"Access Imminent" Sound (and how to remove it instead of pestering your opponent)

OCTGN
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OK - after I’ve had this happen to me about five times in the last week, I felt obliged to make a topic about it. Seems there’s a cancer spreading amongst the general scrubbish populace on OCTGN, and it’s high time to cut the tumor out.

So, there’s this sound that plays when the runner presses F3 to announce they’re accessing. The little warning siren. It’s there for a reason - we want the runner to press F3 to make it abundantly clear that we’re done with step 4.1, past step 4.2 in the Timing structure, and into the 4.3 paid ability window. Back when we didn’t have the F3 requirement coded in, there was a lot of confusion on timing, arguments about accesses, messed-up board states due to one or the other player being too trigger-happy, and so on. In short, pressing F3 is important to clarity in the game. It could even be considered good etiquette by the runner to announce they’re accessing and then wait for the corp to acknowledge (by pressing F3 themselves). As a result, some of us playing OCTGN a lot tend to have it so deeply ingrained that pressing the button is really a reflex, done completely unconsciously.

Lately, I’ve met an increasing amount of people who were not only bothered by me pressing F3 (“because of the sound”), but who were actually quite rude and aggressive about it.

With this out of the way, I flat out will not

  • sacrifice timing clarity and/or tediously switch over into chat to type “I would like to access, please. Do you have any paid abilities you would like to trigger at this time?” every time I run a server
  • suddenly stop following proper procedure dictated by the rules of the game
  • unlearn a reflex that developed from following said proper procedure over a long time

…just because my opponent “doesn’t like the sound it makes”. Now, I may be deluded, but I’m of the opinion that if you don’t like the sound your local client makes when I do something that’s part of the game, the responsibility to do something about it is yours, not mine

So, if you’re one of those people that like to ask opponents to not press f3 because “you find the sound annoying”, then create huge drama and then ragequit the match (possibly using this as an excuse to get out of an unfavorable boardstate), this is my gift to you:

  1. Find your OCTGN install directory (probably $USER\Documents\OCTGN
  2. Within that directory, find the directory where ANR sound assets are, namely “GameDatabase\0f38e453-26df-4c04-9d67-6d43de939c77\Sounds” (should be extremely easy to find, especially if Netrunner is pretty much the only thing you play through OCTGN)
  3. In that directory, find the soundfile named “BTN-Access_Imminent.mp3”. That’s the sound OCTGN plays whenever F3 gets hit.
  4. Go find a different sound that won’t drive you crazy if you hear it 25 times in 40 minutes. Here are some suggestions by yours truly:
    • A rousing exclamation from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    • Wilhelm Scream
    • Doorbell (should @db0 ever decide to change the default sound, this is what I would vote for, btw)
    • Windows itself comes pre-packaged with a wide selection of simple aural cues in .wav format, the location varies but in Win7 it’s Windows\Media. There’s quite a few fitting sounds there, for instance “Speech Disambiguation.wav”
  5. If your chosen sound isn’t an mp3, convert it. There’s a bunch of tools in existence for this, worst case scenario googling “wav into mp3” gives a ton of usable results
  6. Rename your chosen sound to “BTN-Access_Imminent.mp3” and overwrite the original with it
  7. Keep a backup of your modded file in case it gets overwritten by a future update

You don’t need to be an OCTGN subscriber for this to work. Hell, you don’t even need admin privileges on your local machine.

tl;dr: If you really don’t like the sound of the runner requesting access, please take the time for this simple modification, instead of pestering your opponents. Thank you.

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I thought I was the only person who was dumb-founded by people complaining about a client-side preference, one that is integral to the game flow. Thanks for this, hopefully the unwashed masses of plebs read this.

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nvm on the count, 5 times really?

Good to know, but if the plebs who were complaining about that sound read this forum they probably wouldn’t be the plebs you’re complaining about.

I’ve actually had the other problem lately, which is that people start to ignore my accesses and try to slow down the game to the point that it’s unfun to play. Literally, for no reason. I hate to admit it, but I actually took control of my opponents deck once and scored the final agenda before leaving the game. (This was after I waited for 12 minutes for the guy to respond… he should have conceded).

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I’d really appreciate a possibility to mute the beep instead of replacing the mp3 with some another, equally annoying sound. Personally as a corp I press F3 immediately after I see that the runner passed the last ice and I have no objections against the access, but often there’s a bit of lag in the chat and you just have to wait. It’s really annoying to play against a runner who is trigger happy with his F3 button.

In the past I’ve asked couple people if they could wait a little bit, but it’s usually quite pointless. It’s easier just to mute the laptop.

In my experience most people target the server/card installed in the server/wait for a second before pressing f3 and the game goes just fine, similar to how most people target the next piece of ice if they want to continue running (instead of asking in the chat).

PS. You forgot the screeching sound a knife makes on a plate, I’m sure someone has recorded that :wink:

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FYI, you can also tell them to simply disable sounds in OCTGN options while you’re playing together :wink:

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which is the easier way given I’m not a programmer by profession.

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About 65% of my motivation for making this thread is to be able to just link to it instead of typing out my whole rationale for why the F3 step is actually necessary for the 6th time :stuck_out_tongue:

Two ways about this:

  • Just delete the original mp3. You’ll possibly get a small error in chat every time the client tries to play it, but it’ll stay the hell quiet
  • Replace it with an mp3 of a second’s worth of silence (want me to make one for you?)

The last time I tried this, I got flamed because “why are you asking ME to mute ALL sounds instead of just you stopping making the sound I hate?”. I don’t think rational thinking was involved at that point :stuck_out_tongue:

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Oh, there’s actually some people playing with sounds ?
Damn, I always spam the F3 button :confused:

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To be perfectly honest, asking someone to mute their game or dig into their game files is asking too much. However, I don’t think you should change your behaviour either.

@db0, would it be possible to redo some of the sounds at some point? Most of the sounds are good, but the access imminent sound is pretty obnoxious, and several would be better if they were a little shorter.

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My two year-old daughter loves to repeat “login rejected”

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How is asking someone to mute their game if they don’t like the sounds said game does too much? Honestly, I’d think that’s the perfectly reasonable alternative, and by providing an alternative I’m going out of my way to accomodate them.

Now, I get that not everyone has the technical skills to actually find the file they need modding… but that’s why I wrote the how-to. Opening your Documents folder (for which you have a shortcut in the damn Start Menu), clicking a bunch of times and then deleting one file should definitely be in “not-a-power-user” territory.

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That’s not what you’re asking. You’re asking them to disable all the sounds because of one annoying sound that you cause. The sounds aren’t just window dressing, there’s actually a decent amount of information conveyed by them and it’s useful to have them on. For example, hearing the virus install sound automatically makes me look at my archives. I’ve played without sounds a few times, and it makes me slower to react to things and causes me to miss certain events.

You are asking them to change how they play the game, when you are unwilling to do so yourself.

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I agree with both @Nordicstrike and @Razalhague. I usually, as a corp, press f3 as fast as I can when the Runner passes all the ice if I have no objections and/or card abilities I want to trigger. I don’t mind the sounds, they help a lot to react faster when there are some changes on the board. I have noticed some people who press f3 as soon as they pass all the pieces of ice and that’s just bad sports and shows impatience - you have to respect your opponent, understand that he too watches the board, counts how many credits you spent on that last piece of ice or just has a Caprice he wants to rez. It’s fine if the Runner presses f3, however, you need to try to understand your opponent too! And I certainly wouldn’t rage quit but it really BUGS me. And, keep in mind, the community plays a huge part in what makes Netrunner so fun, and disrespectful behaviour towards others kinda ruins that image.

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Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.

XD

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my brother does the same, he’ll just come home from work and yell, ‘LOGIN REJECTED’

he doesnt play netrunner

so @PeekaySK, will changing the sound on my computer change the sound they hear on theirs? or is this a tutorial for the OTHER person?

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Humanoids worded how I feel about it way better than I can.

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When I’m corping, I usually press F3 as soon as it’s obvious how exactly the runner is getting into the server. For some cases, that’s as soon as the run is started, if all the ICE is rezzed, the runner has a permanent breaker for it all, and there’s enough cash on hand to do it.

Now, netrunner math can get convoluted and the OCTGN in-game log isn’t exactly light reading. So, what I’m doing as a runner is handling all the ICE and then, as soon as I’m done, pressing F3 as a sort of “ok, I’m done, feel free to check my math” signal - I’m not the kind of person who hammers F3 repeatedly so that the pop-up comes up, and even if the corp takes a long time I usually ask in chat about a possible disconnect before hitting F3 a second time. But that first time, that’s reflex and part of inputting the way of handling the last piece of ICE at this point.

That’s a good way of looking at it, thanks (this is exactly what I was asking for earlier). In your eyes, is this situation comparable to things like IRL piling on all your credits on your ID in a huge mess, or people that have facedown corp discards not clearly discernible from faceup discards (think a neat stack of cards, only some facedown and some faceup, and it being impossible to tell without physically going through the archives)? (please note that the rules are pretty explicit on how you’re supposed to set up your archives)

For the record, all five of the people I’ve had this problem with were very aggressive about it, outright insulting me after the first time the sound got played for daring to have pressed f3 at all, as if it was some ungodly thing and not an actual part of the game.

Interesting… would you still consider it bad sports and showing impatience if the sound were more pleasing to the ear? As described above, I’ve always viewed it as an “I’m done with the math” signal. If it’s less about the f3 and more about the sound itself, perhaps it’s time for @db0 to indeed change it and be done with it.

There’s literally nothing the Corp prefers to rez at 4.1 that it could rez at 4.3, the distinction is often important, and the only way to tell between those two timing structure points is my commitment to accessing.

(btw, Caprice has to get rezzed before the last piece of ICE is handled :stuck_out_tongue: )

Nope, the way OCTGN is set up the clients only exchange triggers, the assets are taken from the local client. You hear what you have on your computer, they hear what they have on theirs. Unfortunately (in this case, fortunately in many others) the other person has to do the tweaks.

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I’m always open to sound replacements. Feel free to suggest better sounds (and provide a link where I can download them) but please keep it thematic.

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Well, the way you put it, I wouldn’t mind it and actually would be completely fine if the sound was different. Maybe something that doesn’t sound as much ‘in the face’ and more like ‘I’m done’. No hate @db0, I really like the job you’ve done, just there could be improvements. I dunno what to suggest though… like a logging in sound? I almost imagine the sound more like what’s currently used for traces.

Ok, Ash then :slight_smile:

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No, I don’t think that’s comparable. What you’re doing is the right way to do it rules-wise, but due to the sound effect the message comes across more as “Hurry up, bitch!” rather than “I am done now”.

And that does sound like an overreaction.

I’ll try to make (and if that fails, look for) a better sound this weekend, and see if I can cut down some of the more lengthy sounds.