Alright guys,

We already have the PlayFlavor LUA command for playing sound from the vpaks, however that limits us to the existing voiceovers available in game. Would it be possible to add a LUA command that would pull from an external source? Obviously these soundfiles would have to be passed out in order to hear the voices, but if we could get it to work, well it would go a long way to assist those looking to build custom servers like me!

I'm not sure because there are 2 keys required for each mp3. I think SOE uses an mp3 file type they created to use those keys. Maybe if somehow we can break the encryption that'd be possible. But LE might know better than I.

Altering the client to do more than it is designed to do, regardless how simple or hard, may be frowned upon by <you know who (SOE)>

Just my opinion.

Not meaning to upset any companies, or if this is actually what you are after ..but i just copied a Bad Company song into the Music folder (inside my EQ2 folder ) and renamed it eq2theme.mp3 ..firing up game i get opening screen , log in ..all like normal but Bad Company playing..
(if this helps kool ..if not sorry )

While looking around the Music folder i looked in the XMI folder , and found for eg. Acrylia_Caverns.xmi
no i hav NFI what .xmi means so i opened it with Notepad , and looks to be seetings for music..in this is a description of instruments and talk of a program called Cakewalk (midi editing program) and discussion of altering sounds and midi tracks..
So maybe modifying the music to some extent is allowed ...just a guess

Found this regarding .xmi
Variation of a standard MIDI file that contains "time quantisized" MIDI information; each note is exactly in sync with a certain beat, such as 1/16, 1/32, or 1/64; XMI files are usually a little smaller than a regular .MIDI files since they do not need to store as much timing information.

Because XMI files are similar to MIDI files, they do not contain any actual audio data.

The files we are talking about are compressed into the VPKs, ones you can't see unless you extract them. SOE actually allows you to customize your public music (themes, combat, etc) and did that on purpose and it was actually in an game update. Zex looking to change/add voiceovers of NPCs.

I am not sure I understand why this would require altering the client in any way. Obviously the client is already capable of playing mp3s (that is what they are), couldn't the script just call an external one? Course I could be retarded here...

At one point in time you were able to simply place a file in the location specified in the extracted path from a vpk file and it would use it. I'm not sure if that is still the case, but the client can play both encrypted and unencrypted files. If the keys are 0 it will try playing it unencrypted. If it can't then you wont hear anything. You can give it a shot if you want, just make the paths similar to an existing one from a working voiceover, place your file there and add an entry for your file. It all depends on whether SOE disabled this option, but it would be nice if we could add additional capabilities. Especially if they cancel EQ2 like the matrix online.

None of the new music or more recent music is locked into those files, it may be possible.. I am not sure if we can trigger the normal music, but all the input for PlayVoice, PlayFlavor pass in a character array which suggests we can specify whatever, it is possible the packet may have some differences such as maybe the keys are set to 0 or something, would require trial and error or if you want to try disassembling EQ2

Hey if someone can crack the notorious "key1" "key2" thing, we would no longer be limited in our development if in-game PlayFlavors.

As for my opinion on customizing voice-overs, the only way I knew how this could work (non-music play) was to somehow change the VPKs, and that is what I was saying was a no-no.

If there is another way, I am oblivious to it, and have no problems if SOE allows us to send a link to a path within the client where a custom MP3 can play a sound bite. I just highly doubt they do, because now - wouldn't that just ruin their game experience if we could overlay all the NPCs in EQ2 with "What I got I gotta get it, put it in you!!" sound bites?

Well the thing is the server still tells the client which mp3 to play, so they can't change existing ones unless they change the packet before the client processes it really..

The reason I was looking at the UIBuilder was because I swore I saw something in the UIBuilder doc about replacing sounds... and sure as heck, there it is.

5 Sounds
Any of the following sounds can be replaced per skin or per client. The list is definitely subject to change.

To replace a sound, add a wave file with the sound name in the sounds subdirectory.

%EQ2%/UI/Default/Sounds – to replace the sound for all skins on the client
%EQ2%/UI/<skinname>/Sounds – to replace the sounds for a particular skin

There's a table in that doc (inside the UIBuilder.zip) that lists the (current) sound names. Not sure how old that doc is, but if it's still packaged, one would think it still works that way.