Field recording and the sound archive

Record the sounds of the world and give them to the Sound Archive, inside the Natural History Museum in the village (go in through the museum doors on the east side of Main Street, then walk west from the entrance hall). Menu: slash fieldrec, or the living world menu (slash world).

What you need

Sold at the archivist's desk, nothing is bought back: a field recorder, 1500 ln point, never wears out; blank sound cards, 15 ln point each, one per finished recording; a windshield, 600 ln point, so rain costs no star and a storm 1 instead of 2; a parabolic dish, 1000 ln point, 1 more star for dawn chorus and night wildlife takes.

Recording

Outdoors, use the recorder from your bag, or slash record. After the start beep stand still for 30 seconds until the stop beep. Walking more than 2 steps spoils the take, but the card is kept. Other people within 10 steps cost 1 or 2 stars, rain on bare microphones 1, a storm 2, and a gust sometimes 1. A take is 1 to 5 stars.

Every take is a soundscape: the map, the time of day (dawn, morning, afternoon, evening or night on the game clock) and the weather (clear, rain or a storm). Special takes: a dawn chorus at dawn where birds sing, night wildlife at night where animals live, a thunderstorm in a storm. Your recorder holds 12 takes.

The archive

Hand your takes in at the archivist's desk (shift enter there). A soundscape nobody has recorded goes on the shelf with your name as its first recordist: 40 points. A better take than the archive's copy replaces it: 25 points; the first recordist stays in its history. Anything else goes to the reference shelf: 5 points. Every new or better recording counts on the weekly board; the top three get a cup on Monday.

Commissions

The archivist asks for 3 recordings a day, such as a night take on a certain map, any rain recording or a 4 star dawn chorus: 40 points each. The weekly commission, such as night takes from 4 different maps, pays 150 points and 2 Voyage Tokens.

The listening room

Three listening booths along the south wall of the Sound Archive. Press shift enter in a booth, pick a map and a recording, and hear that place at that hour and in that weather for 30 seconds, with who recorded it.

Sharing

Play one of your archived recordings from your recorder for everyone within 15 steps, once every ten minutes.

The atlas and your progress

The atlas shows every region: the home lands, the forests, the wild edges and the far lands reached by plane. Each region is a collection set, one piece for every map with a recording of yours on the shelf. Titles: Field Recordist at 10 archived recordings, Sound Hunter at 40, Keeper of Voices at 100 or 25 first recordings. Trophies for your first recording, the first recording of a storm on a map, and 25 first recordings.

Commands

slash fieldrec: this menu. slash record: start a recording. Both are also in the menu.