There is no reason why this should not already be in the game

...... or maybe there is. I don't know. I've never made a game before.

When I first started Starbound, I liked the music. But as I continued to play, I began to tire of the repeating music. Especially the battle music, which I'm convinced is actually the same song that cuts in and out at random intervals when you start battling.

But then I took a look at the official soundtrack.

I was amazed. There were more unused songs than there were ones in the game. Each one was original, very entertaining, and lacked the qualities I didn't like about the current music. Contained in this soundtrack are 1-2 songs for exploring each biome (most at least) and 1-2 songs for any battles you might get in those respective biomes. Even as I type this, I'm l'm listening to the Ocean exploration music, which sounds like some soft smooth jazz put to soothing synth pads.

Why is this not in the game? I don't know too much about programming, but I know it shouldn't be too hard to configure these to play in the right circumstances.

Maybe they will add it in a future update. I'm just confused why they haven't added it already

 

There is no reason?

 

Well I can't think of any

 

The game has missing sound effects also, such as, when the character jumps in to or out of water there is no splash sound.

 

Maybe because it's beta and all the stuff is not in yet?

 

Technically it probably already is, but hasn't been fully implemented yet maybe... Far as the ocean biome goes, it has only been said there were problems with it... and wasn't added to the generation in this version, due to problems.. That is the ways it appears anyway.

but it is possibly things like that for certain music and sounds. Although this is still early beta, there is much that will more likely be added in the future. At least the game functions well keeping track of your character even in the saves; beyond the wipes that has happened with certain updates....

It is hard to tell otherwise why certain things didn't make it, guess is good as mine.

 

This is just speculation, but there was a ton of hype for this game. I imagine every week that went by without a release date just added to the pressure of releasing this game ASAP. To the point that they almost had to release a playable game version sooner rather than later.

I am hardly even a novice in programming, but adding background sound, sound effects and circumstantial sound (i don't know what the hell that would be called) you are dealing with writing another set of code. Chuckle has a whole bunch of things they are adding to this game and there is definitely a prioritization to what gets added when. I personally would like sound to be added tomorrow just because it really would add to the game, but I also understand if that is not a high priority.

 

Soundtrack is great isn't it.

They devs know what's not in the game yet and they'll add it in when they get the chance, for now why not play the soundtrack on vlc or something and mute the in game music, then you can play to the entier soundtrack until it's finally in the game. I do this pretty often and it's great to have much more musical diversity than just the few in the game.

I know it's an extra step you have to take for the time being, but it's worth it.

 

Yeah. I love synth music. Can't believe it's not really a genre yet :\

 

Synth.. is a genre? Least I refer to it as one, which track are you talking about specifically?

 

Yes, the music isn't all in there yet, largely due to it not being fully implemented. The logic here being, they could spend time working all the music in, or they could get some of the music in along with some work on fixing bugs and features. It's likely that we'll get a trickle of added BGM tracks here and there as time goes by.

 

Of course there is a reason, and to be honest I think you've already seen it. "Maybe they will add it in a future update" is precisely right. This sort of feature is definitely something for the latter stages of beta, alongside other basic but not strictly necessary features such as custom keybinding, particular animations, articulated quests, etc. It's one of those finer details that gets shifted to the side while the team scrambles over large scale game mechanics that affect the game at it's core.

You are right though, in that using a wider variety of songs (songs already composed, no less!) will improve the game greatly, and you are also correct in that the programming is relatively simple compared to some of Starbound's other features (having songs play at particular cues is already implemented, and selecting a song from a set is simple too). But it is still work. And at this stage of beta there are other priorities that more fully require the team's attention. Working on this fine tuning at this stage would be akin to adding the finishing touches to upholstery on a car before the engine's even done.

On the bright side, I hope we can be happy to know that these soundtracks exist, and know that their existence means the developers already have plans for what you describe. One more thing to look forward to, right?