I discovered an aspect of EQ that I was completely unaware of until
recently. I have been playing since April and during that entire time I had
all the sound effect related options set to the max. There are three sound
related options: Sound Realism, Music Volume and Sound Volume. During this
timeframe, the only sound effects that I ever heard were combat/spell
effects and background music that you hear when you pass through specific
areas, such as near a city or a zone border. I have recently been
adventuring in the aviak village in South Karana. While you are in this
village, the background music plays continuously. This eventually became
annoying to me so I went into the sound options screen and moved the sliding
bar that controlls music volume down to about 25%. This had a profound
impact on the sound effects in the game. Soon, I heard a female monk shriek
as she practiced feign death. I heard aviaks shriek as they entered into
combat. While running through SK, I heard the rumble of elephants walking
as well as their distinct bellow (really cool sounding with a SBLive). I
also started hearing my own footsteps.

I assume that, because I had all of my sound related options set to the max,
the Sound Realism effects were getting cancelled out somehow. I'm looking
forward to going through regions long ago explored to see what special sound
effects I have previously missed.

This may be old news for some of you but wanted to post this info n in case
other people are like me and were unaware of this option.

On a related note, according to the Creative labs website, there is a preset
Environment Audio setting for EQ for the SBLive soundcard. I have been
unable to locate this setting. I have been using the default Multi Speaker
setting for my soundcard. Does anyone know if an Environmental Audio
setting for EQ exists and if so how I can go about downloading it?

Thanks
Galtin of E'ci