The Silent Seabirds of Skellige

[TheTjums]

The Silent Seabirds of Skellige

This is my first time on these boards, so hi everybody!
Can I use this opportunity to ask about the silent sea birds of Skellige? It's a "tiny" issue that has been haunting me since I've first landed on Skellige Islands.

There are seagulls aplenty flying around but no sound of screething gulls can be heard neither on sea or near harbors.

In Blood & Wine, at the harbor in San Sebastian, they did implement ambient seabird noises and it makes a huge difference to the feeling of being near a large body of water.

My biggest wish is for those ambient seabird noises to somehow be implemented into Skellige.
It's such a small detail but once you notice it (is not there) it becomes very jarring.
Considering ambient bird noises are everywhere else in the game -from song birds in the Toussaint countryside to carrion birds in Velen.

I realize that putting in ambient sounds isn't just something easily done but compared to other crazy fan wishes or fixes to Witcher 3, I think it is at least a very moderate wish

Thank you for reading and thank you CDPR for an amazing game.

 

[Sunsibar]

Hi and welcome to the forums

Interesting point, I never actually realized that :blink: I was just so amazed when birds were tsirping in the woods. And Skellige seas offer you a lot of sounds that you don't actually want to hear, never At least I didn't... Oh those creepy and super annoying sirens...

 

[TheTjums]

Thanks!
Yeah, I never really see people commenting on the lack of seagull screams so I don't think many even realized the lack of seabird ambient sounds.
I'm chalking it up to development crunch, it either slipped CDPR's mind or they didn't feel it warranted the attention -and maybe they were correct, seeing as no one ever notices it

It's only jarring (to me) because the ambient sounds in the rest of the games areas are so on point. When flocks of swallows (?) swoop over you in Velen, you hear their chirping, crows and carrion birds scream when you get near them and Toussaint is alive with song birds and pheasant screeches (oh, and are those peacocks making those weird screams?) - and as mentioned in OP, the harbor of San Sebastian DOES have ambient seabird sounds and (to me) it just makes a WORLD of difference. That place feels like an actual harbor when you hear the screeching of the gulls.

If CDPR ever decided to allocating some resources to do some final adjustments to their masterpiece of a game (like creating a new character model for a side-character *cough cough*) I would for sure want them to take a look at the lack of seabird sounds near water and harbors. Oh, and remember all those POI's in the Skellige that can be seen from afar by the seagulls circling over head? Yeah, imagine if you could also HEAR those birds

Okay, I've said my peace and I hope I've brought some attention to this "minor" missing detail.

 

[iCake]

@TheTjums

Hmm, I also didn't pay attention to this and can't say if it was the case for my game. All in all I remember being very impressed with how the game handled ambient sound. Anyway, maybe you could note some location where I can sure find some seagulls and check if their screeching is indeed missing? I know I kind of just need to go to the shore or a port city, but some direction would be nice.

 

[TheTjums]

@iCake It seems to me the only place that seagulls can actually be heard in Witcher 3 is in the San Sebastian habor of Toussaint.

The harbor (and fishmarket) in Novigrad (as well as the harbor in Oxenfort) should be filled with the screeching of seagulls. It is not.

Skellige is filled with harbors and in most of them you actually see flocks of seagulls pass by -and over you. Like the flocks of birds in Velen... just, seagulls.
If you take a boat out on the water and head towards a POI (sunken treasure and smuggler's caches) you'll often see huge flocks of seagulls circling overhead.
Really, anywhere in Skellige you should be easily able to spot flocks of seabirds. On islands, near mountains, on open water, near ship wrecks and beaches etc. Only... they're all silent.

:surprise:

 

[Bellator Pius Gratus]

Huh, good call. Never realised it. But, the one discovery I did is enough. ^_^

 

[Draconifors]

I'm definitely hearing seagulls in both Kaer Trolde and Novigrad harbours. And Beauclair as well, of course.

GOG GOTY version, modded but with nothing that'd affect ambient sounds.

 

[TheTjums]

@RidiculousName That's very interesting! Is it ambient sound or is it tied to the actual animated seabird flocks in the area?

Now we're getting somewhere!

:detective:

 

[Draconifors]

Uh, I don't know. I've seen seagulls flying around, but can't say whether the sound is tied to them. I'll check the next time I visit Novigrad or Kaer Trolde, although that might take a while.

 

[JUANMAS7ER]

There's plenty of problems with sound still in the game, some hits given on combat dont make sound, Geralt commenting weather changes out of sync, not more music after completing quests , music not playing when it should for example is a major one. Also there is no hint of another patch coming to deal with those issues.I was hoping that the GOTY edition and the patch 1.31 adress all that but, seems like Vivaldi looks was the priority

 

[Draconifors]

Finally got to Novigrad again, and I can report that the seagull sounds I'm hearing at the docks are ambient sound. Sound is playing but no birds to be seen anywhere.

 

[frozen_fr0g]

Hi @TheTjums
Did you send a bug report e-mail? Or something like that?
As you said its really tiny issue but bad thing for the atmosphere obviously.

 

[TheTjums]

@Ciri_Riannon I did not send a bug report as I don't see the issue as a bug -more of an oversight.

 

[Ayyub]

LOL
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/130340-Silent-seagulls