So, I know people have suggested in game radios before many times. Like good god, I got seven pages of results when I checked to see if anyone had asked for this before. But, first of all, mine is different, and secondly, this is an idea for far, far in the future. I respect the fact that many other more important aspects of the game need to be worked on before fluff like this should even be considered. I would be surprised if an idea like this would come out within the first year of Beam hitting 1.0. So, to the actual suggestion. First of all, of course, have car radios be able to play local MP3s. That's the most basic thing. I know people have said, 'oh, just use youtube/an mp3 player'. That's where the second part comes in. Radios would be effected by the happenings in game. Music would be muffled from the outside like engine noise is now thanks to the 0.10 audio update. This could not only serve for a nice immersive touch, but also a source of comedy. That wouldn't be all, however. If you damaged the car in a certain way, the music could distort or die, drowning the car would cause the radio to fizzle out. Stuff like that. Of course, there should be an option to not muffle music if you're controlling the car with any non-first-person view. Burnout Paradise muffled the music in a few of the bigger cars and that was annoying as all hell. Thirdly, instead of the single music station like in the two most recent GTA games, you could create custom stations which would be randomly selected in AI/newly spawned cars. Imagine being chased by a van in a scenario and when it closes in you can hear the muffled thumping of metal music coming from inside the cab. Again, I stress the fact that this is a small tangential thing, but if Beam really is going to have a campaign with many races against AI, it would be a nice world building touch. I'm no programmer, but this is how I think it could plausibly be worked out; A main "radio stations" folder, in which you create more folders which are the radio stations (the radio station's name is determined by the folder name), and inside those are the MP3s. So you could make a 'greatest hits' station, genre stations, funny stations, or just have one with all the songs. I know the Beam team have a lot on their hands and I fully support them working on things more important than this small touch, and they have been doing that admirably. I just wanted to get this out there because I thought I had a few more unique ideas than all the other in-game radio suggestions. Thanks for reading all this, and if you didn't, well: TD:LR: multiple custom radio stations and in-game music being effected by what happens to the car.
Nice to see some well worded suggestions, I like the sound of this as long as the filesize doesn't get too huge. Maybe if the user was able to specify which types of radio stations they want downloaded, that would be beneficial.
First of all, thanks. Funniest thing is that it's pretty late here and I'm in the last few stages of a cold that has messed with my sleep schedule. I notice I write most eloquently when I'm tired as shit and I have no idea why. Secondly, I don't mean that this would work for multiplayer, this would all be local only. Not even GTA 5 tried having synced custom client music. Edit: added a bit more to the 'thanks' part.
Well, heres an idea to think of: if they do multiplayer the way I assume they would, which is hosted by a friend, not beamng themselves... you could do the radio this way if they ever add multiplayer, but itd all be ran by the server owner. then itd be less complicated than if it tried to grab from multiple people's files and stuff.
Yeah, that could work, but it'd still be hard to sync up 100%. The server owner would probably have to specify the order the songs go in so they are always properly synced. If I remember correctly, GTA Online does a similar thing with its radio stations, where the station's songs are in one big file of sorts that plays them in a preset order. When joining a session the current server side time stamp of the music compilation file is sent to the client where the game cues up the preset playlist and matches the time stamp. Edit: added the bit about GTA Online and fixed up some repetitive language in the first part. Edit 2: fixed up some language in the GTAO section.
I hugely agree with this. And another idea, have the song's quality be affected by what speakers or whatever is inside the car. Basically the way "My Summer Car" handles the radio. The basic radio tuner and no subwoofers, the song sounds like it's being played through real cheap car speakers, but add in a aftermarket tuner and subwoofers, the song is full quality with bass added in as well. There would be a setting in the options to disable this realistic quality though for people who don't like it. Also like the OP said, having the song be clear in first person, yet really muffled and quiet in 3rd person is an awesome idea! I wonder if it is possible for a modder or someone to create something like this. If I knew how to script for Torque, I'd do this in a heart beat!
I hadn't considered it before but that is a really cool idea. Older cars would have worse radios, even in the best models, but the high-end ETKs would have near perfect quality. Also the muffled sound in third person should be an option. It would get annoying if you had to stick to first person to hear the song playing in the car that you were driving.
i would like to see a radio added as an app. but i like your suggestion, not some kid going "GIMme NoW". But anyways it could be possible with the new sound system.
Glad you thought of an option for the muffled sound. I remember a car in Burnout Paradise that was good in every aspect, except the muffled music. I understand why they did it, but I'm there to listen to the music. Not only hear it. I could see some potential tofu memes though, where I'd use the muffled music. Also like all your other ideas. Nice to see some actual thought go into an idea, as apposed to 'Make radios play music'.
I know, I mentioned that in the first post. I believe it was the Pioneer, the van and the 4X4 that had muffled music. Edit: And that's precisely what I was talking about when I said this feature could make for some good comedy, blaring eurobeat as a car whizzes past the camera before slamming into a wall never gets old.
