Guild Wars Wiki talk:Projects/Skill sounds

Skill sounds
I think implementing skill sounds is a good step forward to the edification of people who use this site. The addition of skill sounds on their relevant skill pages would be a boon for all. Though, I'd like your opinion on if you share my opinion or not.

How to go about it:
 * 1) We could try uploading the files ourselves (through DAT).
 * 2) We could ask A-Net to help us name those files to get them in the correct spots.
 * 3) (If you have some other way, please state)

This also lets MP3 (or any other format that A-Net or we would use more effectively) be enabled as an acceptable format. This has the potential for abuse, so perhaps the A-net gives us files approach is the way to go. I think we can set it (the wiki) to restrict the upload of music files to A-Net employees to prevent such abuse. Most skill sounds are less than 5 seconds long, and shouldn't take too much space (MP3 format wise). Some notable sounds most people can aurally recognize are Resurrection Chant, Diversion, Protective Spirit, and Twisting Fangs.

I believe we can do it, as I saw the Template:Sound sample box align right in there. That's what prompted my idea for it. I'd like to hear your opinions, please. If this is implemented, perhaps we can someday see the use of specific background music files too.-- People of Antioch talk  16:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * i think this is a really good idea. back when i monked in gvg, if i heard the sound for dust trap, i would immediately know what the new condition was. i don't know the specific sounds for new skills b/c i don't play competitively anymore, but this would certainly be of great aid in the event that i did need to know. -- VVong | BA 16:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, that brings up something I forgot. Some of these sounds might be two part.  One upon casting, the other upon triggering.  We can also implement sounds on fizzled spells and skills too. -- People of Antioch  talk [[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png]] 16:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a really fun idea. I think .ogg file uploads should be enabled by default, but I don't have a file to try with and I don't know how practical the ogg-format is. The best approach would be if we upload most files ourselves, I guess, since Anet members always have limited time to contribute. It may be possible they have a huge folder saying "skill sounds" though that they could just upload and let us identify/implement. (Oh, and I would be able to identify Barrage from miles away. I HATE that sound ;) ) - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 16:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of the ogg format too. I think Wikipedia uses that one mostly. -- People of Antioch  talk [[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png]] 16:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * One of the most listened sounds are 'interruption' and 'fail'. It would be nice to let users notice them if they do not. Mith[[Image:User MithranArkanere Star.png]]Talk 16:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Does the implementation of sound clips on articles (like wikipedia) require any extensions? It does sound like a cool idea though and would be great for ultimate documentation! -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 17:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think there is an extension needed to allow files be played inside of a page, otherwise you simply get a link to a file in the Media namespace and there you can play the sound (I think you can play it there, otherwise you can only download it..) poke | talk 17:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I love this idea, it would really help out. --Shadowphoenix [[Image:User-Shadowphoenix Shadow Phoenix Signet.jpg|19x19px]] 17:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok neither .MP3 or .OGG are acceptable file extensions for upload currently. So we would need them activated with a limit on file size (no need for music on your user page please!) we would need an extension like Poke mentioned to allow playback out of the skill pages (inside the userbox perhaps). Anything else I missed? -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 17:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that sums it up. I'd like to know from someone from A-Net as their opinion or what they can contribute. -- People of Antioch talk  17:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * To be honest they don't really need to contribute much, most of the sounds if not all can be extract from the dat file. All we need is to apply for the changes we can discuss regarding implementation. If you want Gaile or Emily to give an opinion though it would be worth posting on their talk pages as I doubt they check out this page very often :) -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 17:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) As nearly all shorter sounds (not the music) are internally stored as Wave files, it would be best to allow these as well to not have the problem with different encoding/quality/whatever. poke | talk 17:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Icons are one thing, but I don't know how I'd feel if someone hacked my game's .DAT file with a third party program and started posting sounds. I'd like to think we got permission from ArenaNet before actually going forward with this. Kokuou 18:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've made a post on Galie's and Emily's pages. They'll get back to us sometime. -- People of Antioch  talk [[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png]] 18:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Wo.Ot[[Image:User Ereanor sig.jpg]]reanor 18:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I absolutely love this idea. Now a large portion of pages appeal to two of the senses (or, will appeal if this works out), making it a better experience for the user. Restricting uploading to only Anet or only registered users, or some other way, would be required to prevent vandalism. File size would also need to be restricted, and file type (MP3, .ogg, and Wave come to mind, as previously mentioned) so audiobooks aren't uploaded or songs or what have you. With this, GWW:USER would leikly need to be modified explicitly saying "Sound bytes can not be used in anyone's userspace. For the time, audio clips are only used on skill pages and a few special others." or something along the lines of that. Now, to get Anet on board...  Calor  [[Image:User_Calor_Sig.png|19px|Talk]] 18:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, guys, I am going to defer to Emily on this one. I don't know that we have the staffing to add the sounds for 1,000+ skills to the GWW. However, it seems that the first part of this project would require the addition of an extension for the wiki, so Emily's the best one to whom to route the request. She may have other thoughts on the topic as well. Thanks. -- Gaile [[Image:User gaile_2.png| ]] 19:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * So long as you don't mind us "hacking the dat" lol then I am sure we can upload all the sounds ourselves. We do it anyway with images. -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 19:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the reply. But, Galie, if it comes to it, are the files free for us to post up here? If you don't know or want to wait for Emily, that's fine. -- People of Antioch talk  19:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Aye. I probably have almost all the skill sounds unlocked, and I wouldn't mind browsing .Dat to upload the sounds, if you don't mind my "hacking", or anyone else's.  Calor  [[Image:User_Calor_Sig.png|19px|Talk]] 19:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't actually checked anywhere to verify this, but I'm almost positive that MP3 is patented or otherwise protected, meaning we can't use it.. unless Anet already has a license they can extend to cover the site. Generally, I think that's why Ogg is use by eg Wikipedia - its royalty free, open source, etc.  So I'm thinking we need to use that or some other open format - hopefully with some sort of embedded player (which I think wikipedia has too) since I'm not sure how prevalent ogg players are on everyone's computers. - T HARKUN  [[Image:User_Tharkun_sig.png|16px]] 19:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder what the world would come to if WinAmp didn't exist sometimes. -- People of Antioch talk [[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png]] 19:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Is that still used? I think I moved on shortly after v3 came out.  Or some time long ago, anyway.  Plus, I'm on a mac, so it does me no good.  Got MacAmp?  :P  - T HARKUN  [[Image:User_Tharkun_sig.png|16px]] 19:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, Gaile doesn't seem to be concerned about y'all (Okay, I admit that I've used the datBrowser before :P) going through the .dat, which seems reassuring for this project. I was just concerned as it seemed kinda rude, y'know? ;) But yes, it would be cool if we could get the sounds on the wiki, too. Kokuou 19:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Considering how much it is explored, edited, and whatnot, I don't think us pulling sounds out like we do images, skills, etc is going to be a huge problem. Of course, it is nice to ask, but I'd have been surprised if we got rejected on that one.  - T HARKUN  [[Image:User_Tharkun_sig.png|16px]] 19:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a neat idea. &mdash;  ク  Eloc  貢  20:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya guys! I think this is a really cool idea, and I'll be looking into whether we can get this stuff for you. There are some things I need to find out from people before I can give a definitive answer. I'm on it, though :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My gw.dat reads 31085 sound files. This is going to be a HUGE project ~ SCobra [[Image:User-SuperCobra-Sig.png]] 20:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My wiki tells me 1319 skills. And then a few for mechanic-related sounds.  Calor  [[Image:User_Calor_Sig.png|19px|Talk]] 20:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Possibly bigger than the concise versions. You though that was a pain...  Though, we won't be using all the sounds (some are monster attacks, damages, and different languages) -- People of Antioch  talk [[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png]] 20:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't have a real opinion on this since I personally don't see how it would be useful, but seeing as you've already pretty much decided I'll just give my two cents on how to do it. Ogg is the way to go IMO for three reasons. 1) It compresses just as well (if not better) than MP3 and WAV is a pretty worthless format for online media. 2) It's an open format and doesn't suffer from the licensing and patent issues MP3 does. 3) OggHandler can play it. &mdash; Galil [[Image:User Galil sig.png|Talk page]] 20:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason I was saying mp3 is that that is what the extractor extracts them as (mine does anyway), thus saving the need to have to re-encode as ogg. To be honest it doesn't really matter how much work it is overall, many hands make light work as the saying goes. Plus we need something to do with ourselves!! -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 20:58, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

TIP: download your .dat file again this time without -image so you don't get all the unnecessary file in between ~ SCobra  21:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Afaik the skill sounds are stored as .wav - when we then want to upload files as .ogg or .mp3 we should set up a guideline how the files should be converted so that we always have the same quality. But I would still prefer .wav .mp3 - without a change - as the files are mostly only some bytes big.. And that would make it a lot easier. - And Lemming, we will have enough to do on ourself, think about going through all soundfiles and get the correct sound for Skill X :P poke | talk 22:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * meh, they are .mp3 - I just checked. But I would still prefer to keep the format as it is. It's easier and we would not need to set up rules on what you are allowed to encode and whatever.. poke | talk 22:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

How (if this is implemented) should the files be named? Sound:Monk/Core/Word of Healing.zzz (extension) -- People of Antioch talk  03:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think / is a good idea in file names in general. Sound(/Media?):Word of Healing.zzz would do, imo. - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 09:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I find this an excellent idea. Learning to indentify key skills by sound can well make someone a better player. Tho' people should not be too hasty in implementation. For one, I doubt that all 2800 skills has one unique sound assigned to them. So what we should start with is something like the NPC model project; a research project to find out what patterns or at least reuse exists, so we can do things in an efficient way.


 * Asa for file format; do not recompress. Also, .ogg is a horrible format in may ways, only used for what can be described as lore reasons. .mp3s' licence is as open for use, the restriction lies in making compressiors, which we would have no involvement in. Backsword 09:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Anja, it's the Media namespace we have to use here. Maybe then something like Media:Word of Healing .mp3 so that we can add specific things in brackets, for example when a skill is casted, or when the effect then is applied to the player. poke | talk 10:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Good idea PoA, although I'm a bit late it's still better to be late than never right? Anyway as to file format, as has already been said by different people MP3 is probably the best file format to use especially since that's what they are extracted from the dat as. Changing it to anything else; like ogg, could cause problems when it comes to actually converting it.  Also what Poke mentioned in the post above me is probably the easiest way to name these sounds, however one question I have - Is there any skills with the same name and if there are how would their naming be altered.  If there isn't then I see no problem in implementing other than waiting for the final word from Emily. -- Kakarot  [[Image:User_Kakarot_Sig.gif|Talk]] 12:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 'Learnable' skills are never duplicated. However, there exist a large number of other skills with the same name, both as each other and with learnable skills. There is also the issue of what to name them if they are reused between multiple skills, which I sort of expect to be common. Backsword 12:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's never late. Any standard we set here can be used in GW2Wiki. There are a few sklls with the same name, in those cases we usually set (descriptors between parenthesis) to state the difference. But some of them are actually almost th same skill (Luxon/Kurzick skills) with the same name, effects, stats and anmations, only changing icon. And other are exactly the same skills with the same animation, but with different stats (longer/shorter recharge and so) Mith[[Image:User MithranArkanere Star.png]]Talk 12:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What we could do, is that we add to each skill its skill id in the skill infobox. Then we simply name the sound files Media:Skill 225.mp3 (in this case for example for Air Attunement. By using this, we would have no problems with the skill names, and we could also use the skill id which is then stored in the infobox for other things. poke | talk 12:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've considered the same, but couldn't come up with good enough uses to warrant the work. How possible would it be for your pokebot to do it with the game integrsation project and or name space? Backsword 12:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That could be a bit annoying for edition, but we have the Localization lists with the numbers, and that way, since the sounds and icons are the same regardless of language, it could be possible to use the same souds in all wikis, like wikimedia commons media is used in all wikipedias. Mith[[Image:User MithranArkanere Star.png]]Talk 12:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) The skill ids are used in multiple things already; one is the Game integration project, another is the Skill template format. And I have a complete list of all first ~600 skills here (I'll add some from time to time)
 * So it would not be a problem to find out the correct skill ID and adding them to the Skill infobox would definitely possible via bot. The only thing is that you cannot guess from the Skill name to the sound file name, but as long as the Skill ID is visible somewhere, I don't think that's a big problem. poke | talk 12:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The question, Mith, is, if ANet still thinks about localized wikis - and imo they should not do that ;) (at least not with GWW, maybe with GW2W..) poke | talk 12:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: It's not possible to upload files to anything but the Image namespace. The Media namespace is shared with the Image namespace and just points to the actual file. Like [[Media:Word of Healing.jpg]]. So it would have to be something like Image:Word of Healing.mp3. It looks a bit odd yeah, but that's the way it has to be with MediaWiki and they for wikipedia either. &mdash; Galil 15:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * O well, at least all signets have the same sound, right? ~ SCobra [[Image:User-SuperCobra-Sig.png]] 17:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, now here's where it gets interesting... A lot of the skill sounds are two-component.  These have a Generic-X-Skill sound coupled with a specific sound for the skill.  Signets are a good example; there's a generic signet sound and occasionally a sound specific to the signet. (Try Poison Tip Signet and you'll see what I mean.)  If we were to upload the skill sounds from the .dat file, we may very well need to edit the clips together.
 * I took the opprotunity to rummage through my .dat file for a few skill sounds, and I located where most of the EotN skills are. One good point I noticed is that the skills' sounds are located next to their casting animation textures, which should aid in identifying them.  --Valshia 18:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * We can always set an 'activation' and an 'effect' sound. Most skills of the same attribute have similar activation sounds, specially spells. Mith[[Image:User MithranArkanere Star.png]]Talk 21:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll just repeat that I'd like to see more reseaarch before implementation. Backsword 11:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does it with wiki coding (Wikipedia Audio) and the .../wiki/Media:example.ogg extension. mabey we could do something similar...╙─ ╠Dogzrdogz ╣ talk 01:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * We know that but please read below what is currently planned; I think there are also some reasons why we would not use the Media namespace for the sounds. poke | talk 06:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Reopening this topic - Opinions needed!
Hi guys,

This is going to be a longer topic, so I decided to split the previous conversations and this new conversation onto a project page so we can discuss details.

As I mentioned before, I think that providing audio to go with skills is a really great idea from a documentation standpoint. From a work and logistics standpoint, it’s a whole different animal. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it, but we definitely need to wrap our heads around what we should do, how we’re going to do it, and why we think we should do it this way. If we don’t, it may end up being a big mess :)

When you guys talk about uploading audio files, I am assuming that you mean to mirror it off of the Wikipedia:Listen and Wikipedia:Audio templates, which basically link to .ogg files that are uploaded directly to the wiki. (From what I understand, Wikipedia uses .oggs because that’s an open source file format.)

I’ve brought this request up with a variety of folks around here to see if this can be done, and here’s a big dump of information for you.

Can I provide audio for skills?

 * Yes, I do have access to all of the audio for skill sounds.
 * From what I can tell, I have them in both wav and mp3 format. The mp3s are, of course, smaller.
 * All of the files are named with internal names, so it will take a fair amount of time for me to cross-reference the skills against various spreadsheets to verify the actual names. I’ll then have to rename the files. I don’t mind doing this, but it’s going to mean that I’ll probably have to do the skill sounds in packs by profession or something because it’s pretty time consuming and something I’ll probably need to do after-hours.

So, I can get these sounds for you guys, but it will take me a bit of time and effort to do it.

How should these be released?
This is where I’d really like your input, because I’ll most likely need to take some of the suggestions that come from this section and present them to some other folks around here before I get the final go-ahead to take on this project. With these questions, if you see something that won’t work (or you feel strongly one way or the other), please give me as many whys as possible so I can know all sides when I present this info back :)

For licensing reasons (and to give the entire community access to these items), we’d prefer to release the sounds in fansite kit packs on our website or host these files somewhere on the site itself.
 * Would it be possible to use a template to stream the audio files from an external location (IE our site)? I am assuming that it is possible, but just not done on Wikipedia because all files are required to be put into .ogg and uploaded.
 * Is there any way to prevent the abuse of this template? I can imagine that if we open up the door for people to basically link to external audio, that it will turn into a mess pretty quickly. Can you guys think of ways we can limit links in templates only to GW.com hosted files, or otherwise guarantee that they won’t be abused?
 * What format should we use? I’ve asked about this internally, and it doesn’t seem like releasing them in mp3 would be an issue. Do you guys have concerns or caveats about the format topic that you’d like to share?

The other alternative to our hosting these files on our site would be to allow the upload of audio files to the wiki like Wikipedia does.
 * For security reasons, it seems risky to allow all users to upload audio files. They’re hard to police for content, and can contain malware. With that being said, how do you guys think we could proceed if we went this route?
 * Should we limit the upload of audio files to a specific group (admins or members of a project committee that you guys vote on)?

These are just some initial thoughts that have been bouncing around my head after having lots of discussions with folks around here.

Anyways, I’ll turn this over to you and see what you guys think. Let me know how you think we should proceed, and I’ll bring your thoughts and suggestions into discussions that we’re having in the studio. Hopefully we can figure out the best way to proceed, and then get this project rolling :)

As always, thanks! -- Emily Diehl (talk) 18:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok. First of all, how are the files internally named? If I remember the discussion you moved correctly, I brought up the idea of using skill ids as a part of naming, so if the files are internally named similar it wouldn't be a big problem to upload them with that name.
 * If you plan to provide all sound files by yourself, I don't think we even need a method to upload media files (which would then require less configuration issues with the MediaWiki software). Also I think, as the files are already existing as mp3 files, it would be the easiest and probably best to simply use the files instead of having problems of encoding them (differently) into other file types.
 * For accessing the audio files on the wiki, I had an idea that we build our own media player (a MediaWiki extension), so you can upload the files to a fixed location on guildwars.com, and wiki users can simply stream the audio using something like  or something similar. This would allow us to limit the audio usage on the wiki to only those files we need. For the player issue, I would like to help there and already have some ideas, but that would require that someone of the IT (or you, Emily, if you have server access) help, when we need a new player version to be uploaded. poke | talk 19:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, opening up the uploads for all to use is generally a bad idea. The outside hosting or use of an extension sounds like a great idea, but I wish I had more knowledge in the area so I could help!  Ah, it's nice seeing my original suggestion get off the ground so well.  Can the template be protected so it can't be abused?
 * I remember a fair debate on file format, so if it makes things easier for you, Emily, just try things in MP3 or whatever default format it is naturally in. --[[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png|Talk]] People of Antioch 19:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I like poke's suggestion of a media player. If you're going to host the sound files anyway, it's probably the easiest solution.  The format should probably be .mp3 because it has far better player penetration than other compressed formats.  Everyone should be able to play it.  Though having the .wav's might be nice.
 * As far as untangling the internal naming, I've noted before that quite a few skills have more than one sound-file component. Would you be stiching the files together into a single file, or keeping them separate?  What about skills with different tonal variants?  --Valshia 20:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If it's possible, we'd be happy to provide the labour for any task. Format was discussed before, and IIRC had concensus on MP3.


 * As for presentation, I'd like to have a better understanding opf how sound is used ingame, ie. when is speciffic sounds triggered? Backsword 11:15, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Integrated MediaPlayer
I just created some basic draft of my player idea: The file title could either be generated from the file name, from the ID3 tag (would require that a ID3 tag is set ;) ) or as a simple parameter within the code for displaying the player. The play button changes to a stop (or pause?) button when the file is playing; the time at the right side displays "current time / file length" and the two bars above would be in this case a left/right peek (in case the files are stereo, but there could also be displayed something else). poke | talk 15:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * fyi, I just uploaded a new version of the image; it is a screenshot from a working draft. poke | talk 22:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That looks nice. (the previous version may have been more in keeping with tango style, thoough). How's the compatibility with this thing, considering tha variety of browsers and OSes out there? Backsword 22:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I tried to build all elements I used before into the live player, so it should be the same (even when I had a tango player as my very-very first draft, but it looked ugly in a small size).
 * The player requires Flash Player 9, which is used by about 95% (according to Adobe; it is probably a bit less, but has still a good spread) and works on probably all "current" browsers. poke | talk 22:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I just noticed that the image was not actualized yet, so what player did you mean? :P poke | talk 22:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It had for me, Poke. If it still hasen't for you, that the image catch problem is larger than thought. Backsword 07:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No no, it updated seconds after my post here ^^ poke | talk 09:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * fyi2, the player's size is currently about 3.2KiB (and I still need to clean up the code :P), and it will only load the sound file when the user requests it. So for those who are not interested in the sounds it is no real issue when loading a page.
 * The player is now working quite well, to continue I would need to know results from the above discussion, so where and how the files are stored. Also I'll look into the manual to find out how to make a MediaWiki extension out of it, so it really could be used here. poke | talk 23:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Skill animations too?
How about adding skill animations too? An user (Jonny10) made this gif, which represents the animation for the skill "I Am Unstoppable!". I believe it would be a good idea to add more of those to the wiki (and preferably better looking ones as well), but there are some problems...
 * Animation format: gifs are the easiest to use and to make (IMO), but often they just look bad, and could increase quite a lot page size. If poke's idea about the Integrated Media Player above works, maybe we could make small videos with the animations? Then we would have the problem of making said videos, though. Besides, if we wanted the skill sound to play in perfect synch with the skill animation (in order to integrate both to the same external player)...Then we would have a lot more trouble,
 * Source of the animations: my idea was for the players to record those animations themselves. We could set where the recording should happen (Isle of the Nameless, for example), and set some other guidelines. I don't think asking Arena Net to provide us with those would be viable... Erasculio 21:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Is this just for the skill animation (the icons and such effects) or the body animations (Magehunter's Smash comes to mind, or Crippling Sweep), or both? Such animations, such as Rebirth (I think) have a few different body animations, so how can we implement that?  Rebirth Animation A, B, and C?  Or something like that? --[[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png|Talk]] People of Antioch  00:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't paid close attention to these "body animations". If they are few and far in between, you can simply add a second animation or player below the infobox in a caption. If they are more common, then perhaps a spot in the infobox can be allocated. Calor  [[Image:User_Calor_Sig.png|19px|Talk]] 00:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If we want to make videos, we can simply include the whole character so that - if there are body animations - everything is visible. poke | talk 09:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * IMO, we could show the body animation using as model each skill's profession. So we would show a monk casting all monk skills, a warrior using all warrior skills, and so on. There are some differences between animations (mostly casting position), but I think that will be enough. And I agree that videos would be a good idea, but I'm not sure on who would be making those videos - Emily has mentioned giving us the sounds, but in other hand I doubt she has videos with audio and animation synched, and to do it for everything would be too time consuming for her, IMO. Erasculio 21:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi guys. Right now, I don't have any easy way to dump animations, and I definitely don't have a simple way to synch audio and video from my current tools. It's possible, but it would be extremely time consuming, which is the bigger issue for me right now. When some of the other projects that have been requested (renders, audio, etc) have been worked through, I may be able to revisit this some more. Until then, if you guys have the capabilities of doing gifs for the animations, I'd encourage you to go that route. It may be a while before I can get to researching this current idea, and I'll have to talk to some folks before I can promise anything of this nature. I'm already mildly terrified at the amount of work the skill sounds project is going to be, so first things first :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 21:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * We're rooting for you here, Emily. We  you! --[[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png|Talk]] People of Antioch  22:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Emily : ) Based on the above, I believe it would be better if we take the task of making the skill animation ourselves. Since the aplication mentioned below by both Emily and Poke is an audio player, IMO we have two options now:
 * Gifs. Does anyone know how we could make those, and how they could have a better quality than the ones already in the wiki?
 * Videos, asking Poke and Emily to change their plans so we would have an external video player. IMO, this option would raise too many concerns right now, so unless it's impossible to make decent looking .gifs, I would rather go with the images (or unless someone else has a better idea, of course : D).
 * Erasculio 20:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is not how to display the videos/animations, it is how to upload them. For the animation you linked, I have the same in a high-res video, so it shouldn't be a problem to have a better quality. poke | talk 20:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds follow-up
Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you about this topic. It's had to pass through a lot of inboxes and there have been a lot of conversations about it because of the scale of the project. Here's some new information:
 * I've gotten the all-clear to package up the sound files for wiki and general public consumption. To make it fair for everyone, I've been asked to bundle them up in two ways: in sound packs to add to the fansite kits on the Guild Wars website and as files that can only be accessed by the wiki. Here's a quick explanation of both things.
 * Due to the GFDL licensing of the wiki, we're not able to release files directly onto the site ourselves. Therefore, we'll need to put these files up on the official website, which will make them governed by the fansite kit’s terms of use. This will also make the sounds available to other fansites that may want to use them.
 * Since we can’t allow the direct upload of audio files to the wiki for security reasons, we’ll ‘’also’’ host copies of these audio files in a directory on the backend of the wiki servers. To prevent other sites from streaming these files directly, access to the audio will be restricted only to the media player extension that we’ll install on the wiki. I’ll be able to provide lists of the filenames so you guys know how to link to them.
 * I brought up the topic of the audio player, since it’s going to be necessary for us to have an extension installed on the wiki that will handle audio files that are not housed in the Image: namespace. Per standard operating procedures, our security team mentioned that they would feel more comfortable installing an extension that has history on MediaWiki.

The player that seemed to come up the most in conversations was FlashMP3, which handles MP3s not housed in a specific namespace. It’s also got a fair number of parameters that can be tweaked, so it seems to be pretty versatile. Poke, if you end up getting your player into the official MediaWiki extensions pool, please let me know and I can pass that information along to security for them to consider.

Anyways, I guess we’re at a point where I can start to grab MP3s and get them named properly and packaged up, since we have to have the files ready before we can release them in any capacity. I’m mildly concerned about skills that you guys mention may have multiple sound parts. I haven’t delved into the sound directories enough to figure out whether some skills require multiple audio files or not, so it may be a hiccup if I run into that. I’ll keep you posted.

As another note, I’ll most likely need to break the sounds into digestible packages. I’m thinking that the easiest way to go would be to break them into profession, and then into campaign. I’m not sure if we should release them as I get them done or if we should wait and release them all at once. I’m leaning towards the first option, but I have no clear concept of how long a process this will be for me.

So, there we have it. I’m sorry for the massive post here! Please give me your thoughts and caveats (if you have any). As always, thanks a bunch! -- Emily Diehl (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * First of all, thanks for that detailed reply :) To answer your question, yes I would try to make a wiki extension out of it then. So we could use something like  or something like that. The basic idea of making a player on my own was to limit the use of it.
 * There was recently a small discussion brought up by someone that develop a video player extension for the wiki. By something like this I simply see problems of abuse, for example if I understand that FlashMP3 extension, you can even load files from a remote server not only causing bandwidth stealing from that server but it could also raise licensing issues; for example I don't think we would be allowed to play non-GFDL sounds here, even if they are stored on another server. And as it is not that easy to find the source of sound files as it is with most images, there will be problems if we just add that extension and so allow everyone to add sounds to their userpages or whatever.
 * Another thing is that we just use Profession/Skill for example as a location but the files are stored somewhere in "/sounds/skills/Profession/Skillname_ .mp3"; so we could allow an easy usage of the player without needing to maintain a list somewhere where exactly which skill is located.
 * Also if you have any further ideas for the player, I'm open to improve it as much as it is possible within those few pixels :)
 * For the issue with multiple sounds for some skills, I can think of one atm: Reversal of Fortune as if I remember correctly 3 different sounds which are also already used by other skills. poke | talk 23:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi guys!
I approve of this project; let's continue?  is for  Raine,   etc.  13:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Replay Gain
Any chance of tagging the files with replay gain? MP3s can introduce extra clipping. And it really doesn't take more than a second to do. I would go for it. Previously Unsigned 14:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Bump. [[Image:User_Raine_R.gif|19px]]  is for   Raine,   etc.  19:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)