What about a deluxe version with better bitrate for voices ?

[BarfHappy]

I imagine the big reason for the low voices bitrate is the size of the download (bigger download, bigger the costs), but for the full season CD edition, maybe you could do a 2CDs pack instead of the single CD and double the voices data bitrate.

The bubble/wobble effect of low bitrate really make my ears uneasy. Hopefully i have a good soundcard and even better speakers system but applying filters to reduce that has a bad impact on the wonderful soundtrack playing in the background.

I truly love the game, and that's the only complaint i really have.
i don't care the difficulty, it is so damn funny and that is just the first case. i guess they will rise the difficulty until they receive hint requests that would indicate the game is getting too hard for the sam and max target audience. Or maybe implement the Max giving hints idea...

Ho well, back to the original point, i guess i am not the only one bothered with the low bitrate, am i ?

[Lyris]

Yeah, I was amazed at what they packed into such a small download, but you could definitely hear the scratchy "S" sounds especially when Sybil was talking. Higher quality voices on the disc-based version would be great.

[WarlockUK]

It'd be nice if there was a download for decent sound - the voices really sound like they're on a very low bitrate.

Also, the forum registration thing - I had to do that eyetest three times 'cos I got some of the squiggles wrong. There was a backwards S - so I put S. 'cos that's all it can be. It's not a Z 'cos they're straight :) Pain in the arse.

Great demo, though - I'll buy the full thing shortly I think. If the full version has a decent bitrate I'll buy the full 6 episodes right now - I've waited 13 years for this! :)

[jannar85]

Yeah, my vote for higher quality on the CD :)

[WarlockUK]

A CD version means I'll have to wait another 6 months to play it, though...

[neilka]

Another vote for higher quality sound - on the CD would be good, but even better would be a choice of different size downloads for each episode, so you can choose the tradeoff between download time and voice quality.

[Linque]

I agree. I would like to have a higher quality of sound in the game.

[therobbot]

Yeah, I actually think they should do better sound quality with the download next time. It really bothers me. And that and the slow mouse cursor are really the only things that bother me with this wonderful game. I'd be willing to pay a little more if only the sound quality was decent. PLEASE consider this!

Tobias

[mothra]

yeah, have the sound issue, too.
and sometimes the cursor does not revert back from item to pointer,
happened in the big fight against brady

other than that: i was delighted and laughed out loud a few times !!!!
quailty stuff !!!!!

[neilka]

It's worth noting that Jake from Telltale has already said that the sound quality will improve in future episodes - it remains to be seen by how much:
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11556

[salmonmax]

I'll be very glad to hear the dialog in a higher bitrate. That's probably my biggest problem with Culture Shock. Everything else about the game is so highly polished, the lousy compression doesn't do the excellent dialog justice.

(And frankly, the Soda Poppers' voices were annoying enough to begin with.)

[Jake]

It's worth noting that Jake from Telltale has already said that the sound quality will improve in future episodes - it remains to be seen by how much:
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11556

To clarify that a bit, I don't know if the voice compression quality is going to be improved by Episode 2, but we've already moved the sound effects to a higher quality audio format for that episode (sound effects now use the same format we use for the music). The voice quality in particular is something everyone's aware of, though, and its one we hope to offer a solution to sooner rather than later.

[Laserschwert]

To clarify that a bit, I don't know if the voice compression quality is going to be improved by Episode 2, but we've already moved the sound effects to a higher quality audio format for that episode (sound effects now use the same format we use for the music). The voice quality in particular is something everyone's aware of, though, and its one we hope to offer a solution to sooner rather than later.

Since the voices are simple .VOX files in the data-folder of the game, why not offer a higher quality install-package as an additional download, to replace these?

[Lyris]

Just for the record, I didn't find the compressed sound quality distracting in the slightest - I noticed it and think it'd be neat if the quality was better on the CD, though.

[salmonmax]

Thanks for the clarification, Jake.

You know, say what you will about episodic gaming, but the opportunity that we have to communicate so closely with the people involved in developing the game is really spectacular.

Hopefully the team doesn't get bummed about all of the criticism. People just care so much about Sam and Max! It's almost as though the people on the forum are a member of the development team, and it makes this whole thing a very interesting experiment.

[Bas]

I'm happy with the voice quality as it is, for a downloadable, episodic game. However, I'll also add in my vote for a slightly higher bitrate on the Season 1 CD/DVD. It'd be a nice extra.

[jwsg]

The voice quality in particular is something everyone's aware of, though, and its one we hope to offer a solution to sooner rather than later.Yes please do, however big the download might be... My ISP charges a month what the complete series of Sam & Max costs so I would be quite happy to utilise some of that capacity!

[WarlockUK]

If the soundrate is actually fixed (because the voice sound quality is noticeably irritating) I'll order the season here and now, as I've said elsewhere. It's the only thing putting me off buying this game :)

[TextureGlitch]

I agree with everyone that the voice quality is too low.

Everything seems to be stored as plain .vox files (and not in one big .sou file like the old game), so I'm all for a separate download with just higher quality audio in it. Bandwidth is cheap and my sensitive ears sure wouldn't mind a download size twice as big or more.

The current size of the entire S&M game isn't even as big as some of the movie trailers for other episodic games like Half Life 2 ;)

[salmonmax]

Oooh yeah... a separate, downloadable .vox file with higher bitrate voice samples. I like that idea a lot. It would give me an excuse to play the game again with the volume turned up even louder.

[WDeranged]

Ditto for me

[Sean A]

I think just offering a separate download for people who wanted higher quality sound (which would take up more disk space) is the absolute easiest solution here. Just offer two separate links, one High Quality, one Low. Let us decide what the download size is. Even a slight improvement, not even doubling the download size, would be better than scratchy, sub-par graniness. I had to reduce the music volume to hear the voices, and that kind of did suck.

Still, this is the best 35 bucks I've spent since I bought that detachable third arm a couple years back...

[Paly]

all the praise, all the encouragement, and you still want them to deliver a high end product BEFORE? you'll part with any cash?

Lucasarts are loaded and that's part of the reason they ditched the project....

I've paid up in full...my theory is if they make enough money you'll need a 10mb connection to download the final chapter in under an hour...

c'mon guys where's your SUPPORT!!

:rolleyes:

[Chwarg]

Today it download-size shouldn't bother too much...
I really don't mind if the game takes 1h to download, or 5h.
Most people have a flatrate anyway...

Even if some people don't have a flatrate - give them a choice.
A big high res version (maybe with high res graphics) an a low res version.
And everybody is happy :p