Hi Philip, Philip wrote:
I know what you mean, and agree with you. But I also feel that it very much depends on what types of games you make. You, being a lover of all things that is 3d as far as I can gather, probably see it as a much bigger issue not being able to take advantage of the fabulous sound that a true 3d landscape can give. My reply: Very true. I think my love of3d first-person and third-person games has to do with the fact that by the 1990's I was both sighted and was playing games like Quake, Doom, Tomb Raider, Jedi Knight, Elite Force, etc on a regular basis. Quite naturally I got use to that style of game, and after I lost my sight they happened to be the most inaccessible from a gaming standpoint. I was very excited when GMA produced Shades of Doom, because they proved it was possible to create those kinds of games and make them relatively accessible to a blind gamer. That's when I really began to seriously think about creating my own games, because I understood if I didn't do it I doubted many others would really produce games I would like. For instance, let's look at Q9 for a moment. Don't get me wrong I like the game, but it is a bit on the simplistic side from my point of view. It sort of reminds me of the old walk along beat-m-up arcade games from the 1980's where you basically walked along beat up a thug, enemy ninja, alien, whatever and then walked along until the next enemy appeared. Once and a while there were traps and things like that to avoid/jump over too. While that style of game isn't bad, many of them are quite famous, all the same they really went out of fassion in the late 80's and early 90's. By the mid 90's everything had gone from the 2d platformers to first-person and third-person and really added a totally different dimention to gaming. Which was exactly where I was when I lost my sight. So you are right. I am especially hit hard by the fact I'm probably one of the only accessible game developers willing to spend the time and money on 5.1 surround sound. That doesn't mean my customers are though which really puts me in something of a bind. I can use a generic pan control which works for stereo setups, but just doesn't sound the same and is a tad bit infurior for me since I've put a few hundred into getting a high quality audio setup for games. Philip wrote: I choose to do this as to not force my users to go out and buy additional hardware in order to play my game. The community is small enough as it is and sales are sparse, and so limiting them even further by having above average hardware requirements would be like shooting myself in the foot. My reply: Yes, I know. As it happens the Windows release of MOTA 3D which is still in production currently uses only stereo and 3d for that exact reason. I realise in order to sell it someone has to have the proper equipment/hardware and why put extra work into 3d audio if 99% of the community can't even use it anyway. Plus as has bmentioned DirectSound and Windows 7 don't exactly get along together and the 3d audio doesn't work correctly on Win Vista/Windows 7. So I've decided to hold off on 3d audio until I have access to something like XAudio2. At that time I'll decide what to do. Probably it will have to offer both stereo and 3d virtualization depending on the persons setup as you said. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
