I have just finished the trial period of Vendetta and have turned off the music. The current music creates a good starter for the game but I found it does become tiresome and repetitive over an extended period.

My suggestion is:

Use online streamed radio to create the background music. Have a music player in the hud display the current track and a popup to control the radio station and volume and so on.

An open source player could be used such as vlc with a skin; there are many others.

Soma FM ( somafm.com ) has several stations that match perfectly with the game play. Try Space Station, Mission Control, and Doomed.

I've been playing with Space Station running with a very good immersive effect.

+1

-1
despite interesting, it only adds complexity for something that is already available outside of VO.

I prefer to listen to RadioParadise.com instead, and almost each player will prefer something different.

But suggested soundtracks are cool, thx!

But a big +1 for a online radio PLUGIN. Maybe plugin controls external streaming players from game interface, and comes with a list of pre-selected radios, allowing add more.

There are probably some legal ramifications to doing this. If they could be worked around it would be pretty sweet, I would love to see an internet radio music player as part of the user interface. I generally do this with iTunes before launching VO anyway, but playing in full screen mode means you have to quit if you want to change stations.

The built in music is great, ambient and not obnoxious, fits the space genre well. However, in an ideal world any repeating track would last half an hour or more, especially the ones that play in non-combat 'passive' situations. VO's music is fine, we just need more of it.

Phaser the regular apple remote works pretty well when vo is in full screen. Also if you download the remote app for iPhone it shows your whole library and playlists on your phone and let's you choose whatever

+1

I've been meaning to set up a different music background, but I never get around to it b/c having another application running besides VO slows the game down. This would help me immensely.
As for what Alloh mentioned, I'm pretty sure internet radio broadcasting sites aren't all *that* different.

Yea no this really wouldn't work.

Sorry.

With a vlc plugin you could listen to the radio station of your choice including paradise radio, soma fm and many others. vlc is also multi platform so linux mac and windows is covered. As is the case with Vendetta (although a different end user agreement).

The key advantage of this suggestion is that during gameplay, the player can select a station of their choice, change volume, and so on. Also with vlc out of view the current track playing is visible in the hud. This gives credit to the artist (and possibly the radio station, if required by the radio station).

The coding is minimal really. It just links an existing application, vlc, to vendetta, with a pop up command to vlc, and draws track data from vlc to vendetta.

As for the skin for the vlc popup, make one, or modify one to suit under the GPL.

This idea gives the vendetta player a seamless connection during game play to constantly changing online music, it is a beautiful thing.

Something just occured to me. Hypothetically, the vlc popup may need to be controlled via keyboard commands, whilst in the hud. This may be an issue for joystick users.

If you want to write a plugin, it is perfectly possible to do so...

I don't think the developers should allocate resources to this essentially nice-to-have gimmick.

Of course, the decision is up to them.

Yes, it certainly looks like they have a lot of suggestions on the go. As games are advancing, excellent music and sound fx are becoming more relevant and important. Professional dedicated composers and musicians are adding much more to games and creating a complete immersion in the gameplay. By using the latest "free to air" non-commercial online music that matches the game play you would be pushing the soundtrack of the game forward a decade. I can remember playing elite, it must be 20 years ago now, plenty has changed since then, in all areas of this kind of game. It's certainly not a gimmick. Effective music is integral to any game seeking to draw the player in completely, in 2010. It's not a show stopper for me as there are workarounds to the issue. It really is more a case of bringing forward a minimal solution, that leverages work that is already completed, in the form of a media player, and available music freshly burned.

Granted, but it would probably still be easier to outsource this to the scripting community.

From way back in vo history;.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/13423#197517

Though I can see a plugin iTunes ( or whatever ) controller being of use to folk playing in full screen.

If you would like to try this suggestion in a basic way...

Download and install VLC here it's free and open source:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Here's skins for VLC if you want one:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php

Go to SomaFM and choose a radio station:
http://somafm.com/

OR.. go to a direct download of Space Station:
http://somafm.com/play/spacestation

Open the file in VLC (make it start playing). Set the volume in VLC to 20%<->30%.

Start Vendetta. Go to options and turn off the music. Turn up the sound fx to maximum.

Done. Should be OK for Linux, Mac & Windows. Windows users may need a restart after installing VLC.

Theres already a plugin to control VLC and many other media players from within VO. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/9/17115#219509

I've never used it with VLC, but when I got it working with MPD I found it worked OK.

That's great! I'll give it try.