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Continuity + MP3s

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Colin Chapman Colin Chapman's picture
Continuity + MP3s
This thread is for folks giving feedback on the adventure and its experiment in using mp3 snippets. I think it's a great concept, but the mp3s in this particular case left me utterly cold. I definitely don't need someone else to read aloud the GM narrative sections; the MP3'd narrator need to have a damned cool and evocative voice for that to be worthwhile, imo. As for the sound effects, that's much more useful, but the ones created for this pdf just didn't sound very good, imo, and ultimately annoyed me. Again, unless it's really well done it's not worth bothering with from my pov. All that said, the adventure is very cool. :) Colin

Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Personally, I really liked the audio. Although I probably wont actually use them in the game, they are a nice touch. HOWEVER, if they are going to seriously add to the time it takes to put out PDFs I could do without them. If it doesn't, and it doesn't add to the price of the PDF (Which it doesn't seem to so far) I would love to see more of it. Edit, so I am reading this on my iPad and I noticed some troubles. It seems that it might use jpeg2000 images, and so it isn't displaying lots of things. In the past PH has been really good on such things. Anyone else getting the same thing?
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AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I made some last minute page-swap replacements in Continuity and that totally horked how it renders on the iPad. Pretty awesome, really, in its badness! I just got back from stuffing myself with turkey and I'll try and get it fixed ASAP. :-)
kindalas kindalas's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
CodeBreaker wrote:
Personally, I really liked the audio. Although I probably wont actually use them in the game, they are a nice touch. HOWEVER, if they are going to seriously add to the time it takes to put out PDFs I could do without them. If it doesn't, and it doesn't add to the price of the PDF (Which it doesn't seem to so far) I would love to see more of it. Edit, so I am reading this on my iPad and I noticed some troubles. It seems that it might use jpeg2000 images, and so it isn't displaying lots of things. In the past PH has been really good on such things. Anyone else getting the same thing?
On the Eclipse Phase twitter Adam said
Quote:
FYI, I made some last minute changes that wickedly munged Continuity on the iPad. Will fix them shortly. Sorry, happy thanksgiving ;P -Adam
I hope that acknowledges your issues.
I am a Moderator of this Forum [color=red]My mod voice is red.[/color] The Eclipse Phase Character sheet is downloadable here: [url=http://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet] Get it here![/url]
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
BTW: suggestions on what would make good/useful audio is totally something I want to hear.
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
kindalas wrote:
On the Eclipse Phase twitter Adam said
Quote:
FYI, I made some last minute changes that wickedly munged Continuity on the iPad. Will fix them shortly. Sorry, happy thanksgiving ;P -Adam
I hope that acknowledges your issues.
Oh, I know, I'm LordMorbis, the one who asked Adam in the first place :)
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kindalas kindalas's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
AdamJury wrote:
BTW: suggestions on what would make good/useful audio is totally something I want to hear.
The one thing I would like is a background noise track. I really like how there is the Hans 1 file and the Hans no noise file, but a background noise file, would help me make my own voice overs, I use Audacity, and then layer the background noise over it. This would help me adjust the adventure from a one-shot, to part of a series without having to fully discard the sound bites. Also when I play the sounds from the PDF they pop up at maximum volume and I'd be happier at say 50% volume so I can adjust up and down. But I don't know if that is a setting that you can preset or something I need to do on my end. The sounds btw are way cool.
I am a Moderator of this Forum [color=red]My mod voice is red.[/color] The Eclipse Phase Character sheet is downloadable here: [url=http://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet] Get it here![/url]
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Sadly, I can't do anything to adjust the default volume with the file, as far as I know. Acrobat's controls for embedding audio are, ahem, a little rudimentary. You can find the background noise we used here: http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=209826 And the Dorian Gray track that plays under the GM text: http://www.anthonykozar.net/music/ambient.html
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Of quick note (before I go to sleep) one of the sound files plays particularly quiet, to the point where the audio is essentially unhearable. I believe it is Sound File 6, however I am not using my PC right now so I cannot check immediately. As I said on the RPGnet post, quotes from NPCs in the NPC files as well as those from sample characters might be good as audio snippets.
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AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I've updated the PDF. Whew, that was a bit of a goat rodeo.
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Is this adventure worth buying if you've got an established party of PCs? I've found the other adventure Posthuman Studios released for sale a bit underwhelming, though my players seemed to enjoy it, and since this one seems to be designed for a pre-gen party...

+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep

Prime Mover Prime Mover's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
nick012000 wrote:
Is this adventure worth buying if you've got an established party of PCs? I've found the other adventure Posthuman Studios released for sale a bit underwhelming, though my players seemed to enjoy it, and since this one seems to be designed for a pre-gen party...
Designed for a pre-gen but I think with minimal adjustments it could easily be used to a veteran party and dropped into an existing campaign. For my groups next game day I was planning on something similar. Their starting a salvage op and this pdf is close to some notes I'd tossed together. So it will easily be adaptable for us. As for the audio. I agree a "creepier" narration would have fit the theme/mood. And with the fact in mind audio manipulation was limited. Static really drowned out some of vocals (Intentional?) and one was too quiet to really hear.
"The difference between truth and fiction, people expect fiction to make sense."
Colin Chapman Colin Chapman's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I think, for me at least, it comes down to: GM narration files? Not really needed because unless the narrator has a particularly cool or creepy voice, nothing is gained from having someone else read out a few sentences I could easily read to better effect. Sound Effect Files? Fantastic idea! I'd love to see more BUT only if they're good quality. In fact, a file of EP-useful sound effects would be a great GMing tool. The sounds of weapon fire, or background noise for various broad types of locations, of the weather on various planets, etc. that's what I'd consider useful. Colin

Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com

kindalas kindalas's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
nick012000 wrote:
Is this adventure worth buying if you've got an established party of PCs? I've found the other adventure Posthuman Studios released for sale a bit underwhelming, though my players seemed to enjoy it, and since this one seems to be designed for a pre-gen party...
Possible spoilers, but not really.
Spoiler: Highlight to view
The adventure is setup as if the players had been on the station for six months before the incident. However it is just as easy to have the PCs farcast in to deal with the incident, and then resleeve the two weeks later for the adventure. There is only one challenge that I'd make to the main structure if using a regular play group and thats in the operations center where a password has to be guessed. But that can be changed from the punchline to an AGI's favorite joke to some pop culture catchphrase.
I am a Moderator of this Forum [color=red]My mod voice is red.[/color] The Eclipse Phase Character sheet is downloadable here: [url=http://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet] Get it here![/url]
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I run my games online, so I'm not likely to use these, unfortunately. However, I think it's a neat idea. I feel like the voice used for Hans was a bit... chirpy? for the setting. It may hinder building atmosphere (pardon the joke).
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I think I'll play this as an introduction to Glory, personnally, kinda like a pre-credit sequence in a movie. Really scare the characters (and the players) about the infection, play on the psychological trauma of a "TITAN biological warfare decease". After the deed is done on the Kepler, they're resleeved on Titan for some R&R, and are introduced to the Dr Magnus for what seems an easy to fill favor and easily earned rep... and then BAM! back into the nightmare, with flashbacks à la Event Horizon Especially if they have been exposed to the Basilisk Hack.
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...
Zoombie Zoombie's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I dunno, I really liked the GM narrator. She had a cool, calm voice that underlined the kind of eerie nature of the adventure. At least, that was my opinion. Though...the AI should have been more like SHODAN, Imo :D
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I like the addition of audio, as I'm really hoping to use all this wonderful technology to my advantage. It's my hope to score a cheap projector to utilize for maps and in-mesh visuals. Suggestion for future audio additions would be: more! I'd love to have more for mood setting. It seems like there might even be enough interest in a "soundbank" of different sounds and mood music, and it might be cool to have the community contribute to it.
theshadow99 theshadow99's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
personally, as was sort of mentioned before, I think something ala System Shock would have been best. I assume the creapiness factor was desired and tried for, but just never quite 'caught on'. And I wouldn't voice the narration so much, but the flavor audio for NPC's. Giving life to individual NPC's can be a pain for a GM. Having something to give them their own flavor and personality without taking time for a GM to create it is great. My 2 cents anyways.
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
AdamJury wrote:
I've updated the PDF. Whew, that was a bit of a goat rodeo.
Were the asyncs staring at them again?
Camwyn Camwyn's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
kindalas wrote:
AdamJury wrote:
BTW: suggestions on what would make good/useful audio is totally something I want to hear.
The one thing I would like is a background noise track. I really like how there is the Hans 1 file and the Hans no noise file, but a background noise file, would help me make my own voice overs, I use Audacity, and then layer the background noise over it.
I partially agree...the background noises are useful (and thanks for the link to them!) I'll be using them for making my own versions of the sound-bytes. The narration make me think of the old choose your own adventure books, but then I was never big on reading the box text in modules...the AI voice was not what I imagined - I guess I was thinking HAL but creepier, at least deeper . I also had problems with not being able to hear any of some of the tracks over the noise...but that's not necessarily a bad thing ;) The static, etc was pretty loud, and I wound up throwing it into Winamp so as to not damage my hearing - thanks Adobe... ;) Overall I am really digging this adventure i- it sounded cool and out-of-the-box (OK, PDF) it is :) Want to add something? How about player-version maps w/o all the annotations? Perhaps in a hackpack-type of thing? You could package the audio with that... I've scooped the two maps and have been stripping them to as basic as possible to use in MapTool (we game online, since the group has scattered across a few states at this point). The maps as they are are great - and will be open on screen 2 for reference, but I had to remove the numbers, etc and the grid (just couldn't get one to match the grid in MapTool without enlarging the image which would have created other issues...and I get anal sometimes...) If anyone is interested, when I'm done with them (Tonight? Finals week...sigh...) I'd be happy to share if it's OK with Adam, et al.?
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Camwyn wrote:
If anyone is interested, when I'm done with them (Tonight? Finals week...sigh...) I'd be happy to share if it's OK with Adam, et al.?
The maps are Creative Commons licensed -- you don't need to ask us, you already have our permission, as long as you give everyone the same rights to hack and distribute them as we've already given you! :) We haven't been doing Hack Packs for the smaller electronic-exclusive projects. Are the source files for a couple maps worth an extra $5?
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
AdamJury wrote:
We haven't been doing Hack Packs for the smaller electronic-exclusive projects. Are the source files for a couple maps worth an extra $5?
I think the idea is rock solid. I guess the price point really depends on the content. I'm hoping to use a projector to emulate and AR overlay, and pictures and maps in that style would be a boon.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I wouldn't pay $5 for the mission, then $5 for maps I can take out the numbers for. However, I'd probably pay $5 (or even $10) for a pack of multiple maps from different missions. I won't buy every mission, but getting maps is its own reward, so having a nice collection of maps and ship info (even if recycled) would be useful, and hackable stuff twice as much.
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
That would be a very interesting PDF, actually a collection of maps for habitats, either generic or specific, as well as street maps for the Martian cities like Noctis Quinjao or Elysium, and Venusian Aerostats in a isometric city map format like the one that was released with the original Night City guide for Cyberpunk 2020
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Quincey Forder wrote:
That would be a very interesting PDF, actually a collection of maps for habitats, either generic or specific, as well as street maps for the Martian cities like Noctis Quinjao or Elysium, and Venusian Aerostats in a isometric city map format like the one that was released with the original Night City guide for Cyberpunk 2020
Yeah I'd pay $5 for that. I'd pay $15 for that. But I'm a cartography freak. but back on topic, I wonder if there's community interest in creating & sharing sound effects - I realize they're not going to be used at everyone's table, but I've been wanting to give it a shot and I have the gear, software, and knowledge to make some sound effects, and it would please me to share them with the EP team and the community.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
YES! I'm actually working on a podcast, for which I require sound effects (and background sounds). If you have them, please share.
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
YES! I'm actually working on a podcast, for which I require sound effects (and background sounds). If you have them, please share.
I don't yet - so short on time - but I will certainly share when I make some things.
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Is that an EP podcast? please say it is so!
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Yes. I'm working on the plot actually... right now (well, I'm dozing off Christmas party lunch, but I have the word doc open). I plan on doing casting in February, so having sound files by then would be awfully helpful.
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I plan on doing casting in February, so having sound files by then would be awfully helpful.
I'll do my best!
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I wouldn't pay $5 for the mission, then $5 for maps I can take out the numbers for. However, I'd probably pay $5 (or even $10) for a pack of multiple maps from different missions. I won't buy every mission, but getting maps is its own reward, so having a nice collection of maps and ship info (even if recycled) would be useful, and hackable stuff twice as much.
This makes sense, although releasing a map compilation hack pack isn't very _timely_ for those who buy the adventures and run them relatively soon after release. Some things for us to think about, obviously ... :-)
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Clearly your next project after Gatecrashing should be a time machine. I'd pay for that. But more seriously, I can see three ways of cutting this: 1) Release maps before the missions. This would make us players go CRAZY, eager to get the first peek at what's coming down the pike. You could charge more for it, because we're so curious, but it requires you plan things out further ahead to have them available so early, and makes later changes more difficult. 2) Provide maps as a subscription service, rather than as single packages. I don't know how you'd do this, but I imagine someone paying $10, then after a new mission is released, he automatically gets the map hack pack 'for free', because he already paid for it. 3) Release each mission map(s) on its own, but fluff it out. We're still struggling to wrap our heads around the world, so just general world info is great. You could make maps related, so for instance, Bump in the Night map hack pack would have the maps for the mission, other maps for Parvati, the layout of say Lucifer and a few specific locations on the habitat, the layout for a satellite, etc. Continuity would come with Kepler & Istari, a mining asteroid station, a freighter and maybe a frigate or something. This would obviously have to be more than $5, and is begging for additional art, but honestly, your artists rock, and illustrating the world is really valuable. The big limitation here is the actual price tag - for $15 it would probably move, but for $35, maybe not.
Camwyn Camwyn's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
(Edited as both maps finished!) Right, so...here's the first pack of maps/images: http://camwyn.com/EP/Kepler.zip and here's the second: http://camwyn.com/EP/Istari.zip Each includes 4 images, one each for the grid, map, key and numbers, and the decorations (the blocks and the text-block of numbers) the only thing that should look significantly different is the block of numbers behind the key - not sure what the font was, so I just goofed it with something that looked decent. Oh, and the grid is slightly different since I created a fill for it - if you went to the trouble of loading it over the original it wouldn't quite line up. ...and I added the color blocks to the Istari map...just kept feeling there was something missing while I was working on it ;) The images are in .png format and are meant to be used as layers (so transparencies are set) they are numbered 1-4 from the bottom up in the order that seemed to work best based on things like grids showing through and such... Let me know what y'all think - useful, suggestions, etc. please! [s]The Istari should be done tonight[/s] Done! Enjoy! Camwyn PS: if anyone uses GIMP and wants copies of the layered .xcf files, I can include those too! Also happy to help anyone utilize MapTool and use these in it!
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Your timing is impeccable, Camwyn. Many thanks!
Jérémie Jérémie's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
AdamJury wrote:
BTW: suggestions on what would make good/useful audio is totally something I want to hear.
Light on the narrative voices, or with no voices at all. Or, publish the sources, so we can remove these. Because not all of us are playing in English ;) Background noises that loop (with a decent timing, a street ambiance that loop every 30 seconds get real ol real fast) or are very specific (hard to describe and/or hard to reproduce). For example, having the main bazaar of the habitat X (easily playable) as an ambient background noise (voices are ok there if they stay in the background), or the entrance to the last hype hypercorp morphclub on Mars. Or, a ThingInTheDark particular shriek for an adventure. Basically, thing that can be reused in multiples EP games, or are so rare so good that even once they are worth the time and price; and in any cases things that works around the irl world (having some Farsi or Portuguese voices in the back is OK, voicing a NPC talking is not). If you really, really, REALLY want to do NPC voicing, you need to find a voice-changer software that's good (open source if possible) and provide the voice filter for that NPC so that each GM can do it in his own language and with his own interpretation. But if I remember correctly there's no such good libre software right now, so probably not worth it.
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Jérémie wrote:
Because not all of us are playing in English ;)
You're buying in English. From an English-language publisher. :) Translate the snippets, record your own voices, overlay them over the background effects (which are linked to in the credits), and distribute those under a CC license for other fans playing in your language. If we did some "generic" audio snippets, they would likely be available as a distinct download, not linked to an adventure.
Jérémie Jérémie's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
AdamJury wrote:
You're buying in English. From an English-language publisher. :)
Not like I, or the [i]vast[/i] majority of people have a choice in that matter :) Although, the CC license allow for once to localize in the open, but the NC part impedes it (localization work is not very well distributable among people, it's the kind of work best done by a very small group of people for the heavy lifting). Well, I digress. You asked, I answered for myself and what I know and I see around me. That's it :)
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Quote:
but the NC part impedes it (localization work is not very well distributable among people, it's the kind of work best done by a very small group of people for the heavy lifting).
There's nothing in the Non-commercial share alike that keeps you from translating anything you'd like. You just can't make cold hard cash from it and once you release it has to be non-commercial too. But there's nothing stopping you from distributing it to your friends, your grandparents, your neighbor's dog! It's the gift that keeps giving!
AdamJury AdamJury's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Jérémie wrote:
Although, the CC license allow for once to localize in the open, but the NC part impedes it (localization work is not very well distributable among people, it's the kind of work best done by a very small group of people for the heavy lifting).
I have no idea why you think the BY-NC-SA license would impede this. Please explain.
Camwyn Camwyn's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
BTW, noticed a Continuity typo... sorry :( GM only info ahead!
Spoiler: Highlight to view
On the Kepler map it says: "Airlock 1, #7, in the Machine Shop, is the airlock that is open when the characters awake and the airlock the exsurgents will enter through." Shouldn't that read: "Airlock 1, #10, in the Machine Shop, is the airlock that is open when the characters awake and the airlock the exsurgents will enter through." Since the machine shop is #9? #7 would be the airlock off the Fusion Power Plant - the secondary entrance vector of the exsurgents?
I will update my Kepler map and update the post later so y'all know when it's marked right...sorry I didn't catch it earlier. Camwyn
xPeregrine xPeregrine's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I enjoyed the MP3s for the most part, but I found the AI voice a wee bit inappropriate to the setting. I don't think I'd actually use them for a game, unless it was particularly well donee -- but it's still nice to have it available & makes for an enjoyable product.
monjay monjay's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
monjay wrote:
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I plan on doing casting in February, so having sound files by then would be awfully helpful.
I'll do my best!
It's turning out that my best is not good enough, I haven't even started on this. Heck, I haven't done more than fire up my studio to test a driver in a month. My apologies, but I'll PM you if I can manufacture anything useful.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
That's okay. Holidays slowed me down too, so I'm just starting to script. Definitely though if you come up with anything, do share!
Camwyn Camwyn's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Right so all my clients decided that the last week or so was when they needed stuff done (end of the year, I guess) but here are the new maps with new links! (moved them to a subfolder on my server, where they will likely sit forever) in which I corrected the Kepler map typo. I also fixed the decorative numbers to match better, because I'm a bit anal, and included readme files with CC licensing pointing folks to Posthuman and this site for the CC info. Note, these images are pretty large, but not big enough to stretch to battlemap size without some distortion (1952X2550). http://www.camwyn.com/EP/maps/Kepler.zip http://www.camwyn.com/EP/maps/Istari.zip They each contain the spiffy readme with the CC license info and a reminder of the layer order. The Kepler zip also contains a .jpg version for players without the GM note Or, you can get it all here: http://www.camwyn.com/EP/maps/Continuity_Maps.zip (This one also contains the player map and a readme). FWIW, Adam that typo was not mine, so someone should probably fix it in the pdf version... If anyone has requests/suggestions, problems downloading and/or using them, or wants help using the layers in MapTool (http://www.rptools.net/) or a similar product, feel free to PM me, email me, or drop a note here. ...and enjoy! Camwyn
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
Awesome! Great job!
Lord High Munchkin Lord High Munchkin's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
+1 F rep for Camwyn! +1 F rep for checking/correcting and updating an already good job.
mortonstromgal mortonstromgal's picture
Re: Continuity + MP3s
I like the audio option. I agree that the narrator is unnecessary but certain npc voices or sound fx could be useful.