Well, considering how often zone events happen (especially hero-side), I think that the music would get interrupted so often as to make it more of an annoyance after a while than something cool.
If you could turn that part off, then maybe, but I'd really prefer that the Devs didn't spend time on something that I don't feel would get a lot of use. And considering that you can just listen to WinAmp or any other music program while playing CoH, I'm not sure how useful this would be.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
aett, you took the words right out of my mouth.
and probably said it nicer then i would have. 
There are a lot of music programs that can be run simultaneously with CoH that are already better than anything the devs would put together, for the simple reason that those programs have people dedicated to JUST that program.
It's not a horrible idea, but it's just not necessary. Would be pretty much a waste of man-hours to implement something into the game that a program specifically designed for it can do better.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
*turns on winamp*
Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
|
Quote:
Why would you use in-game tools to compress a file that's already in a compressed data format, especially since you'd just have to un-do the compression before running the audio player?|
Originally Posted by Aerofiel
Allow players to put several MP3s into a folder in their CoH play data information folder to be recompressed by in-game tools for an in-game radio.
|
Also: what everyone else said.
Also also: why try to force the game to run a patented media format when it already supports an open standard format?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
To answer the question of "Why would you recompress the Audio"? Because it'd be incredibly daft to run two different decompression systems at once when one could concieveably use one to handle both jobs for less on the CPU cycles. Especially when the music effects could be tied in to prevent unnecessary overrides or combinations of music playing at one time.
In the meantime, Winamp is incredibly limited. Currently, it STILL lacks a true 5.1 output system that doesn't simply mirror the music across separate speakers, and does not properly parse AC3 audio across those speakers. CoH supports 3d sound. See the difference?
Quote:
Eh? You suggested compressing MP3 files. MP3s are already compressed. Trying to play an MP3 that had been compressed by the game would require decompressing it before playing it, so the extra compression has become a waste of your time. Not to mention the space gain you get for compressing an already-compressed file is minimal at best, and can even cause you to lose space, depending on the compression methods in question. (If the second algorithm can't compress the file sufficiently, but the compressed filetype requires the overhead of some bytes specifying the compression type &c., the resulting file will be larger than you started with.)|
Originally Posted by Aerofiel
To answer the question of "Why would you recompress the Audio"? Because it'd be incredibly daft to run two different decompression systems at once when one could concieveably use one to handle both jobs for less on the CPU cycles.
|
Any way you slice it, trying to compress the MP3 causes more issues (several) than it solves (none).
Now, if you want to instead suggest that the game JIT converts the file from MP3 to OGG, that's something approaching a reasonable suggestion. But implementing direct support for MP3 would be more effective and, ultimately, run faster on your computer. Using an actual conversion tool would be more effective and wouldn't add such bloat to the game; in fact, players are already doing essentially this to replace in-game sounds. There's even a guide on how to do it.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
So, this could produce some interesting results in regards to how the game is played out. Allow players to put several MP3s into a folder in their CoH play data information folder to be recompressed by in-game tools for an in-game radio. Doesn't sound that exciting? Well here's where it gets interesting. Have that radio interrupt-capable for global events(this can be disabled, of course), i.e. "We interrupt this broadcast to report a 5 alarm fire in progress in Steel Canyon", or perhaps "This is an alert from the Vanguard enforcement service, rikti invaders have been sighted in the skies over (blank), you are advised to take cover immediately", and the like. Have this on voice, so that people don't have to read over them just to check them out. Couple that with the ability to set stations specific to areas(Outside and Mission radios of course, each independently able to disable global reporting), and you'll add a lot more customizeability to the game!