New MOD Idea: Sounds of the Iliac Bay

[Firebrand]

I was thinking that it would be super cool to have a mod that, in order to enrich the Daggerfall experience, would add more events having a distinct sound. Turn off the music, and you'll soon find out how silent is currently the Iliac Bay.

So, here some examples of new sounds, grouped by area, which I think would greatly improve the immersivity:

--player character sounds

• different step sounds depending on the ground: hard pavement, grass, snow, sand, watery. Currently, there's only a sound for inside (building, dungeons, ...) or outside (which sounds like walking on sand). This lead to odd situations: walk on the upper deck of your ship, and it will sound like it's made of sand, instead of wood . But just walk inside, and it will sounds like walking on wood
• Heavier steps when running: when you run, you literrally fall heavily on each foot, thus making more noise. Maybe, if you're running out of stamina, also the sound of your breath increasing...
• different horse/cart step sounds depending on the ground: hard pavement, grass, snow, sand, watery. Same as for player walking. Currently, it just sounds horses are always walking on hard ground.
• jumping sound: it's really odd now, currently jumping it's completely silent. A sound jump like, say, Oblivion, would be nice.
• deep breath after exiting underwater, or very deep breath after exiting underwater with little oxygen remaining. This one should be self explaining

--ambience sounds

• at night, in the wilderness: a wolf howls, a bell tolls, owl hoots, crow caws, a ghostly wail, a distant unearthly moan, a despairing cry: basically what dungeons descriptions already suggest Why not making it randomly sounds in the wilderness? It should be super creepy!
• bells marking the time in city with temples:
  - at 9am, the bells toll 9 times
  - at noon, the bells toll 12 times
  - at 3pm, the bells toll 3 times
  - at 6pm, the bells toll 6 times
  bells in town have always marked the passing of time. It's both useful and really immersive. Maybe on holidays, they should also sound to celebrate! Obviously, a joyous chime!
• near fire/fireplace, a fire cracking sound: currently fireplaces are completely silent. It's really, really sad....
• on a ship: wood cracking, sound of water and waves. Everyone who has been on board a wooden ship knows these sounds. Currently you here none of them. Oddly, if it's night, you hear crickets. You can only see water, but you can't hear it, or hear the ship you're on. Just crickets, crickets everywhere

--sounds expanding other mods
There are plenty of excellent mods alreay for DFU, I think that maybe they could be enriched making possible for this new hypotetical sound mod to add sound events to them. For example

Roleplay and Realism:

• horses galloping (badabomp, silence, badabomp, silence), not fast trotting (clip clap clip clap clip clap, just faster). I had explained the details here:
  viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2298&start=47

Vibrant Wind:

• depending on wind strength, sound increasing from a gentle breeze to a howling wind in the most extreme weather.

Birds in Daggerfall:

• appropriate birds of prey screams, when they appear in the sky

What do you think?

[pango]

Yeah, a ton of things could be done for audio design...
I already thought of many of the same stuff, and even mentioned some the forums (like bells every hour), but your list is quite comprehensive

--player character sounds

• deep breath after exiting underwater, or very deep breath after exiting underwater with little oxygen remaining. This one should be self explaining

...and dripping water sounds
Could even be funny if you just teleported out of water

--ambience sounds

• at night, in the wilderness: a wolf howls, a bell tolls, owl hoots, crow caws, a ghostly wail, a distant unearthly moan, a despairing cry: basically what dungeons descriptions already suggest Why not making it randomly sounds in the wilderness? It should be super creepy!

I think it should be different sounds than in dungeons. But there's definitely ways to make wilderness more creepy at night!

--sounds expanding other mods
Vibrant Wind:

• depending on wind strength, sound increasing from a gentle breeze to a howling wind in the most extreme weather.

That may be quite a challenge to get that one right, as sound changes with wind intensity, but it would be awesome!

(many other excellent suggestions)

At the moment DFU ambient audio cannot modded to that extend; I only experimented with in on a small scale.

Something else that would greatly increase the possibilities would be to use Unity audio mixers to mix all sounds together. It would remove the need to scale each volume manually, but would also allow to add realtime audio effects (reverb in dungeons, etc.). But that's a different topic really.

[Firebrand]

--player character sounds

• deep breath after exiting underwater, or very deep breath after exiting underwater with little oxygen remaining. This one should be self explaining

...and dripping water sounds
Could even be funny if you just teleported out of water

That would be awesome

--ambience sounds

• at night, in the wilderness: a wolf howls, a bell tolls, owl hoots, crow caws, a ghostly wail, a distant unearthly moan, a despairing cry: basically what dungeons descriptions already suggest Why not making it randomly sounds in the wilderness? It should be super creepy!

I think it should be different sounds than in dungeons. But there's definitely ways to make wilderness more creepy at night!

I was meaning that I took these sounds ideas from the text descriptions that appear when you enter a dungeon area But yes, I think also that definitely they should be different from the sounds you already hear in dungeons.

Something else that would greatly increase the possibilities would be to use Unity audio mixers to mix all sounds together. It would remove the need to scale each volume manually, but would also allow to add realtime audio effects (reverb in dungeons, etc.). But that's a different topic really.

It sounds like an excellent idea, however It could be even better if the volume of the sounds you make would influence the distance from where you alert enemies
Even a small sound in a huge room, would alert enemies far away, because of the echo... this could create really some epic "Oh S%$^!" moment

[King of Worms]

I hope this part of the game gets finally more open to modding.
Adding NEW sounds will be crucial to make the game more atmospheric and immersive.
Thanks for putting this thread together!

[pango]

It could be even better if the volume of the sounds you make would influence the distance from where you alert enemies
Even a small sound in a huge room, would alert enemies far away, because of the echo... this could create really some epic "Oh S%$^!" moment

... And make exploration more tactical. Like, try to clear surrounding area before bashing a door open and having several enemies on your back at once (or at least alerted, path finding is an issue here).
Right now you can bash a door open and enemies inside the room may not even be alerted if they have their back turned at the door...

[Firebrand]

Right now you can bash a door open an enemies inside the room may not even be alerted if they have their back turned at the door...

Yeah, there's room for improvement Looks like that almost all enemies in Daggerfall currently are completely deaf