Vintage Story is already a masterpiece, except for one small thing...

[Loosebearings]

I feel that pretty much all of the games tracks are mostly fitting to the game, however I do play with the lowest music frequency option so that might influence my feelings on it.

I'm pretty sure the game doesn't have this, but I'd love for it to take into account what you're doing. Mainly having some of the less upbeat tracks play during combat as it can feel a bit dissonant with gameplay.

[Broccoli Clock]

54 minutes ago, Loosebearings said:

I'm pretty sure the game doesn't have this, but I'd love for it to take into account what you're doing. Mainly having some of the less upbeat tracks play during combat as it can feel a bit dissonant with gameplay.

Not sure if you've played DayZ but I'm sure you know of the game, it introduced a soundtrack (which is nice, but of course I turn it off immediately) and it's based on time, location and action.

Obviously it's a different game with a different soundscape and an entirely different physical an audible environment, but it definitely fits with the vibe of DayZ albeit not for me.

[CABLES]

aphex and brian eno are great picks, but listening to the caretaker while playing this game is absolutely diabolical. who hurt you?

[Vexxvididu]

The music has overall grown on me since I started playing the game.  I do feel inclined to agree a bit with the OP that the music isn't at all bad, but sometimes feels like a bit of a mismatch from the game.  I think all the tracks currently in there are fine, but maybe the game would benefit a lot from specific combat music tracks or being a bit more sensitive to what you are currently doing.

Just a quick 2 cents.  I overall am pleased with it.

[CastIronFabric]

first thing I do when I start to play a new game is go to settings and turn off music.

Its not that I do not like music, its that I do not want a music loop for 4 hours straight. So that would have to be a very large sound track for it to never loop in 4-8 hours.

[Metalton]

Yup, there's one or two tracks that feel little too happy and upbeat to me.. but then I wonder if that's not the point. The whimsical counterpointing the slow dread as your meters tick down, and the sky slowly darkens.. . Hmm.. not sure if there's something strictly "Lovecraftian" in that or not..

Overall, I kinda like 'em though..

[CastIronFabric]

I would love to see a survey of gamers to find out how many gamers turn off music before playing and how many leave it on during a 4 hours play session.

I would like to see the same basic thing done for cut scenes. I would hate for companies to spend a lot of time and resources on things that the majority of people ignore, that would suck!

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

I would like to see the same basic thing done for cut scenes. I would hate for companies to spend a lot of time and resources on things that the majority of people ignore, that would suck!

Regarding cutscenes, there's a world of difference between watching it the first time, and then watching it for the fifth, or tenth, or hundredth time. This is why a "skip" option is typically available.

Of course, there's also a proper time and place to add cutscenes for enjoyment and dramatic effect. Too many cutscenes, and the gameplay interference will prompt players to start skipping them. Generally, it's best to keep them short, and use them as intros, outros, or otherwise short narrative breaks between long gameplay segments.

And that all hinges on the writing for the scene being good. If the writing is bad, no one wants to watch it, unless the writing is so bad that one can't help but watch and laugh. Good visuals don't often save bad writing.

[Metalton]

7 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I would love to see a survey of gamers to find out how many gamers turn off music before playing and how many leave it on during a 4 hours play session.

Hmm.. I almost never turn game music completely off. Though in a few games will bump it down if it's too loud and prominent to the point of drowning out sound effects. I consider sound effects to be more important than the music, which should just be background/dramatic filler...

[Broccoli Clock]

20 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I would love to see a survey of gamers to find out how many gamers turn off music before playing...

I'd be interested in this too. Like you, turning the in game music off is as important as ensuring my mouse axis is reversed!

I am not sure if this is due to the generation of gamer I am, for me title music was key not in game music. I am also a "bit on the spectrum", so find music extremely distracting. I like survival games and so rely on the audio immensely, is it more casual gamers (no shade there, not sure what to call someone not looking for immersion) that the music appeals to, or maybe it's because I am a PC player and always have been, music and especially licenced tracks traditionally tended to be favoured by console games/gamers - although that has changed over the decade or so.

In short, unless there is a literal band playing music, in game, next to me, then music will always be out of place, like a sheen of oil on water, very noticeable and distracting.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

I am not sure if this is due to the generation of gamer I am, for me title music was key not in game music. I am also a "bit on the spectrum", so find music extremely distracting. I like survival games and so rely on the audio immensely, is it more casual gamers (no shade there, not sure what to call someone not looking for immersion) that the music appeals to, or maybe it's because I am a PC player and always have been, music and especially licenced tracks traditionally tended to be favoured by console games/gamers - although that has changed over the decade or so.

In short, unless there is a literal band playing music, in game, next to me, then music will always be out of place, like a sheen of oil on water, very noticeable and distracting.

I think it's probably just a matter of personal taste. Some want only the sounds that would realistically be present, whether for immersion or gameplay advantages. Some like to have music in the background to help set the atmosphere. 

When it comes to background music, I enjoy it, but that's assuming that the music is properly scored for the setting at hand. Minecraft is a decent example of what I'm talking about, especially with some of the new tracks. C418 did a great job with the original music, in that it's very memorable and fits the atmosphere of the game quite well. The newer tracks, however, were done by other artists, and while they aren't bad, there's a few that don't really fit that well with the game's atmosphere, at least in my opinion. There's a particular one with very loud chimes that comes to mind...

[BS3]

Finally someone said it. I just turn the music completely off cause it's distracting and does not fit the mood at all sometimes. Luckily, Vintage Story offers a lot of rich environmental sound effect so turning off music actually helps me immerse inside the game world more.

[CastIronFabric]

On 12/6/2025 at 10:26 AM, LadyWYT said:

Regarding cutscenes, there's a world of difference between watching it the first time, and then watching it for the fifth, or tenth, or hundredth time. This is why a "skip" option is typically available.

Of course, there's also a proper time and place to add cutscenes for enjoyment and dramatic effect. Too many cutscenes, and the gameplay interference will prompt players to start skipping them. Generally, it's best to keep them short, and use them as intros, outros, or otherwise short narrative breaks between long gameplay segments.

And that all hinges on the writing for the scene being good. If the writing is bad, no one wants to watch it, unless the writing is so bad that one can't help but watch and laugh. Good visuals don't often save bad writing.

I understand, but the reason I would like to see a survey on that is because I never watch a cutscene in my 40+ years of gaming other than if I have to or for No One Lives Forever series. It would be interesting to see if a game actually does better in sales because of cutscenes or if people are just being convinced that its important. Human psychology is shockingly malleable.

It can even be a feedback loop, AAA game developers become convinced that narrative is important, they make a game with narrative, they sell to the public that the narrative is super awesome sauce then sales go up and the developer then gets confirmation bias and keeps going. All the while, minecraft that has no narrative becomes a best seller. 

That is what I am curious about such a study and why I think developers would be very vested in knowing if all the work they are doing is actually making a positive impact because voice acting and cut scenes aint cheap

 

[LadyWYT]

25 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

It would be interesting to see if a game actually does better in sales because of cutscenes or if people are just being convinced that its important.

 

25 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

That is what I am curious about such a study and why I think developers would be very vested in knowing if all the work they are doing is actually making a positive impact because voice acting and cut scenes aint cheap

I mean, I won't disagree that it would be interesting to see, but I think what matters more is how well the game is made to begin with. A great game can have cutscenes and voice acting just the same as a great game can lack those things but still be very popular. Likewise, a game can have great visuals or cutscenes or voice acting, or lack thereof, and still be an atrocious product.

It's kind of like cooking--ingredient type does matter, to an extent, but it also matters what quantities of ingredients one uses to get the end result. 

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

 

I mean, I won't disagree that it would be interesting to see, but I think what matters more is how well the game is made to begin with. A great game can have cutscenes and voice acting just the same as a great game can lack those things but still be very popular. Likewise, a game can have great visuals or cutscenes or voice acting, or lack thereof, and still be an atrocious product.

It's kind of like cooking--ingredient type does matter, to an extent, but it also matters what quantities of ingredients one uses to get the end result. 

Let me try to be more concrete in what I am saying.

I am saying I would like to see how many people think a game is better BECAUSE of the cutscenes and voice acting or if they would like the game just as much or maybe even more if it didnt have it.

Industry likes to say 'our games sell well because..' but do they really know why people buy their games? I bet they really dont know for sure.

I have games with cutscenes some voice acting and music but all of those things actually annoy me in all cases other than the NOLF series but I still bought the game. So for at least this consumer all the time and effort the developer spent on all those things ended up a complete waste of time.

So I would think the industry would like to know how many people like me there are out there because the possibility is non zero that they might discover that their sales would not be impacted at all if they skipped all of those things despite how much people on the internet claim that they love those things which sometimes ends up not being actually true but rather a perception. 

make sense?

[Broccoli Clock]

11 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am saying I would like to see how many people think a game is better BECAUSE of the cutscenes and voice acting or if they would like the game just as much or maybe even more if it didnt have it.

I'm a bit of an absolutist with this, much like the music. Any game relying on cut scenes is, in my mind, a bad game. You should not rely on poor quality writing/acting for exposition, that is the job of environmental story telling. Needing cut scenes proves you've failed to engage your audience.

What's more, and this is a personal thing, I find the writing for a lot of these to be really dumbed down and that's for a reason, there is an apocryphal story about how you can't design "bear proof" garbage bins because there is considerable overlap between the cleverest bears and the stupidest humans. Companies want to make the most profit so will set the bar very low in terms of intelligence, resulting in most cut scenes being either asinine or tedious, sometimes both. An unskippable cut scene is a crime that deserves an immediate [alt]+[f4] followed by a quick uninstall.

Now, to be fair, I am a bit of an outlier. I lean quite heavily into misanthropy (for all the obvious reasons, just take a look around you, especially recently...) and for that reason very rarely play "character driven narrative" games as I learn to loathe the protagonist pretty quickly. I don't like most Holywood bs for the very same reason, again it's the "bear/human bin" equation where they will dumb everything down to appeal the broadest audience.

So, in short, to answer the question, cut scenes are game cancer imo, and unskippable ones are unforgivable. 

[CastIronFabric]

5 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

I'm a bit of an absolutist with this, much like the music. Any game relying on cut scenes is, in my mind, a bad game. You should not rely on poor quality writing/acting for exposition, that is the job of environmental story telling. Needing cut scenes proves you've failed to engage your audience.

What's more, and this is a personal thing, I find the writing for a lot of these to be really dumbed down and that's for a reason, there is an apocryphal story about how you can't design "bear proof" garbage bins because there is considerable overlap between the cleverest bears and the stupidest humans. Companies want to make the most profit so will set the bar very low in terms of intelligence, resulting in most cut scenes being either asinine or tedious, sometimes both. An unskippable cut scene is a crime that deserves an immediate [alt]+[f4] followed by a quick uninstall.

Now, to be fair, I am a bit of an outlier. I lean quite heavily into misanthropy (for all the obvious reasons, just take a look around you, especially recently...) and for that reason very rarely play "character driven narrative" games as I learn to loathe the protagonist pretty quickly. I don't like most Holywood bs for the very same reason, again it's the "bear/human bin" equation where they will dumb everything down to appeal the broadest audience.

So, in short, to answer the question, cut scenes are game cancer imo, and unskippable ones are unforgivable. 

That is a good point. 

I take it a bit further though, I think video games are not a good medium for good narrative story telling full stop. I think one can take any video game story, turn it into a TV series and the story would have a better experience for the audience and the game would be better by extracting the story out of the game experience.

I could write pages backing up my view with examples in our current era of gaming as well as traditional non electronic gaming going back thousands of years but maybe I shouldn't 

The very short version of my thesis is, if you are reading a really compelling book. Does the book become BETTER if someone interupts you every 20 mins? most likely not.

 

[Metalton]

On 12/7/2025 at 3:32 PM, CastIronFabric said:

I am saying I would like to see how many people think a game is better BECAUSE of the cutscenes and voice acting or if they would like the game just as much or maybe even more if it didnt have it.

Heh, loved Final Fantasy games, but even back in the day when I was playing them, felt they were min-maxing, grinding slogs just to get to the cutscenes and advance the story  Without 'em kinda doubt there'd still be a Final Fantasy series today..

[LadyWYT]

21 minutes ago, Metalton said:

Heh, loved Final Fantasy games, but even back in the day when I was playing them, felt they were min-maxing, grinding slogs just to get to the cutscenes and advance the story  Without 'em kinda doubt there'd still be a Final Fantasy series today..

There's also the original Assassin's Creed titles. I'm not really sure how Ezio's story could be told in a videogame format, without using cutscenes. I'd throw older Blizzard titles into the mix as well, along with LEGO games. Even Crash Bandicoot and Spyro had cutscenes to help with the storytelling, and in the case of Spyro 2 some of the cutscenes helped establish the atmosphere of a level in rather humorous fashion(remember the cavemen of Skelos Badlands?)

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Metalton said:

Heh, loved Final Fantasy games, but even back in the day when I was playing them, felt they were min-maxing, grinding slogs just to get to the cutscenes and advance the story  Without 'em kinda doubt there'd still be a Final Fantasy series today..

yeah so we are clearly polar opposites despite the fact that I played D&D starting in the 80s and basically on and off for decades. Its not the story that drove me.

so it would be interesting to see those numbers on the population set. I just do not know how to do it reliably. I say that because a lot of the times what people self report and what they actually do are completely different. Its often not intentional its usually subconscious

 

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

There's also the original Assassin's Creed titles. I'm not really sure how Ezio's story could be told in a videogame format, without using cutscenes. I'd throw older Blizzard titles into the mix as well, along with LEGO games. Even Crash Bandicoot and Spyro had cutscenes to help with the storytelling, and in the case of Spyro 2 some of the cutscenes helped establish the atmosphere of a level in rather humorous fashion(remember the cavemen of Skelos Badlands?)

I think the only thing we have that can point to popularity of one game style over the other is sales figures.

On that front my game style preference would represent the majority. If you look at the best selling video games of all time and even factor out games like Tetris its still mostly non narrative based titles like minecraft.

[OBAMFSpike]

On 6/7/2025 at 11:38 AM, Maelstrom said:

Pity.  Final Fantasy VII music is part of the game and story.   Plus it produced, imo, the greatest video game track.  I've got it in my playlists it's so good.

Im a bit partial to the soundtrack from Road Rash. Anyways, carry on fellow seraphs. 

[Broccoli Clock]

22 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I take it a bit further though, I think video games are not a good medium for good narrative story telling full stop. I think one can take any video game story, turn it into a TV series and the story would have a better experience for the audience and the game would be better by extracting the story out of the game experience.

Now, you see, I disagree. I think video games can be a good medium for narrative story telling, it's just that it fails in many cases because a lot of games get dialogue "written by committee" rather than being integral to the story. 

An equivalent is movies. We all know the tricks, the camera angles, the lighting, the sound design, these are all used to guide a viewer into a specific mental state. It's not rocket science, we've known this for years, it's very very easy to manipulate people in this way. When I encounter these sorts of tricks, rather than swept along with the intended emotion I am immediately "wtf, do you think I'm stupid, you need to dumb sh*t down and play music in order to elicit that response?" and that's me immediately disconnected from the film. Movie makers do this because it's back to that bear/person garbage bin analogy, you need to maximise everything so you need to cater to the widest audience. If that means metaphorically slapping someone across the face with a lack of subtlety then so be it, and hell mend any "vaguely intelligent" viewer who not only recognises the cues for what they are and are annoyed they've are being treated like a toddler by them doing so. 

I've played narrative games and enjoyed them, it's not that I have a blanket ban against them, it's just that an awful lot of them fall into the trap of being painfully transparent in their attempt to "appeal to a viewer's empathy" and sticking very strictly to that Western centric, and very often US centric, low quality bullshit.

 

We've come a long was from discussing cut scenes in this game specifically, and apologies for going on a bit of a ramble, but if there ever were cut scenes that were included into VS (and the truth, is I can't see where they would go) then they would get immediately skipped by me.

[LadyWYT]

49 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

but if there ever were cut scenes that were included into VS (and the truth, is I can't see where they would go) then they would get immediately skipped by me.

I don't really see them getting added to VS either, but if one were added, I'd wager it would be after completion of the main story. Credits roll(or not), and a short cutscene plays to tie up any loose ends before dropping the player back into the world at a safe point to keep playing if they wish. It's similar to how you get Minecraft's "epilogue" after defeating the Ender Dragon for the first time, except with something more interesting to watch than just a wall of text. The cutscene(and credits that go with it) is skippable though, so it's something the player watches once or twice for the fun of it, but isn't going to be hindered by if they really don't want to.

 

55 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

I've played narrative games and enjoyed them, it's not that I have a blanket ban against them, it's just that an awful lot of them fall into the trap of being painfully transparent in their attempt to "appeal to a viewer's empathy" and sticking very strictly to that Western centric, and very often US centric, low quality bullshit.

If it's reliant on appealing purely to a viewer's empathy/other emotions, is it really a narrative game? Stories do stir emotions, but they also tend to engage the audience in more ways than just that.

I will note that is a rhetorical question and I'm not really looking for an answer there, but it is interesting to think about.

Bad storytelling aside, I think the main weakness of purely narrative games is that while they can be fun, it's very easy to just go look up a "let's play" on Youtube about the game in question and just...watch the full story unfold. With the exception of seeing different choice outcomes, the viewer's seen all the game has to offer. I think that is one reason that Telltale ended up folding.

[Broccoli Clock]

14 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I will note that is a rhetorical question and I'm not really looking for an answer there, but it is interesting to think about.

I agree with the rest of your post, and I'm only highlighting this to say that I much prefer a book, where it's up to me on how to feel about something, than have that process influenced by a ton of other people; directors, actors, lighting crews, sound designer, foley artists, script writers, etc, etc..