Music and sound effects
are an oft forgotten element of a game's visceral experience. They are constant;
always there to heighten the mood, draw the wire of tension ever tighter, and anchor
you firmly in the moment. From the clank of clashing swords to the sweeping orchestral
soundtrack, the aural element completes the experience.
Another staple of gaming these days is the ability to customize the audio
to your liking. While due respect must paid to the endless hours that audio technicians
have poured into fine tuning Rise Of Nation's sound experience, let's face it, we
gamers have a need to meddle, and meddle we shall. Yes, the musical "gong" sound
when you declare war on another country is all well and good, but what if you could
replace that with, oh, say, some appropriately anticipatory voice shouting, "It's
go time!"? It's these little touches that really put your personal stamp on the
game.
Before you go off and start recording staged sword fights with a forgotten
set of ski poles, you should probably know how to customize your sounds properly.
Read on for a step-by-step walkthrough of the process.
The How To
In the following instructions,
we're going to change the sound you hear when you exit Rise of Nations. Let's say
you have a nifty .wav file of your favorite movie hero saying "I'll be back," and
you want to use this instead of the current exit sound. For the purposes of this
example, we'll call your file beback.wav.
Important:
Your custom sound file must be in .wav format in order to work properly in Rise
of Nations.
Note: The
following instructions assume that you used the default installation path (C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Games\Rise of Nations) when installing Rise of Nations.
First, you'll need to navigate
to the sound files for RoN:
- From your desktop, double-click
to open My Computer.
- Double-click to open
Program Files, then the Microsoft Games folder, and then the Rise of Nations folder.
In the Rise of Nations folder,
you should see a folder named "Sounds." This, appropriately enough, is where all
the sound files (.wav) are stored. Before you open this folder and poke around in
it, you should first create a new folder:
- Open the File menu and
select New, then select Folder from the drop down menu.
- Type a name for your
new folder. (I suggest Backup Sounds.)
Now you can open the Sounds
folder and choose which files you want to change. For the purpose of these instructions,
let's scroll down and find the file named "gamequit". This is the sound you'll hear
when you exit Rise of Nations.
Before you do anything else
with this file, you should first copy it and paste it into your Backup Sounds folder.
This way, you have original file in its original form, and can come back to it anytime
you want.
- Right click the file
and select Copy from the pop-up menu.
- Open the Backup Sounds
folder.
- Right click inside the
Backup Sounds folder and select Paste from the pop-up menu.
Remember that we're replacing
gamequit with beback.wav. In order for the game to recognize your file, you'll need
to rename it to the same name as the file you'll be replacing (you may want to save
a backup of your file under the original name).
- Navigate to the location
where your new sound file is stored.
- Right-click your new
sound file (beback) and choose Rename from the pop-up menu.
- Type "gamequit", and
press Enter to accept the new name.
Now it's time to place your
custom sound file into the game.
- Right-click your newly
renamed gamequit file and select Copy.
- Navigate back to the
Sounds folder you opened before.
- Right-click in the Sounds
folder and select Paste from the pop-up menu. You should see a message that asks
you if you want to replace the existing file with the new one. Only select Yes when
you are sure that the file you are replacing is safely copied into your Backup Sounds
folder.
And that's it! If you've
followed these instructions, you should now have a customized sound in your copy
of Rise of Nations. In our example, your custom sound will play when you quit out
of a game.
If you're having any trouble
finding .wav files that fit your fancy, I suggest recording your own. You can use
the Sound Recorder program (you'll need a microphone) that comes with Windows to
record your own dialogue or sound effects. Also, for those lucky souls out there
that have Windows XP, you can use the slightly more sophisticated Movie Maker program
to record your audio.
