Sound issue, NPC(MOB) walking/stepping.
 

First time poster, long time EQEmu fan. Finally retired and able to play.
EQEmu developers over the years have affected my wife and I more than you folks can possibly know. You ladies and gents are wonderful.
If this is the wrong place to post, please flog me as required.

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***ISSUE: NPCs (MOB) do not produce the walking or stepping sound.***
-Using the ROF2 client...Functions well.
-All other sounds that I can troubleshoot are firing. Casting, idle, attack, etc.
-Player character walk run sounds work fine.
-Checked the master changelog for any entries relating...do not think I found any.

***What I have been troubleshooting so far...***
-dusted off my SoF client and fired it up, all sounds work including the walk run sounds of the NPCs.
-In game sliders and checkboxes are all appropriately configured for enabled sounds.
-EQClient.ini Sound=TRUE.
-No "nosound.ini" in the directory.
-Used Azone2 to look at the .pfs files to ensure wave files were present...they are.
-Looked at the soundassets.txt and compared it to the SoF. All entries are there.
-Copied and overwrote files from the SoF client...no progress (hhmmn)
-Have performed a clean install using Akkadius's installer (thank you!).
-Did a COMPLETE clean install from my old secret squirrel backup of the RoF client.
-With the Azone2, pulled the Beetle walk wave file and placed it in the sounds folder as a test...no progress.
-With Azone2 looked at the models .eqg files to see any added or removed packaged files...all seem ok (looked at Beetles and orcs).
-Installed a fresh soundcard driver, just in case.
-Turned off all surround sound, effects, EQ, etc. in soundcard.
-Tried headphones
-Used the mother board sound controller, while disabling soundcard.
-Checked Windows 10 updates.

***My uneducated thoughts...***
I believe this is a client issue BUT...
-could it be a opcode issue?
-is there a perl or Lua file someone can point me to, that I can play around with?
-and am I missing any other files to look at in the client?

DISCLAIMER!!
I am only recently able to play, thus never noticed the sound loss till now. But it is deafening not having a single NPC play a walking or running sound in game...The whole game, every zone. Also, I tried (for a week) to SCOUR the internet and forums for anyone else having this issue. Just could not find any related info. (other than people wanting to remove sounds.)


Ok, Any thoughts? Or should I just accept my fate, and continue on to fixing the quests and NPC grids and waypoints.

Thank you!!
-Eric (WarAngel)

I use RoF2 client and I cant remember if I had this issue or not. As a matter of fact I think its come up from time to time. It feels like to me its a client issue, not a database one. Its certainly not anything having to do with Windows 10 or drivers or motherboard settings. Its not headphones either. You have to remember this is just a wave file thats buried in the client files somewhere and what happens when youre near a mob thats "running"/"walking" is when you are close enough the client normally "detects" it and starts playing the soundloop of them "walking/running" whichever action they are doing it makes a call to the appropriate file. I suspect its something in the client. If it WAS a database issue, I would check the settings for the NPC or some global file tied to NPC's movement. There might be a field they havent discovered yet that enables these sounds. What I would do to test this is log onto 10 servers on the eqemu server list and see if on any of those servers you can get the npcwalking/npcrunning sound to work. If you can get it to work on any server, at least one - that means its not a client issue. If it works on none of them, then its either a DB/Script issue or a client issue.

You also have to remember that this is probably something low on the priority list so they may not have been able to get to it yet in lieu of more pressing issues/fixes.

Hope I helped.

Just tested with older server code..

SoF sound works fine..

SoD+ only does 'idle' sounds - no movement.

Tried different sound settings to see if that affected it and no go.


If I had to guess, it was probably a change to the client so that the server could do an los check and not send sounds for mobs passing through adjoining halls (some blind pulling nerf)

I'm probably full of smoke..but, it could be checked against packet structs in the current code..or by a capture of live packets to see if there's a sound packet for the mob.


EDIT: Player (self) footsteps are heard, however...

Could be an issue with OP_ZoneSpawns ...

I think you're right.

I looked over the OP_ZoneSpawns code last night ds, and I'm inclined to believe you.

The 'Bitfields' segment (that started in SoD) has a lot of padding around the 'invis' bit - amongst other changes.

The field is unpacked with an assignment of ..so, there could be other needed fields in there.

Trying to see if '08' is SoF or SoD accurate for comparison. (Doesn't look like there are bit-shifts in the unpack..so, probably SoF accurate...)


I'm thinking there is some kind of 'sneak'-like flag being set for all mobs.

When I perma-sneak all out-going packets, the client doesn't make any sounds when moving..but, does otherwise (normally.)

I tried doing a packet dump of out-going server packets for a captured comparison..but, that feature doesn't appear active any longer.


The only other thing I can think of would be that they snuck in a bit/field into the position delta packet and there is a audibility flag there.

Client->Server packets are still dumpable..so, I may be able to confirm yea or nay on that.


EDIT: I did notice with SoF in Steppes that most mobs seemed ok while walking..but, gnolls appeared to have a running sound when they walked.

I have the bitfields and stuff fully commented in rof2_structs.h (and most of the rest of the struct in rof2.cpp) on github, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it :P

Wow, I am a honored to have you folks looking into this. And I am VERY appreciative of this. Thank you. It is due to you folks that I am learning a ton about scripting and game structure. I plan to follow the advice and continue trouble shooting with joining multiple servers, etc. Wanted to wait until this Sunday, right now smoking Nektulos mobs with my Necro. :-) Also, real quick...I have my original 1999 EQ client (25 Jan 1999). If anyone wants a copy (I figure that is safe to advertise, maybe?). I even made a batch file to start the intro movie, or enter the old tutorial zone. CHEERS!!

What about spiders, beetles, and giants?
I also recall that goblins were running in kunark zones, not walking. But that could be due in part because they were SoW'ed.

Also, theres gryphons and flying mobs. But I think for the most part their "walking sounds" were just one file and constant.

I found it last night and you'll be happy to know (demonstar) that it isn't a major issue concerning client translators.

It's a client behavior change that occurred post-SoF client.

Apparently, we set this condition in the Mob class constructor:
..but, the newer (SoD+) clients ignore 'walking' sound loops when anything other than FlyMode0 is selected.

Fixing it is not as simple as changing the constructor value to '0' because that can bring other problems into play. (fish walking underwater comes to mind...)

It can be overridden to '0' in the client translators..but, the same issues come into play as with the constructor change.


I tested SoD and RoF2 and the walking sounds are present with the FlyMode0 value.

I guess, with the other modes, they were too 'light on their feet' to make any noise?

There are actually new flymodes too!

https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/blob.../common.h#L210

I just copied the MQ2 enum just so it was documented :P

Quoted from Movement..."What I would do to test this is log onto 10 servers on the eqemu server list and see if on any of those servers you can get the npcwalking/npcrunning sound to work. If you can get it to work on any server, at least one - that means its not a client issue. If it works on none of them, then its either a DB/Script issue or a client issue."

ROF2 - As suggested, I have made many characters of various places on many servers (10 total). And checked the NPCs. There was no NPC walking/running sound at all.

SoF - Repeated process, thank god the characters were there already!!...All sounds were working. Footsteps, running, etc.

A lot of coffee was consumed in doing this. :D

So RoF2 nuked the walking sounds. (As Uleat stated above) Interesting.

Quoted from Movement..."What about spiders, beetles, and giants?
I also recall that goblins were running in kunark zones, not walking. But that could be due in part because they were SoW'ed.

Also, theres gryphons and flying mobs. But I think for the most part their "walking sounds" were just one file and constant."

-Every NPC had learned to walk and run like a ninja. Kinda kills the scare factor to not have a giant or a dragon stomping after you. I do hear the NPCs "drop" when they do the "Z" check adjustment.
-Flying sounds are there for me. Griffons flapped very well.

Just in case...If this helps the Dev Gods for this thread subject...

-My WSOCK32.dll happens to corrupt periodically. I did notice however in testing ten different servers, that the server "The Hidden Forest", would never let me log in. And it was a 100% guarantee to corrupt or be a part of corrupting my WSOCK32.dll.

-In loading my own private server (127.0.0.1), I get parsing errors, again, periodically. I just shut down the server and reload until it is happy loading...and the destruction of ones and zeros commences.

DISCLAIMER : Folks I only mention the above for the Devs. If it can help. Please do not add to the thread unless it is about the sound issue. Thank you. I plan to research on the WSOCK32.dll and parsing a lot before committing another thread for them.