyone or displease customers.

Were talking about a simple on/off switch - not going to take a crippling amount of time to implement.

I don't think the amount of work is in question. The issue seems to be that the dev has lots of feelings. And I don't mean that in a good way.