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Public Service Announcement by Darren Monahan, web guy Before we get started on this week’s update, we wanted to make all of you aware of a very serious website vulnerability called “Heartbleed” that was discovered since our last update. This bug affected a huge number of sites and services across the internet, potentially exposing passwords and other sensitive information to hackers that understood how to exploit it. Unfortunately, the Eternity website was running an affected version of this software, and as soon as we became aware of it, we took the appropriate steps to close the vulnerability. While we have no evidence or other reasons to believe any passwords or personal information was stolen, we do recommend you change your password if you have an account, especially if you reuse this same password on other sites. To change your password, visit your Account Profile, click on the E-mail & Password tab, enter your current password, and your new password twice and click Save Changes. Please leave the e-mail address boxes empty. Learn more about Heartbleed. xkcd comic: How the Heartbleed bug works. Update by Justin Bell, Audio Director Hello awesome backers. My name is Justin Bell and I’m the Audio Director at Obsidian, and the Audio Lead/Composer for Pillars of Eternity. I know a lot of you have been waiting patiently to hear some news about the game’s music. Thanks for waiting, I’m happy to say this update will focus entirely on music! In it we’ll cover the high level creative guidelines we’re using to write the score. I’ll also provide you with an in depth look into my music writing process. For those of you who are chomping at the bit for more info about the sound design for PoE, don’t worry... We’re going to do another update in the future that focuses on that as well. But for now, let’s talk about music! Our next update will be a look at the most recent art our talented team has put together for the game. Justin's every day workspace. Style Making Pillars of Eternity feel like a modern day Infinity Engine game is important to us, and music plays a big role in achieving that goal. But what does that actually mean in practice? Well if you were to loosely analyze the music from Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 and Icewind Dale 1 & 2 for example, you would find a number of stylistic similarities between them. Without getting too technical, their music combines tropes found in European folk and pre-Renaissance modal music, and mashes that together with modern day orchestration techniques and film music aesthetics. You’re probably thinking... “Where’s the human side of all this? Where’s the emotion? The music for the IE games is so much more than simply a mash-up of musical elements!” Putting it in such cold and analytical terms doesn’t really give those soundtracks the justice they deserve, does it? Still it’s important for me as the composer to understand things in that way, and here’s why. An incredible teacher of mine used to say, “When in doubt, use a model”. Another incredible teacher would likewise say, “Never proceed without a plan”. What they were both saying is that if you’re going to take a journey, you need to understand the path and know your destination to the best of your ability. Even if the plan needs to change at some point down the path, always think it through first. Luckily for me both are pretty clear. In that sense the soundtracks for the IE games are both my model and my plan, at least to a point. I’ve made a couple minor structural modifications to the formula, which I’ll describe in greater depth further on. But first I’d like to give you an inside peek into the creative process I use to write music. The Commute Here’s some news that’ll undoubtedly shock each and every one of you... I commute to work. Every. Day. Exciting right?! Right... Don’t let the mundaneness of that description fool you, as this is actually one of the most important parts of my day. It’s one of the few times that I get to listen to music without interruption, and I use this time to get inspired to write. Things I’ve been putting on lately are the soundtracks for The Elder Scrolls (III, IV, and V), The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, anything by Basil Poledouris, and of course the IE soundtracks, just to name a few. As I’m driving and listening I stay on the lookout for small moments that inspire me in some way. When I come across something that attracts my attention, like an interesting harmony or nice orchestral combination, I document the track number, time range, and any observations I have using a little handheld recorder. By the time I get to work I usually have roughly 10 small voice memos recorded for myself. When I get in front of my computer at work I pull the tracks I noticed into my audio program, edit out the sections in question, and categorize them with my notes for future use. It’s a way of systematizing inspiration, which I’ll admit may sound counter intuitive to some. When working on a project with deadlines while simultaneously trying to keep things the creative juices flowing, being organized is critical to successfully balancing those two often competing requirements. The audio booth with noise making props. Daily Bach After I’m through categorizing the nuggets of inspiration, I sit in front of my keyboard and sight read a single chorale from J.S. Bach’s beautiful collection of 371 four part chorales. Each day I read a new one in sequence, and I do this for a couple reasons. I’m a musician, sight reading is fun, and this is an excuse to keep my chops up. But more importantly, I do it to get motivated by the master of modern tonal harmony himself. When I’m actually writing music and get stuck at a tricky voice leading spot, the fact that I have Bach in my ear and at my fingertips is often a lifesaver. Sketches I like to keep the actual writing process as simple as possible. To do that, I open up my writing program (Nuendo 6 + NEK for those who are interested) and compose with one piano patch and one full string patch only. This is pretty standard practice for some, and I do it too. It allows me to focus on just the melody, rhythm, and harmony alone (i.e. the Music, with a capital “M”) without concerning myself too much with instrumentation or the mix. Both of those things aren’t important now and I know I’ll get to them later. For now it’s all about the music. By keeping the writing process simple, I free up my ability to stay creative. Here I’ll write whatever comes to mind. Sometimes it’s entire pieces of music, other times it’s a small fragment. I don’t really try to do anything specific or limit myself in any way; I just let the ideas flow as freely as possible. The idea here is to write as much music as possible without concern for the end result. Again, it’s important to keep things loose. At the end of each day I may write up to an hour of sketches, about 90% of which will never see the light of day. It’s the remaining 10% that I’m really after. I liken this process to panning for gold. The way I look at it is that in order to succeed, you need to know how to fail. It doesn’t matter to me if I’ve deliberately crafted a piece of music through the sheer force of my will and divine creativity or whatever. Happy accidents can and do often yield the best creative results, and allowing them to happen is essential to remaining creative while working under tight deadlines. Now you may be wondering, “Where’s the artistry in that?!? Anyone can do that!” The artistry lies in the ability to recognize a great idea when it comes to you, regardless of where it comes from or how deliberate the process to create it was. Simple as that! Process of Elimination and Categorization Once I’ve run out of time sketching things out, it’s time to start identifying the material that actually has potential to be made into a larger piece of music. I do this by color coding each region (i.e. sketch) based on how good I think it is. By default all of my regions are blue because it’s soothing for me to look at. All segments that are halfway decent get turned purple, which means I may or may not have a use for it. Everything that sounds amazing and I’m confident in gets coded red. Once that’s done, I version off my session and delete all the remaining blue regions for them to go to unwanted sketch heaven. In Eternity we break music into four basic “types”: town, dungeon, wilderness, and combat. Each major area of the game will have its own unique set of these. The next step for me is to assign each sketch to one of those categories. A sketch in progress. Musical Quilt So I have all these little segments of music and cool little snippets, but I don’t exactly have what you’d consider to be a piece of music. Time to change that! The next step involves stitching all of those little fragments, expanding them where necessary, into a full-fledged piece of music. A lot of mixing and matching goes into this and the process takes me about a half day per 3-5 minute piece of music. I focus a lot on form, pacing, and musical trajectory. Once the form has taken a shape I’m happy with, I separate each voice out into individual track lanes so I can begin the process of digital orchestration. A Word About Templates Prior to working on Eternity I spent a couple of weeks creating what’s known in the digital composing world as template. A template is essentially a collection of sample based instruments that are preloaded into a massive audio project. In my template I have all of the most common instruments found in the orchestra (i.e. winds, brass, percussion, and strings), as well as some less common ones, all set up and mixed in advance. This is done to help minimize the steps I have to take between the spark of inspiration and manifesting that inspiration into music. All in all I have about 150 unique tracks for all the instruments and articulations that I’ll need to write the music for Eternity, though I’ll rarely use all 150 at one time. There are a couple of reasons why using a template is important and they all have to do with speed and convenience. When writing, the last thing you want is to get bogged down with technical issues. Doing so will often destroy the spark of inspiration, which can be a fickle thing. By creating a template in advance you separate the technical from the creative which allows you to focus purely on writing the music. Templates are also critical because modern day multi sample libraries eat up a lot of RAM and take a long time to load. Your average sampled instrument can require anywhere from a couple hundred to a few gigs of memory. (Fun fact: My computer at Obsidian has 32 gigs or RAM installed, and my template uses every last gig!) Needless to say, loading all those samples takes up precious time, and it’s a waste to have to do that over and over. Using all the RAM. Orchestral Colors Back to the music writing... Right now the form of the music has been fleshed out, but it’s still just using piano or string orchestra. This is where orchestration comes in. We often refer to the different ranges and combinations of instruments as having a certain “color”, which is really just a fancy way of saying sonic timbre. You can think of orchestration as being similar to taking a pencil sketch and filling it in with color. The way I like describe this stage of the writing process is that here I have the “bones” of the music all assembled like an archeologist assembles dinosaur bones; it just needs to be “skinned”. At this point I already have a good idea for what the general moment to moment feeling of the music will be, and ideas for orchestration are already beginning to take shape. This is where those references I mentioned earlier on come in handy. What I do is comb through my reference library looking for snippets that will inspire and inform me on how to approach the instrumentation. When I find something suitable I line appropriate reference(s) up against the sketch. A piece in the middle of development. Even though the actual harmonic and rhythmic content of music that I’ve written is quite different than the references I have, I can still use them to extract the orchestral colors the original composer used and apply them to what I’m doing. This helps me to produce the most realistic result possible (remember I’m using samples most of the time) and allows me to get through the orchestration process in the fastest way without spending too much time on R&D. At this stage in the project it’s less important for me to spend a bunch of time trying to come up with the most unique orchestration known to man, than it is for me to get 70% of the way there using a combination that I know will work. I don’t always need to do this for each musical phrase, but it sure comes in handy when I’m stuck. Once the references are all lined up, I start assigning the different layers of music to the instruments that are loaded in my template. Polish In its current state, the music sounds really static and pretty bad. Not ready for prime time. Even though I just assigned the music to different instruments, it’s not quite done yet. For example, phrases lack shape, the mix between instruments is unbalanced, and articulations are all wrong. To fix that, I hand sculpt each individual note and phrase to make it sound more convincing, trying my best to make it sound as if a real live musician were performing the piece (which is actually impossible to do, but that’s the subject for another conversation). This, my friends, is where the music really comes to life. It’s a painstakingly slow and highly detailed process but by the end of it, we’re left with something that actually sounds pretty good! Now I bet you’re wondering how that sounds? Well wonder no more because I’m about to show you! Drum Roll Please... The first region I focused on was Dyrford, and I’d like to share the music that I wrote for the town of Dyrford with you. I hope you enjoy it! Dyrford Village ambient music. Modifications to the Formula While we are following in the footsteps of the Infinity Engine soundtracks in terms of style and implementation, we have decided to tweak that formula a bit. Most of the in-game tracks for the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale games are between 1-2 minutes in length, and in some cases those tracks loop immediately. There are some inherent risks and benefits to looping a short piece of music immediately. One of the risks is that the music could eventually become annoying to the player if heard too many times in a row. We call this “listener fatigue”, and from a usability perspective, it can negatively affect the way a gamer will feel about a game. It’s a psychological effect; the fact that the music is short and repetitious can make long playthroughs tedious. On the flip side, a benefit to having short loops is that we can write more unique pieces of music, which will by nature increase variety throughout the game. Approaching it this way would allow us to make specific areas feel “special” because they will have unique music. We’re going to balance those two considerations for Pillars of Eternity. Music will always loop, but it will be longer in areas where the player spends a lot of time (like quest hubs) and shorter in areas where the player doesn’t (like some dungeons).

I really enjoy the movement/command barks, but I find that there's too much voice acting in the dialogues. I prefer to read them at my own pace and with my own voices (a la Planescape: Torment). Also not too keen on some of the voice acting. Any way I could turn the dialogue voice work off while leaving the barks? Anyone made a mod to do something like this?

First I apologize if what I am about to talk about has already been discussed. I recently met the Grieving Mother and it's a pretty neat character. Though to me it seems the audio is I'm not too sure how to explain it but the voice audio has high distortions with 's' words. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's experiencing this, right? Also as I pass through the catacombs in Defiance Bay, the sewer water audio gets distorted as well, sounds like the audio is skipping. Unfortunately I don't have any evidence of this.

I would really love to have an option to toggle volume for all kinds of voice-acting in the game. Combat shouts and the "affirmative" type of deal when you move characters around kinda get really old after a while so an option to mute them would be very welcome!

Are you guys going to consider doing a HQ sound pack for the music, character voices and environmental audio? Most games use fairly compressed audio files to my knowledge, would it be possible to also include the sound files in an uncompressed format, say as a download where you just paste them over the top of the uncompressed sound files? http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/AudioFiles.html Looking at this it seems possible I think since Unity supports uncompressed WAV.

In the RPGCodex Q&A, I asked a question about the Voice over distribution in Project Eternity. Josh Sawyer responded with: Icewind Dale 1 had 24 Voice sets (12 Male, 12 Female) in the default game, and 6 more in the expansion. The male voice set is mostly the same guy doing different voices and there's a couple different ones. The female voice set is kind of similar although I think more actresses are used. Anyway Eternity is more nuanced than Icewind Dale is as far as races, culture and ethncity goes. I think it will be very interesting to see what we end up getting for player voices, because I wouldn't be surprised if Josh Sawyer has pronounciation guides for accents from different regions or something - that would be cool. I'm really interested in the Vailian accents in particular, a combination of chocolaty dark actors/actresses with the pseudo-italian/occitan pronounciation will be very interesting (if they end up being accented, it might be more expensive to do because it will take longer to get right). Having some Cultural or Ethnicity based voice sets would also be cool because you could throw in some conlang words or phrases for battle cries, curses etc. It would be funny if a particular culture had a tendancy to mix common tongue words with their own when they get angry. Here's also hoping that we get a similar amount, or perhaps slightly more voice sets. Another thing that got kind of monotonous in the Infinity Engine games was that the game always played the voice set of the highest party member in the formation order every time you had a group selected. It would be cool if it played a random character's voice instead or the option of randomness was available in the sounds menu - something to make voices less monotonous anyway.

Technical FAQ Purpose: To help answer and diagnose simple technical issues you may run across and not yet know how to fix or understand. Always remember to be careful and cautious when doing any work with a computer or system, physically or logically. I/We are not responsible or liable for any issues/damage/problems/data loss that arise as a result of the use of this guide or comments therein. Any software or companies suggested as a utility or helpful resource are done so based on personal opinion and as a helpful starting point for making your own decisions regarding use. Above all, if you are really unsure of something do not attempt it without proper research and/or asking someone who does know what they are doing. Secondly before any major system work ALWAYS perform a backup. Any loss of data or content as a result of not properly creating a backup of some kind is your responsibility. System Image Backup: With the above said a couple of options for creating a system image or backup are; http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx Very stable and consistent backup utility that is free for use. It does not do incremental backups, but otherwise is a very easy to use application and can be largely automated. Previous personal use with it was fine, and it was very easy to use. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/index.html Very stable with more backup options (differential/incremental, etc) but not quite as universally compatible, still a great option for simple backups. It is important to get into the habit of creating backups regularly. Even if you have never had an issue or lost data, it only takes one time before you realize the error and wish you had. With the cost of storage these days there is really no reason not to. Once you have a backup seriously consider getting some extra DVDs, or a portable HDD used only for image burning. If you do not want to create a system image, windows restore points or the windows backup utility are also decent options (restore being a much softer backup). At least a weekly backup is preferable to no backup, at worst you lose a week, instead of weeks/months/years/decades of work. Fresh Windows install common application loader, and start button/menu re-addition to windows 8: http://ninite.com This is an invaluable website for a clean install, or as the need arises. The premise is simple, select the applications or components you want or need to install on your computer (everything from Chrome to the latest Java to Steam, AVG and Notepad++ along with much much more). Once selected click on get installer and it auto installs all of the programs for you. The only downside is non customized installations but can save you a lot of time installing all of these applications. The installers will remember the software selection as well, so you can save it for use later, or as a template installer. For windows 8 Start button/menu install the Classic Start utility. You will now have a customizable start button/menu again and it auto sets to load to the desktop cutting out charms. Windows 8 PC Refresh/Re-Install: Windows 8 provides the option to ‘refresh’ the PC by bringing the computer back to an almost fresh install state. The benefit here is that you will retain all of the files and downloads pictures etc you have, while reverting to default windows files and setup. Note that this WILL require you to reinstall programs, but you wont lose specific data files as just mentioned. Start-Up / Boot cleanup: A lot of programs like to insert items into startup, a lot of them are extra drains on resources for things like version checking or updates. To disable these items pull up the start button and in the search box type in msconfig.exe then hit enter. MSConfig gives you a lot of different options for your system. This can be a very helpful little utility, but also very dangerous if you play around in the wrong areas. The only 2 places you should really bother with are the Boot and Startup tabs. Boot Tab, controls multi boot loading (EG if you dual boot windowsXP and 7 for instance) and you can control things like time to select, default OS, etc. Also, and sometimes more importantly, the ability to turn on safe boot, with options (eg minimal, networking) and boot logs which can help very much in identifying problems with an unstable system. Just remember to turn off safe mode when you are finished! Startup Tab, basically exactly what it sounds like. Lists the items that are launched on startup and gives you the ability to disable them (uncheck the checkbox) Another good option is to periodically go through your installed programs list and remove anything you no longer use or was not what you thought it might be. Firewall / Antivirus: Over the years firewall and anti-virus apps have come a long way, and there are quite a few great free options. Here are some of the offerings you may come across, most of these are combo these days (both firewall and AV rolled into one) though typically you need to pay for a bundle. Firewall: Zone alarm, very popular free firewall with a lot of options and active scanning. Supports WinXP/vista/7/8 http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm Windows built in firewall. This used to be much worse than it currently is. These days its fairly robust but pretty straight forward. It is a good option provided you spend a little time to get to know it and its limitations. It is adequate for most home use, especially if you don’t know a whole lot about firewalls and ports. Comodo Personal Firewall, great firewall with active scanning and known good/bad program lists. http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html Online Armor, has some cool features, like setting programs to effectively ‘run as’ a user with lower permissions. http://www.online-armor.com/products-online-armor-free.php Anti Virus: AVG antivirus, very popular and good anti virus http://free.avg.com/us-en/free-antivirus-download Avast, another very popular free option: http://www.avast.com/en-us/index Ad-Aware, very popular system http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware.php It is really important to make sure you have protection installed early and updated often. Much like backups it pays to not have an issue or lose data, or have your identity or credit cards compromised. Weird windows problems or crashing: A useful tool to record problems or crashes is actually one built into windows, psr.exe To open it, go to the start -> search and type in psr.exe click on the record button and perform the steps that lead to the problem. When you are done it will ask where to save the zip file, choose a location. Inside the zip file is an mht file, which opens in internet explorer. It will give you a screen by screen recap of what you did, where you clicked, and what happened along with some information about the OS, the program being used, and versions therein. This can be a great help when diagnosing a problem, or trying to figure out what is happening. A lot of issues can crop up from bad/missing/corrupt windows files or protected items, luckily there is a built in application to help find and fix these. Open a command prompt and type in sfc /SCANNOW This will scan protected and core files to ensure integrity and operation. If any are missing it will attempt to repair them. (Can take a while to perform) Some issues arise from newer drivers or application packages, you can try to use older versions which sometimes can be difficult to find. A couple useful websites to use in this instance: http://www.oldapps.com/category/drivers http://www.driverguide.com/ With that said though, just as many, if not more issues can be caused by OLD drivers, so be sure that you regularly check for updates to your system drivers. I would caution against downloading .dll files by themselves, if you have a missing or corrupt dll file. There are a lot of websites with dll downloads, but it is best if you perform a re-install of the application which uses/installed the dll in the first place. If you absolutely need to do it you will likely need to register the dll, or may need to un-register and re-register the new one. To do so open the start button and type in cmd, right click on the cmd.exe that appears and select run as administrator. In the new window to register a dll (tell the OS that the dll exists, in a specific location, for application use) type the following: regsvr32 “path\to\dll\nameof.dll” eg regsvr32 “c:\users\myuser\dekstop\abc.dll” To unregister a dll (forget it): regsvr32 /u nameof.dll Some useful websites with vast technical knowledge and help: http://www.tomshardware.com/ reviews, troubleshooting help and tech tips http://www.hardwareheaven.com/ much like tom’s hardware http://www.avsforum.com/ centering more predominantly on audio and home theaters http://www.head-fi.org/ great audiophile and headphone community Don’t be afraid to use google, it has saved me many times and can be an excellent resource for finding information on bugs or error codes you come across. Hardware: Hardware issues can be difficult to diagnose, especially with little or no experience dealing with it. If you are really unsure or timid ask for help! Provide as much detail as possible, and be friendly, people will help you out! A key thing to keep in mind, or plan, is a good power supply. The power supply is the most important non glamorous piece of equipment in your machine. If it is poorly built, or weak, or provides uneven power you can easily blow your system, or cause intermittent and nearly impossible to troubleshoot problems. DO NOT SKIMP on the power supply. This doesn't mean you need a lot of power, it means you need quality power. Stick to good name brands (OCZ, CoolerMaster, Corsair, Antec, EVGA, etc) If in doubt, do some research! Also you want to, these days, find one with an 80 PLUS rating. This on a very basic level means that you get more bang for your buck. In the conversion of power, and loss of power as heat (any heat generated is lost power, eg lost dollars) a unit with an 80 PLUS rating (with various sub tiers) means the unit will pure convert at least 80% of the power drawn to usable system power. The better the tier ( going from Bronze to Gold for instance) the better the conversion and the less power lost. YMMV on actual cost savings but on bigger rigs, or multiple run 24/7 it can add up over time. Make sure that you regularly clean your system out as well (once every month or 3). You can use something like a can of air to do it and its pretty fast. If you do not, dust buildup can create 2 problems. The first being insulation. As dust accumulates it insulates the areas it is in contact with, and this is bad news for a computer. It will begin to increase the temperature of those components and create extra wear and tear on them, shortening lifespan or creating heat related crashes or hangs, and general slowdowns. The second issue, while less likely these days, is creating a short between components. Due to newer technology and shielding this is less likely, but still something to keep in mind. Two components with voltage that normally should never interact could become linked in the right circumstances, and fry some components. As a side note, NEVER EVER blow on your components (ala old NES cartridges) or into a connection slot. While you may get rid of some dust, you are also sending a wave of watery saliva into the components which at the least can cause corrosion if nothing else. Whenever you install, remove, or troubleshoot a component be sure that you unplug the system before hand and use an anti static strap (you can find them all over the place – officemax staples, online, etc). Never remove or install components into a live (on/plugged in) system. While the board itself may not carry a charge, if there is dust buildup it can hold a slight static charge and create a short/arc and ruin that shiny new GPU. If you have problems with your system booting, or crashing and it seems to be hardware related be smart. Start with a bare system (cpu/ram/video card and no HDDs/accessories) and work your way up installing one component at a time until you get a failure. If the issue is present with nothing but the 3 previously mentioned bare components, it is likely one of those three, start with a different video card (if possible) and ram. Make sure all fans on the case or components are spinning, and clean them of any blockages (using something like the can of air and perhaps some Q-Tips). Never clean your system with any form of liquid or a vacuum or anything like that. Audio/Video: These days there are a lot of people with HD capable monitors/TVs and decent AV receivers. If you have these but are perplexed as to how to get the best picture and audio its not that hard. To get true DD/DTS audio from media files (not games) you will need to have an optical or coaxial digital audio connection or HDMI output from your computer (either onboard, or sound card based) to a device that likewise has these connections (receiver). It’s quite easy these days to simply just pass your audio through your video card to your listening/watching device (provided it uses hdmi). My normal media viewing setup passes my video and audio through HDMI out of my videocard to my receiver. I get my movies (DVDs/BluRays/Rips Ive collected) in DD/DTS and have excellent picture. (GTX 460) This is where the ‘fun’ begins. Configuring for true DD/DTS pass-through is a walkthrough in itself but in the end is not terribly hard. There are two main, great, guides/walkthroughs on how to do this: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=516729 This one is a bit more easy to follow but I find it lacks a few things from the second guide. Overall quite a good guide, in particular some great tips on madVR setup. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1357375/advanced-mpc-hc-setup-guide Very thorough guide bit more complex, but still easy enough to follow, based a bit more on best possible audio. These days most TVs have HDMI input, and further can easily handle the way a computer outputs video, so hook it up and have a blast! One interesting thing to note, if you have get a DVI to HDMI conversion cable, most newer video cards can output audio from the video card to a TV/etc from this connection. (YMMV) For DD/DTS in video games, you will need a sound card capable of using something like Dolby Digital Live!/DTS Connect. To decode this. An example of these are: http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Z-PCIe-Sound/M/B009ISU33E.htm http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Recon3D-PCIe-Sound/M/B00654PUPA.htm http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_hometheater_hd.php http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_forte.php That concludes the FAQ for the time being. Many thanks to the originator of the first FAQ version, and the various sites and forums listed in this guide for all of the help over the years. Attached is the XP version of this FAQ WinXPFAQ.pdf - Many Thanks to Metadigital who wrote the original (XP) version!

I've always thought it strange that, in party-based RPGs, while lots of time is spent recording dialogues and conversations, there's always only a tiny pool of audio cues that are used when selecting them / giving them orders. Why is this? A large percentage of the player's time is spent clicking on their portraits and giving orders, so why is it that we're stuck with hearing the same 'I stand ready' phrases over and over again? Given that OE don't need to worry about full voiceover for companion dialogue in PE, what I'd like to see (or rather, hear), instead, is greater variety and nuance to the audio cues we hear when giving orders to the party. Here are a few examples: Location specific: relaxed quotes when in Taverns, wary ones when in a new and threatening area, urgent when in battle, whispers when in a crypt, that sort of thing. Emotion-affected: It always jars for me when I've had, say, an argument with a party member in a conversation, or an emotional reveal has taken place, and then when you're back in gameplay, you're back to the standard sets of chirpy responses. It would be amazing if sometimes that could affect the voice sets as well. 'Huffy' or 'distance' responses after an argument, for example, or cheerful after a humerous exchange. If you wanted to be really interesting about it, you could use this as a cue to the player as well. If a companion's audio phrases suddenly sound pensive, or sulky, talking to them might open up a conversation. Level / story affected: This is a big one, but wouldn't it be good if, say, a character's voice set became more confident as the story progressed / levelled up. A character might join the group and be quite non-expressive and professional when being given orders, but as time passes and he's travelled with the group and becomes more relaxed, his tone may change. Or a cheerful character, after being witness to an evil player character's awful deeds and derision in conversation, would become more downbeat. When you've got the voice actor in the studio, given the lack of need for extensive recording, I wouldn't have thought it would be too hard to get them to instead spend a bit of time recording different nuances of responses? I asked about this in the reddit Q&A, but unfortunately didn't get a response. What do you guys think?