It looks like the long-awaited audio alert for games starting has arrived! Now those of us who navigate to separate tabs, or who go and read a book, or some such, will be alerted when a game starts. Many of us are much relieved Iām sure.
Unfortunately, the audio chosen for this appears to, well, itās rather unpleasant. Isnāt it? I see a few problems with it:
Itās the bell from a boxing match.
Itās really loud compared to the stone sounds. So a normal user will be rather startled by the volume.
It goes on for ages.
It feels completely out of place.
What sort of tone do we want to set, here? Using the sound from the start of a round of boxing cultivates an unnecessarily combative atmosphere. Itās as if weād lifted the famous Mortal Combat āFight!ā sound. It implies violence, and whilst many people might take that sort of approach to the game, others such as myself like to be rather gentler, and we appreciate gentle sounds.
Why not a simple beep? A singing bowl? Or the chime of someone gently tapping a crystal glass? My point is that this is a choice that someone has made. It feels like someone has been slightly lazy with that choice, in a āthis will doā sort of way, and I wanted to highlight that in my opinion, no, this will not do.
Letās cultivate a co-operative culture rather than a combative one. Letās change the sound to something gentler.
I like the bell.
I didnāt like that update wasnāt announced. When all updates are behind the scenes it makes it look like server doesnāt improve or change.
I think starting sound should be as annoying as possible so you notice it. Soft taps can be easily missed especially when you watch a youtube video. Sharp bell sound is perfect for it. But I understand that people with sensitive ears may not see it this way, and lately stone placement sounds get on my nerve little by little. Perfect solution would be sound customization of some sort, but itās a big thing to implement.
I donāt really get the point of āviolentā vs āsoftā approach because of a starting bell. Sounds analogous to āvideogames make people violentā argument.
(And after all, isnāt OGS the most passive server? Maybe bell will wake up fighting spirit in people)
So I guess Iāll go with aggressive option. Not because of some kind of underlying meaning behind it, but because soft sound is easy to miss, good example from @Kungfu_Panda, unless itās super loud Iām not going to notice it.
Just for the record the whole thing was discussed and āannouncedā in a dedicated thread.
But I see your point. I donāt think these changes are interesting (not the right word, but you get meā¦) enough to clutter the announcement banners with them, but next time something new and āmajorā comes up, we might start sort of a ānew featuresā thread? Would that be a good compromise? (sorry for offtopicing, I will split it if it gets too confusing)
Iām kinda with you on wanting a less bracing sound, though Iāll definitely take anything over nothing. But sound is subjective, and I find the tone beep really piercing and uncomfortable, whereas the fight bells are kind of funny given their association with boxing, but not uncomfortable. The ability to choose between different sounds would be cool.
I feel like the alternatives offered by @Kungfu_Panda and @Farraway are both too gentle and something I could easily filter out while browsing other tabs, thus defeating the purpose of having an announcement. I havenāt personally heard the boxing bells yet but I imagine they would probably be on par with KGS which made me jump through the roof the first time but after I knew what they were, they were fine.
I am not especially motivated to change the bell sound.
As I was implementing this I asked what sound would be appropriate, and the only answer I got was a stupid joke.
There could have been an option for the user to chose from a selection.
Right. The beginning of a contest, a match. Sound appropriate to me.
Well - turn it down then.
I searched hard for the sound I thought was the best I could find. That was it. I was really pleased with it. Then I thought āwell, you canāt please everyoneā, so I asksd. The only answer was a joke.
I am appreciative of all the hard work you do for the site GaJ <3 maybe if Farraway has some ideas for alternative options he can submit a pull request of his own
It could be hard to time the announcement properly, because only @anoek knows when it gets deployed.
For example, if I understand correctly, it was back at the end of the thread you quoted that the PR was merged, which is a visible event, but it wasnāt until very recently that it was deployed, which is not visible to anyone except by its effects.
So thatād have to be something @anoek himself takes care of?
Perhaps I deserve that. I feel as if my intentions have been rather misjudged. Nonetheless, it was unfair of me to assume that you hadnāt invested time in selecting the sound and I can see why I might have seemed hyper critical or dismissive of your efforts. Iām sorry.
[ vent deleted by GaJ. Suffice to say I was quite taken aback to be described as ālazyā ]
But, in the face of your apology, and the opportunity to vent (now no longer needed) I have become remotivated. You guys make a selection of sounds, Iāll put a choice in, weāll see if anoek accepts it.
I like the present sound. Besides liking bells generally, there is a quality to their sound which ācuts throughā the audio trash we sometimes find ourselves surrounded with better than almost anything else. Except for a chime, maybe?
