Historical Details, Animation, and Sound

[Froonp]

Don't undersetimate the determination of the WiF community. If you provide the decrypted data then I'm sure there's a few spreadsheet jockeys who will create a data import, massaging and graphing tool to analyse the data.

Exactly. Excel is my best soft-friend [:D].

[Froonp]

Unit information

When the player selects a unit, a large panel appears that provides historical details about the unit. This may include photographs, text, and a short description on the history of the unit during the war. It can be modified by the players so they can exchange files on units (or create a library of same) which could be used to replace the ones that come with MWIF. All the historical unit information is also accessible from an in-game browse function that lets the player read about every unit in the game.

I think this is covered by the above, but felt I should write this anyway.
Short biographies may be written about each HQ in the game (Rommel, Manstein, Prince Paul, etc...). Those biographies would be great informations for the less WWII informed people.

WW II Look and Feel

To add a WWII era feel, there could be newspaper appearing on the screen at times, telling you about the events other than war (other that political, other than directly related to the war).
This newspaper could arrive just after the dialog that tells you you are now beginning a new turn, before the initiative is rolled.

Wikipedia is once again a goud source for that. Example :

J/F 44 :
The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper !!!
Shooting begins of the Nazi propaganda film, "The Fuehrer Gives a Village to the Jews" in Theresienstadt !!!

J/A 44 :
Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California killing 232 !!!
August 7 - IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I.

M/A 45 :
April 12 - United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) takes the Oath of Office.

[Neilster]

Of course the newspaper should spin toward the reader from the distance and then stop, in time honoured fashion [:'(].

We'll also probably need one of those cheesy, disproportionately large radio towers on a black and white Earth, beaming circular radio wavefronts into the ether with a morse-codeish "beep beep be de be beep beep" sound effect [:D]. I'm serious. They rock!

Cheers, Neilster

[doctormm]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

Of course the newspaper should spin toward the reader from the distance and then stop, in time honoured fashion [:'(].

We'll also probably need one of those cheesy, disproportionately large radio towers on a black and white Earth, beaming circular radio wavefronts into the ether with a morse-codeish "beep beep be de be beep beep" sound effect [:D]. I'm serious. They rock!

Cheers, Neilster

Movietone News, Die Deutsche Wochenschau, and other national/propaganda would be something nice to pattern on. Tokyo Rose or Lord Hee Haw playing while the Allied player plans moves would be amusing. A bit of a step up from just having your internet opponent always sending messages about how you're going to lose.

And for the Neilster -

[Greyshaft]

Of course the real problem is to tie in the game with history. No point having a bunch of whirling newspapers talking about 7th December being the "Day of "Infamy" if Japan actually attacks in Sep/Oct. Game events need to be easily distinguishable from historical events.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

Of course the real problem is to tie in the game with history. No point having a bunch of whirling newspapers talking about 7th December being the "Day of "Infamy" if Japan actually attacks in Sep/Oct. Game events need to be easily distinguishable from historical events.

This is what I proposed in post 82, to have newspaper showing events of the era, but only events not tied to WWII, just to give a feel of the forties.


Example (taken from the Wikipedia) :

S/O 39:

October 11 - Manhattan Project: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented with a letter signed by Albert Einstein urging the United States to rapidly develop the atomic bomb.

October 15 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.

N/D 39 :

November 6 - The Hedda Hopper Show debuts with Hollywood gossip Hedda Hopper as host (the show ran until 1951 and made Hopper a powerful figure in the Hollywood elite). {Maybe too USA centric}.

November 15 - In Washington, DC, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

December 2 - La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City.

December 25 - A Christmas Carol was read before a radio audience for the first time. {Maybe too USA centric}.

December 27 - Earthquake in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey, destroys the town of Erzingan - about 100.000 dead

[Greyshaft]

I'm looking for something which shows war events (eg Japan declaring war on usa) but modifies the dates accordingly

[Neilster]

Thanks doctormm. Exactly!

[composer99]

Sound

Music

Historical music can create atmosphere without being requiring a lot of system resources. It gives the player a different feeling for each nation and is educational as well, enabling a player to become familiar with different countries’ anthems and marches. National anthems are played for major events, a "national march" for national victories, and a "national hymn" for defeats. Some examples are:

USA: Anthem: "The Star Spangled Banner" (Sousa), March: "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (Sousa), Air Victory: "Wild Blue Yonder", Naval Victory: "Anchors Aweigh", Hymn: "Adagio For Strings" (Barber).

UK: Anthem: "God Save the King", March: "Rule Britannia", Hymn: "War Requiem" (Britten)

During more subliminal periods (e.g., planning) appropriate music from the era for the country is played: Big Band Music, classical German marches, music by Russian composers, etcetera. Propaganda speeches, (Tokyo Rose, Goebbels radio addresses, fireside chats, and so on), corresponding to the game date, are played to help maintain the WW II atmosphere.

Music can be repeated somewhat more often than a film clip before it gets old, but in addition, the player has other options for avoiding boring repetition. Each country has its own folder of MP3's to which the players can add their own selections. Also, MWIF does not require a full screen display, so a player can select his own music to be playing in the background during a game.

Sound Effects

As units move or engage in combat, appropriate sounds are played. This also happens for certain screens. Sounds might be repeated somewhat more often than video, but worrying about too much repetition is important. In particular, every time a player clicks on a unit (to select the unit, inspect the stack, move, or fight), a simple "click" sound is produced rather than something more distinctive, which would quickly become annoying.

Screens
Industrial clanging for the production screen,
Tropical jungle sounds when examining a hex stack in Burma.

Movement
Diesel rumbling or the noise of the tracks when tanks move,
Noise of trucks when motorized units move,
Noise of boots when leg troops move,
Inline or radial engine noise for aircraft maneuvering,
Train toots for movement by rail

Combat
Varies depending on the kind of attacking and defending units/weapons and combat result
Explosion sound when a unit is attacked and destroyed,
Stukas diving when flying ground strike missions
Stuka sirens
Bombs whistling
Artillery fire
Noise of the relevant type of gun AA fires, when ART bombs, etc...
Parachutes opening on an airborne assault.
Words "Go, go, go" when paratroopers jump,
Splash

_____________________________

Steve

My online handle probably says it all about my eventual vocation, so I might as well chip in with my two cents on the game's music & sound effects.

MUSIC

Musical Cues Based on In-Game Events
Because of the nature of this game, musical cues that precede or follow particular events, such as a successful land combat or a defeat at sea, or something, should be quite short; I would suggest no more than 10-15 seconds in length. They should play over an overview screen of the event causing the cue to play; when the player closes the pop-up, the event-based cue should either end immediately or play to its conclusion before beginning one of the regular cues.

However, given the sheer number of events that might precipitate cues, I would actually suggest that this system not be used, as the cues would quickly become trite and uninteresting. Space battles in Star Wars: Rebellion occured infrequently enough that the music was fun to listen to each time the prompts came up prior to and after the combat. But given the number of combat situations that regularly occur in a WiF turn, similar cues in this game would get stale quite possibly after the very first turn of play.

Balance of Pre-Existing Music vs. Original Music
Some pre-existing music would certainly be a good idea. I would in particular suggest, where possible, music from the early 20th century, containing a mix of composers from the major belligerents. Unfortunately, copyright issues may nix a lot of good possibilities (such as Stravinsky or Aaron Copland). Some Romantic and/or Classical period music may also be appropriate (case in point - Wagner).

It is important that less than half of any pre-existing music used be very obtrusive, as this game demands concentration on the part of the player, and music that calls too much attention to itself all the time can be a distraction and even an annoyance (there are a number of tracks that do this in Hearts of Iron, which exclusively uses non-original music). Some music still needs to be exiciting and vigorous, of course.

As for original music, I would certainly endorse it - it provides a nice change of pace from all the Richard Strauss, Edward Elgar, & Shostakovich or whatnot that'll be playing. Also, in particular original music can be scored for the game that allows for the creation of pieces that in some ways duplicate the styles of composers that would have had pieces featured in the game but for copyright concerns (such as Aaron Copland or Olivier Messaien). I don't know how much Japanese or Chinese music can be found from the war period itself, but since music in those styles is certainly a welcome addition I would certainly suggest that, in the absence of externally-sourced music, some original music in that idiom be composed.

The big key for both original and other music is that the player has to be able to tolerate hearing it more than once in the same hour, in the off chance that such a thing should occur. Most of my favourite game music is pretty short loops of stuff (from games like the Final Fantasy franchise or Ogre Battle, or even Starcraft and Warcraft III) that I could quite happily listen to again and again for fifteen minutes plus straight up without getting bored of it. With a big enough library to choose from, and/or the ability for the player to play their own music, plus a good random music-playing algorithm, there should be no concern about musical irritation (one of my biggest beefs with Hearts of Iron II is that, while the score is good, the fact that it's divided into "war" music and "peace" music means that too little music gets repeated too often, and many of the tracks are too intrusive to bear much repeating, though repeat they inevitably do).

What Pre-Existing Music to Use?
These following suggestions are entirely based on my own opinions, and should hardly be taken to be authoritative, although I will try to give reasons that are not 100% arbitrary.

German Composers
Wagner - best used sparingly because most of his music is loud stuff; good tracks to include are "Ride of the Valkyries", "Tannhauser Overture" (the theme of the German airborne forces), and "Siegfried Idyll" (mainly because it is quite soft-spoken for Wagner).
Johann Strauss(es) - The waltz-composing Viennese? I would highly recommend against.
Vienna School I (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) - Although these fellows were never a "school", they are the big-time Classical composers, and they spent a lot of time in and around Vienna. I would generally suggest avoiding them because they are so ubiquitous.
Vienna School II (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) - An actual school of composition; best avoided as, despite being over a half-century old, they are often considered too "avant-garde" for most listeners; however Berg has a number of pieces that may merit inclusion.
Richard Strauss - Some of this guy's stuff should be included for sure if possible; just not the sunrise cue from "Also Sprach Zarathustra", although other material from that tone poem ought to be considered. Not only is he from the early 20th century, but he briefly held a post in the Nazi music commission.
Mendelhsson & Brahms - I don't know about these two.

Russian & East European Composers
Tchaikovsky - Overused; best avoided (especially 1812 Overture, which, nice as it is is both too long and too loud).
Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff - Definite yes' all, if you can get them. Mussorgsky has a number of pieces that were later orchestrated by Ravel which merit inclusion.
Stravinsky - Absolutely.
Shostakovich - Probably, if copyright isn't an issue. He is really the quintessential Soviet-era composer.
Bartok & Kodaly - Maybe. Bartok can be a bit modernist for some ears.
Lutoslawski - Some of his surviving earlier works.
Chopin - Probably.
Smetana - Probably.
Liszt - Probably not.

American, British & French Composers
Holst, Elgar, Vaughn Williams, Britten - Yes, yes, yes! Although for Elgar I would suggest avoiding the Pomp & Circumstance pieces.
Copland, Gershwin, Barber, Ives - Definitely, although copyright may prove to be too much of an obstacle.
Ravel, Faure, Debussy - Definitely.
Some of the English 18th-19th century madrigalists might be a good idea, but there's so many other composers that they should probably come in as a last resort.

Other
- Japanese & Chinese music from the period, whether composed in the Western idiom or not?
- CW Dominion composers? (India & Canada come to mind)
- Sousa marches/anthems - one or two of these may be good, but they are marches, and that means loud and possibly distracting. On the other hand, as Pablo, I believe, first mentioned, they might be good for mini-cues.

That's probably (more than enough) on music.

FOLEY EFFECTS (SOUND)

For in-game sound effects, I think you've already got a reasonable list. I like not having distinct sounds for unit selection, as that would get tiresome real fast; likewise with when units are simply ordered to do something. When they actually implement an action is when you would have the Foley effects come in to play.

I would say you have different "click" sounds for the following:
- unit/stack selection
- unit/stack orders issued
- menu/screen selection
- menu option chosen

When would the Foley sound come into play? I would use a rail move as an example. It is the rail move phase. You select a unit you want to rail move and get the "click" sound. You select the destination hex to get another "click" sound. While the unit changes hexes and you are perusing for other units to select, two or three seconds of railway sounds play.

(On a somewhat related topic, I would play an animation for each atomic bomb raid made during the game, seeing as they are infrequent events of such great magnitude.)

Voice-Overs/Narration
Presumably you won't have a lot of this except in so far as you are able to get clips of speeches by political or propaganda figures. To keep things in their historical context, I would not provide translations of clips of speeches during the game, except in a separate text file that players can peruse at their leisure (including during the game but run out of any old text file reader rather than MWiF itself). This might save a few bucks on localization.

That is about it.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

You have increased my understanding on this topic by an order of magnitude. Thanks.

[composer99]

Always glad to be of service (plus, anything that makes me look like I'm intelligent can't be all bad, can it? [;)]).

[terje439]

hmm peoplemention alot of classical music etc, which is good, but is it really a WWII game withouth "Lili Marlene", "Waltzing Matilda" and Edith Piaf?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: terje439
hmm peoplemention alot of classical music etc, which is good, but is it really a WWII game withouth "Lili Marlene", "Waltzing Matilda" and Edith Piaf?

Your point of course is a good. But isn't Lili Marlene from WWI? And wasn't Edith Piaf that short girl in 5th grade who walked with a slight limp?

[terje439]

" Lili Marlene was based on a poem written German soldier Hans Leip during World War I (in 1915), and published in 1937. Norbert Schultze set the poem to music in 1938 and it was recorded just before the war. It became a favorite of both German troops when it was broadcast to the AfrikaKorps in 1941. The immense popularity of the German version led to a hurried English version done by Tommie Connor and broadcast by the BBC for the Allied troops. Eventually, both sides began broadcasting the song in both versions, interspersed with propaganda nuggets. The German singer was Lale Andersen , an anti-Nazi. But the most celebrated singer was another anti-Nazi German - Marlene Dietrich, began to sing it in 1943. The English version of the song embellishs an already sentimental German original. After the war, the song's fame was perpetuated by Vera Lynn who sang it in every NAAFI concert she gave for British BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) soldiers stationed in pre-NATO Germany, to thunderous applause and stomping feet" Modern History Sourcebook

And I guess you are thinking about another Edith

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: terje439

" Lili Marlene was based on a poem written German soldier Hans Leip during World War I (in 1915), and published in 1937. Norbert Schultze set the poem to music in 1938 and it was recorded just before the war. It became a favorite of both German troops when it was broadcast to the AfrikaKorps in 1941. The immense popularity of the German version led to a hurried English version done by Tommie Connor and broadcast by the BBC for the Allied troops. Eventually, both sides began broadcasting the song in both versions, interspersed with propaganda nuggets. The German singer was Lale Andersen , an anti-Nazi. But the most celebrated singer was another anti-Nazi German - Marlene Dietrich, began to sing it in 1943. The English version of the song embellishs an already sentimental German original. After the war, the song's fame was perpetuated by Vera Lynn who sang it in every NAAFI concert she gave for British BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) soldiers stationed in pre-NATO Germany, to thunderous applause and stomping feet" Modern History Sourcebook

Ah, I see the source of my confusion. My barbershop chorus sings the last couple bars of Lili Marlene (it is called a tag - we get to drag it out and embellish each chord, one at a time). The set up for getting everyone in the proper mood for the tag ("Lady of the lamplight ... Lili Marlene") is for the director to recount the moment of a soldier on leave from the front in WWI seeing a 'lady' under a lamp post in a darkened evening setting. The song is sung to her, a representation of what he is risking his life to preserve. It is intentional that what she represents is ambiguous (even somewhat contradictory), so the listener can put his own thoughts into the image.

[terje439]

oh and off course "wir fahren gegen Engeland" would be suitable if Germany is building alot of TRS [:D]

[composer99]

hmm people mention a lot of classical music etc, which is good, but is it really a WWII game withouth "Lili Marlene", "Waltzing Matilda" and Edith Piaf?

Just about any genre that was common to the era is perfectly fine, so long as the representative music is a good the 50th time you hear it in a month (depending on how much playing time you can get in) as the first.

One of the only difficulties with songs as compared to solely-instrumental music is that there is not much that attracts humans' attention more than the human voice does, and generally you want music not to draw attention away from the game, especially when concentration is so desperately required. [:)]

It's a real challenge, coming up with music that is both enjoyable to listen to after uncounted repetitions but that can also be tuned out to some extent when the situation calls for it.

I don't know about "Waltzing Matilda", but I would, despite the above qualifications agree that "Lili Marlene" and some Edith Piaf numbers (the Edith Piaf in question being a famous French singer & Resistance member rather than the 5th-grader with the slight limp [;)] - Edith Piaf at Wikipedia) could be excellent additions to any Second World War game's soundtrack.

[macgregor]

My personal opinion, as much as I love music, is that I wouldn't worry about it too much. Even the best of music can get worn out. As long as the game is either not in fullscreen or has some feature that will allow it to reduce without closing is all I need to login to Live365 where I can pick from thousands of internet radio channels. Everything from adventure and war movie movie themes to stations that play wartime news broadcasts (complete with swing music) for those that prefer. And these stations don't repeat every ten minutes. While I have no affiliation with them I have to acknowledge what a tremendous asset this is to the wargaming experience. And yes it is free.

-on the other hand. Either national anthems or nation specific trumpet calls might be nice to announce one's turn.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

MWIF is not full screen. It was one of the first things I changed from CWIF so I could use two monitors while debugging. One monitor shows the program in execution while the second shows the source code and debugging aids.

[jeffthewookiee]

ORIGINAL: macgregor

My personal opinion, as much as I love music, is that I wouldn't worry about it too much. Even the best of music can get worn out. As long as the game is either not in fullscreen or has some feature that will allow it to reduce without closing is all I need to login to Live365 where I can pick from thousands of internet radio channels. Everything from adventure and war movie movie themes to stations that play wartime news broadcasts (complete with swing music) for those that prefer. And these stations don't repeat every ten minutes. While I have no affiliation with them I have to acknowledge what a tremendous asset this is to the wargaming experience. And yes it is free.

-on the other hand. Either national anthems or nation specific trumpet calls might be nice to announce one's turn.

As a composer, I've faced that kind of challenge often: writing great, interesting music that doesn't get boring after too many repetitions. I've come to the conclusion that context is very important. A classical piece is usually written to stand alone and be appreciated all by itself. If it hogs the center of attention, that's because it's designed to. That sometimes makes it difficult to use historical pieces in a computer game; they weren't meant to be repeated for the length of a 2 hour gaming session, and they were meant to be grab attention.

A lot of modern computer game music is composed much differently than traditional pieces like these. The heart of the music is an ambience and an atmosphere more than a journey from start to finish. Good in-game music should probably take this into account and assume a support role rather than a center-stage one.

One technique I've seen used is essentially a music bed without much discernable movement. It's usually loop-based and establishes a mood without pushing to hard towards a musical goal. As the game's 'intensity' increases, a second track is cross-faded in that's essentially the first track with elements... several versions of the original track are created this way and represent different 'intensities'. Events in the game cause the level to be raised or lowered, which determines which version of the track to be played. Since the track is ambient in nature as a background rather than a progressive piece of music, it's relatively easy to smoothly fade from one level to the other.

So you might be playing Track A, but suddenly a guard notices your spy and the game fades in Track D to show the immediate danger.